ith the second he temporized. He marched from Fotheringay to
Newark; but the signs of disaffection, though they could not dismay
him as a soldier, altered his plans as a captain of singular military
acuteness; he fell back on Nottingham, and despatched, with his own
hands, letters to Clarence, the Archbishop of York, and Warwick. To the
last he wrote touchingly.

"We do not believe" (said the letter) "that ye should be of any such
disposition towards us as the rumour here runneth, considering the
trust and affection we bear you,--and cousin, we think ye shall be to us
welcome." [Paston Letters, ccxcviii. (Knight's edition), vol. ii. p.
59. See also Lingard, vol. iii. p. 522 (4to edition), note 43, for the
proper date to be assigned to Edward's letter to Warwick, etc.]

But ere these letters reached their destination, the crown seemed
well-nigh lost. At Edgecote the Earl of Pembroke was defeated and slain,
and five thousand royalists were left on the field. Earl Rivers and his
son, Sir John Woodville, [This Sir John Woodville was the most obnoxious
of the queen's brothers, and infamous for the avarice which had led him
to marry the old Duchess of Norfolk, an act which according to the old
laws of chivalry would have disabled him from entering the lists of
knighthood, for the ancient code disqualified and degraded any knight
who should marry any old woman for her money! Lord Rivers was the more
odious to the people at the time of the insurrection because, in
his capacity of treasurer, he had lately tampered with the coin and
circulation.] who in obedience to the royal order had retired to the
earl's country seat of Grafton, were taken prisoners, and beheaded by
the vengeance of the insurgents. The same lamentable fate befell
the Lord Stafford, on whom Edward relied as one of his most puissant
leaders; and London heard with dismay that the king, with but a handful
of troops, and those lukewarm and disaffected, was begirt on all sides
by hostile and marching thousands.

From Nottingham, however, Edward made good his retreat to a village
called Olney, which chanced at that time to be partially fortified
with a wall and a strong gate. Here the rebels pursued him; and Edward,
hearing that Sir Anthony Woodville, who conceived that the fate of his
father and brother cancelled all motive for longer absence from
the contest, was busy in collecting a force in the neighbourhood of
Coventry, while other assistance might be daily ex