ithdrew to an elevation within the
park, from which she could witness the progress of the fight. For some
time her army remained on the defensive within their intrenchments,
but at length Somerset, becoming impatient and impetuous, determined
on making a sally and attacking the assailants in the open field.

[Sidenote: Somerset.]

So, ordering the others to follow him, he issued forth from the lines.
Some obeyed him, and others did not. After a while he returned within
the lines again, apparently for the purpose of calling those who
remained there to account for not obeying him. He found Lord Wenlock,
one of the leaders, sitting upon his horse idle, as he said, in the
town. He immediately denounced him as a traitor, and, riding up to
him, cut him down with a blow from his battle-axe, which cleft his
skull.

[Sidenote: Panic and flight.]

The men who were under Lord Wenlock's banner, seeing their leader thus
mercilessly slain, immediately began to fly. Their flight caused a
panic, which rapidly spread among all the other troops, and the whole
field was soon in utter confusion.

[Sidenote: Margaret's terror.]

[Sidenote: She swoons.]

When Margaret saw this, and thought of the prince, exposed, as he was,
to the most imminent danger in the defeat, she became almost frantic
with excitement and terror. She insisted on rushing into the field to
find and save her son. Those around found it almost impossible to
restrain her. At length, in the struggle, her excitement and terror
entirely overpowered her. She swooned away, and her attendants then
bore her senseless to a carriage, and she was driven rapidly away out
through one of the park gates, and thence by a by-road to a religious
house near by, where it was thought she would be for the moment
secure.

[Sidenote: Capture of the prince.]

The poor prince was taken prisoner. He was conveyed, after the battle,
to Edward's tent. The historians of the day relate the following story
of the sad termination of his career.

[Illustration: The Murder of Prince Henry.]

When Edward, accompanied by his officers and the nobles in attendance
upon him, covered with the blood and the dust of the conflict, and
fierce and exultant under the excitement of slaughter and victory,
came into the tent, and saw the handsome young prince standing there
in the hands of his captors, he was at first struck with the elegance
of his appearance and his frank and manly bearing. He, however,
ac