as recognized as lawful king; but, his incapacity for government being
avowed, the regency was intrusted to Warwick and Clarence till the
majority of Prince Edward; and in default of that Prince's issue,
Clarence was declared successor to the crown.

The ruling party were more sparing in their executions than was usual
after any revolution during those violent times. The only victim
of distinction was John Tibetot, Earl of Worcester. All the other
considerable Yorkists either fled beyond sea or took shelter in
sanctuaries, where the ecclesiastical privileges afforded them
protection. In London alone it is computed that no less than two thousand
persons saved themselves in this manner, and among the rest Edward's
Queen, who was there delivered of a son, called by his father's name.
Queen Margaret had not yet appeared in England, but, on receiving
intelligence of Warwick's success, was preparing with Prince Edward for
her journey. All the banished Lancastrians flocked to her, and, among the
rest, the Duke of Somerset, son of the Duke beheaded after the battle
of Hexham. This nobleman, who had long been regarded as the head of
the party, had fled into the Low Countries on the discomfiture of
his friends; and as he concealed his name and quality, he had there
languished in extreme indigence. But both Somerset and Margaret were
detained by contrary winds from reaching England, till a new revolution
in that kingdom, no less sudden and surprising than the former, threw
them into greater misery than that from which they had just emerged.

The Duke of Burgundy equipped four large vessels, in the name of some
private merchants, at Terveer, in Zealand; and, causing fourteen ships to
be secretly hired from the Easterlings, he delivered this small squadron
to Edward, who, receiving also a sum of money from the Duke, immediately
set sail for England, 1471.

Edward, impatient to take revenge on his enemies and to recover his lost
authority, made an attempt to land with his forces, which exceeded not
two thousand men, on the coast of Norfolk; but being there repulsed, he
sailed northward and disembarked at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire. Finding that
the new magistrates, who had been appointed by the Earl of Warwick, kept
the people everywhere from joining him, he pretended, and even made oath,
that he came, not to challenge the crown, but only the inheritance of the
house of York, which of right belonged to him, and that he did not intend