the pursuit. There fell about one
thousand five hundred on the side of the victors.

The same day on which this decisive battle was fought, Queen Margaret
and her son, now about eighteen years of age and a young prince of great
hopes, landed at Weymouth, supported by a small body of French forces.
When this Princess received intelligence of her husband's captivity, and
of the defeat and death of the Earl of Warwick, her courage, which had
supported her under so many disastrous events, here quite left her; and
she immediately foresaw all the dismal consequences of this calamity. At
first she took sanctuary in the Abbey of Beaulieu; but being encouraged
by men of rank, who exhorted her still to hope for success, she resumed
her former spirit and determined to defend to the utmost the ruins of her
fallen fortunes. She advanced through the counties of Devon, Somerset,
and Gloucester, increasing her army on each day's march, but was at last
overtaken by the rapid and expeditious Edward at Tewkesbury, on the banks
of the Severn. The Lancastrians were here totally defeated; the Earl
of Devonshire and Lord Wenlock were killed in the field; the Duke of
Somerset and about twenty other persons of distinction, having taken
shelter in a church, were surrounded, dragged out, and immediately
beheaded; about three thousand of their side fell in battle; and the army
was entirely dispersed.

Queen Margaret and her son were taken prisoners and brought to the King,
who asked the Prince, after an insulting manner, how he dared to invade
his dominions. The young Prince, more mindful of his high birth than
of his present fortune, replied that he came thither to claim his just
inheritance. The ungenerous Edward, insensible to pity, struck him on the
face with his gauntlet; and the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, Lord
Hastings, and Sir Thomas Gray, taking the blow as a signal for further
violence, hurried the Prince into the next apartment and there despatched
him with their daggers. Margaret was thrown into the Tower; King Henry
expired in that confinement a few days after the battle of Tewkesbury;
but whether he died a natural or violent death is uncertain. It is
pretended, and was generally believed, that the Duke of Gloucester killed
him with his own hands; but the universal odium which that Prince had
incurred, perhaps inclined the nation to aggravate his crimes without any
sufficient authority.

All the hopes of the house of Lancaster