d other powerful
noblemen and gentlemen, engaged the King's forces at Northampton,
signally defeated them, and took the King himself prisoner, who was found
in his tent. Warwick would have been glad, I dare say, to have taken the
Queen and Prince too, but they escaped into Wales and thence into
Scotland.

The King was carried by the victorious force straight to London, and made
to call a new Parliament, which immediately declared that the Duke of
York and those other noblemen were not traitors, but excellent subjects.
Then, back comes the Duke from Ireland at the head of five hundred
horsemen, rides from London to Westminster, and enters the House of
Lords. There, he laid his hand upon the cloth of gold which covered the
empty throne, as if he had half a mind to sit down in it--but he did not.
On the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking him if he would visit the King,
who was in his palace close by, he replied, 'I know no one in this
country, my lord, who ought not to visit _me_.' None of the lords
present spoke a single word; so, the duke went out as he had come in,
established himself royally in the King's palace, and, six days
afterwards, sent in to the Lords a formal statement of his claim to the
throne. The lords went to the King on this momentous subject, and after
a great deal of discussion, in which the judges and the other law
officers were afraid to give an opinion on either side, the question was
compromised. It was agreed that the present King should retain the crown
for his life, and that it should then pass to the Duke of York and his
heirs.

But, the resolute Queen, determined on asserting her son's right, would
hear of no such thing. She came from Scotland to the north of England,
where several powerful lords armed in her cause. The Duke of York, for
his part, set off with some five thousand men, a little time before
Christmas Day, one thousand four hundred and sixty, to give her battle.
He lodged at Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, and the Red Roses defied him
to come out on Wakefield Green, and fight them then and there. His
generals said, he had best wait until his gallant son, the Earl of March,
came up with his power; but, he was determined to accept the challenge.
He did so, in an evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, two
thousand of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he himself was taken
prisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant-hill, and twisted
grass about his head,