deration of the duke of
York, it is impossible not to observe in those transactions visible
marks of a higher regard to law, and of a more fixed authority enjoyed
by parliament, than has appeared in any former period of English
history.

* Cotton, p. 666.

** Cotton, p. 666. Grafton, p. 647.

It is probable that the duke, without employing either menaces or
violence, could have obtained from the commons a settlement more
consistent and uniform: but as many, if not all the members of the upper
house, had received grants, concession, or dignities, during the
last sixty years, when the house of Lancaster was possessed of the
government, they were afraid of invalidating their own titles by too
sudden and violent an overthrow of that family; and in thus temporizing
between the parties, they fixed the throne on a basis upon which it
could not possibly stand. The duke, apprehending his chief danger to
arise from the genius and spirit of Queen Margaret sought a pretence for
banishing her the kingdom: he sent her, in the king's name, a summons to
come immediately to London; intending, in case of her disobedience, to
proceed to extremities against her. But the queen needed not this menace
to excite her activity in defending the rights of her family. After
the defeat at Northampton, she had fled with her infant son to Durham,
thence to Scotland; but soon returning, she applied to the northern
barons, and employed every motive to procure their assistance.
Her affability, insinuation, and address,--qualities in which she
excelled,--her caresses, her promises, wrought a powerful effect on
every one who approached her: the admiration of her great qualities was
succeeded by compassion towards her helpless condition: the nobility
of that quarter, who regarded themselves as the most warlike in the
kingdom, were moved by indignation to find the southern barons pretend
to dispose of the crown and settle the government. And that they might
allure the people to their standard, they promised them the spoils of
all the provinces on the other side of the Trent. By these means, the
queen had collected an army twenty thousand strong, with a celerity
which was neither expected by her friends nor apprehended by her
enemies.

The duke of York, informed of her appearance in the north, hastened
thither with a body of five thousand men, to suppress, as he imagined,
the beginnings of an insurrection; when, on his arrival at Wakefield,
he