his father at the moment when the Duke was defeated and
slain. Young as he was Edward showed in this hour of apparent ruin the
quickness and vigour of his temper, and routing on his march a body of
Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross struck boldly upon London. It was on
London that the Lancastrian army had moved after its victory at Wakefield.
A desperate struggle took place at St. Albans where a force of Kentish men
with the Earl of Warwick strove to bar its march on the capital, but
Warwick's force broke under cover of night and an immediate advance of the
conquerors might have decided the contest. Margaret however paused to
sully her victory by a series of bloody executions, and the rough
northerners who formed the bulk of her army scattered to pillage while
Edward, hurrying from the west, appeared before the capital. The citizens
rallied at his call, and cries of "Long live King Edward!" rang round the
handsome young leader as he rode through the streets. A council of Yorkist
lords, hastily summoned, resolved that the compromise agreed on in
Parliament was at an end and that Henry of Lancaster had forfeited the
throne. The final issue however now lay not with Parliament, but with the
sword. Disappointed of London, the Lancastrian army fell rapidly back on
the North, and Edward hurried as rapidly in pursuit. On the 29th of March,
1461, the two armies encountered one another at Towton Field, near
Tadcaster. In the numbers engaged, as well as in the terrible obstinacy of
the struggle, no such battle had been seen in England since the fight of
Senlac. The two armies together numbered nearly 120,000 men. The day had
just broken when the Yorkists advanced through a thick snowfall, and for
six hours the battle raged with desperate bravery on either side. At one
critical moment Warwick saw his men falter, and stabbing his horse before
them, swore on the cross of his sword to win or die on the field. The
battle was turned at last by the arrival of the Duke of Norfolk with a
fresh force from the Eastern Counties, and at noon the Lancastrians gave
way. A river in their rear turned the retreat into a rout, and the flight
and carnage, for no quarter was given on either side, went on through the
night and the morrow. Edward's herald counted more than 20,000 Lancastrian
corpses on the field. The losses of the conquerors were hardly less heavy
than those of the conquered. But their triumph was complete. The Earl of
Northumberland was sl