ay northward, and you will not fight till I come."
The marquis,--who knew the conscientious doubts which Warwick had
entertained in his darker hours, who had no right to disobey the
co-protector, who knew no reason to suspect Lord Warwick's son-in-law,
and who, moreover, was by no means anxious to be, himself, the
executioner of Edward, whom he had once so truly loved,--though a little
marvelling at Warwick's softness, yet did not discredit the letter, and
the less regarded the free passage he left to the returned exiles, from
contempt for the smallness of their numbers, and his persuasion that
if the earl saw fit to alter his counsels, Edward was still more in his
power the farther he advanced amidst a hostile population, and towards
the armies which the Lords Exeter and Oxford were already mustering.

But that free passage was everything to Edward! It made men think that
Montagu, as well as Northumberland, favoured his enterprise; that
the hazard was less rash and hopeless than it had seemed; that Edward
counted upon finding his most powerful allies among those falsely
supposed to be his enemies. The popularity Edward had artfully acquired
amongst the captains of Warwick's own troops, on the march to Middleham,
now bestead him. Many of them were knights and gentlemen residing in the
very districts through which he passed. They did not join him, but they
did not oppose. Then rapidly flocked to "the Sun of York," first the
adventurers and condottieri who in civil war adopt any side for pay;
next came the disappointed, the ambitious, and the needy. The hesitating
began to resolve, the neutral to take a part. From the state of
petitioners supplicating a pardon, every league the Yorkists marched
advanced them to the dignity of assertors of a cause. Doncaster first,
then Nottingham, then Leicester,--true to the town spirit we have before
described,--opened their gates to the trader prince.

Oxford and Exeter reached Newark with their force. Edward marched on
them at once. Deceived as to his numbers, they took panic and fled.
When once the foe flies, friends ever start up from the very earth!
Hereditary partisans--gentlemen, knights, and nobles--now flocked fast
round the adventurer. Then came Lovell and Cromwell and D'Eyncourt, ever
true to York; and Stanley, never true to any cause. Then came the brave
knights Parr and Norris and De Burgh; and no less than three thousand
retainers belonging to Lord Hastings--the new man--o