When the arrival of the three Earls in London was known, all the Yorkist peers who were within touch of London came flocking in with their retainers. Thither came Warwick's uncle Edward Neville Lord Abergavenny, and his brother George Neville Bishop of Exeter, and his cousin Lord Scrope, and Clinton one of the victors of St. Albans, and Bourchier and Cobham and Say, and the Bishops of Ely, Salisbury, and Rochester. It is strange to read that Audley, who had been Warwick's prisoner in Calais ever since last November, also joined the Yorkists in arms. He had come to terms with his captor, and had agreed to forget the death of his father at Blore Heath and to serve the cause of York. In a few days an army of more than thirty thousand men had been gathered together.

The first task of the Yorkists was to provide for the blockade of the Tower of London, where Hungerford and Scales abode in great wrath, "shooting wild-fire into the town every hour, and laying great ordnance against it." Salisbury agreed to remain in charge of the city and to undertake the siege. With him were left Lord Cobham,[Pg 94] Sir John Wenlock, and the greater part of the levy of London, commanded by the Lord Mayor and by one Harrow, a mercer. They brought batteries to bear on the Tower from the side of St. Katherine's wharf, "so they skirmished together daily, and much harm was done."

Meanwhile Warwick and the young Earl of March set out on Saturday July 5th, having with them the other Yorkist lords, "and much people out of Kent, Sussex, and Essex with much great ordnance." Marching by the great north road, past St. Albans and Towcester, they made for Northampton, where they heard that the King was collecting his host.

The invasion of England had been so sudden and its success so rapid that the Lancastrians had not had time to call in all their strength, more especially as it lay to a great extent in the extreme North and West. But the Midlands were well roused, and, if a Yorkist chronicler is to be believed, the Queen "had it proclaimed in Cheshire and Lancashire that if so the King had the victory of the Earls, then every man should take what he might, and make havoc in Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, and Sussex." The Duke of Buckingham had the chief command, though he was not of the Court party nor a great lover of the Queen's, but out of sheer loyalty he now—as formerly at St. Albans—came out with all his retainers when he received the King's missive. With him were Egremont and Beaumont, both deadly enemies of the Nevilles and favourites of the Queen, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Grey de Ruthyn, and many more. Their forces, though very considerable, were still somewhat inferior to those of the Yorkists.
 
The King's camp was pitched just outside Northampton town, in the meadows south of the Nen, near the Nunnery between Sandiford and Hardingstone. The position had been strongly entrenched, and the earthworks were lined with a numerous artillery; the river covered both flanks, the lines being drawn from point to point in a broad bend of its course.

Warwick, in accordance with his declaration at St. Paul's on the previous Thursday, made three separate attempts to secure permission to approach the King's person; but Buckingham sternly refused to listen to his envoys, the Bishops of Rochester and Salisbury. "You came here not as bishops to treat of peace, but as men-at-arms," he said, pointing to the squadrons arrayed under the bishops' banners in the Yorkist host. Negotiations were fruitless, and at two in the afternoon Warwick drew out his army on the rising ground by the old Danish camp, the Hunsborough, which overlooks the water-meadows, and descended to the attack. Fauconbridge led the vanguard on the left, the Earl himself the centre, Edward of March, now seeing his first stricken field, conducted the right wing. Before the attack it was proclaimed that every man should spare the Commons, and slay none but the knights and lords, with whom alone lay the blame for the shedding of all the blood that might fall that day.

The first assault on the Lancastrian lines failed completely. The obstacles were far greater than Warwick had imagined; it was six feet from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the rampart, and the trenches were full of water, for it had rained heavily in the morning. How the day would have gone if treachery had not come[Pg 96] to the succour of the Yorkists it is impossible to say; but only a few minutes after the first gun had been fired, Lord Grey de Ruthyn on the Lancastrian left mounted the badge of the Ragged Staff, and his men were seen beckoning to the Yorkists to approach, and leaning over the rampart to reach their hands to pull them up. Assisted in this way, the Earl of March's column got within the entrenchments, and sweeping along their front cleared a space for Warwick to burst in. All was over in half an hour and with very little bloodshed. Only three hundred men fell, but among them were nearly all the Lancastrian leaders. On foot and in their heavy armour the lords and knights could not get away. The aged Buckingham fell at the door of his own tent, and Beaumont, Egremont, and Shrewsbury close to the King's quarters, as they strove to protect his retreat. But the King, helpless as ever, was too late to fly, and fell into the hands of an archer named Henry Montford. His capture, however, was not so important so long as his wife and child remained at large; and Margaret—as adroit as her husband was shiftless—was already speeding away with the young Prince, bound for North Wales.

Warwick and March conducted King Henry back with all respect to London, where he was lodged in the palace at Westminster. They had done their work so rapidly that they had not needed the assistance of the Duke of York, whose arrival from Ireland—he was two months later than his promise—was just announced from the West. Even before he appeared the victors of Northampton had begun to reconstitute the King's ministry. Henry was made to sign patents appointing Salisbury Lieutenant in the six northern counties; his[Pg 97] son, George Bishop of Exeter, received the Chancellorship; John Neville another son was made the King's Chamberlain, and Lord Bourchier got the Treasury. Warwick himself was re-established de jure in the position he had been so long holding de facto, the captainship of Calais.

The garrison of the Tower of London surrendered nine days after the battle of Northampton. Most of the defenders went away in safety, but Lord Scales, who was much hated by the populace of London, was not so fortunate. He took boat for the sanctuary of Westminster, but was recognised as he rowed along by some water-men, who gave chase to him and slew him on the river "just under the river wall of Winchester House." His body was stripped and thrown ashore into the cemetery of St. Mary Overy, whence it was removed and honourably buried by the Earls of March and Warwick that night. "Great pity was it that so noble a knight, so well approved in the wars of France and Normandy, should die so mischievously," adds the chronicler.

A Parliament was summoned by the Yorkists to meet on October 9th. Meanwhile Warwick was well employed. When August came round he ran across to Calais to see to his old antagonist at Guisnes. Somerset was now in low spirits, and willingly met the Earl at Newnham Bridge, there to be reconciled to him and make peace. But after he had embraced Warwick and assented to all his conditions, he secretly departed with his follower Trollope, fled through Picardy to Dieppe, and took refuge in his own south-western county. Meanwhile the Earl conducted his mother and wife in great state back to London, and re-established them in their old dwelling of[Pg 98] "the Harbour." He spent September in going on a pilgrimage with the Countess to the shrine of the Virgin at Walsingham in Norfolk. On this journey he ran great peril, for Lord Willoughby, an unreconciled Lancastrian, lay in wait for him near Lichfield on his return, and was within an ace of making him prisoner.

So Warwick came at last to his own Midland estates. And there all the knights and ladies of his lands came to him "complaining of the evils that they had suffered in the past year from the Duke of Somerset, who had pilled and robbed them, and sacked their towns and manors, and usurped the Earl's castles; but notwithstanding all their troubles they praised Heaven for the joyous return of their lord."

York had reached Chester early in September, and had marched slowly through his estates in the Welsh March towards London. When he came to Abingdon "he sent for trompeteres and claryners from London, and gave them banners with the royal arms of England without distinction or diversity, and commanded his sword to be borne upright before him, and so he rode till he came to the gates of the palace of Westminster." This assumption of royal state was the beginning of evils.

Meanwhile the Parliament was already sitting before the Duke's arrival. King Henry opened it with due solemnity, and heard it commence its work by repealing all the Acts of the Lancastrian Parliament of Leicester, and by removing the attainders of the Yorkist lords. On the third day of the session, Richard of York came up in the evening, and entered the palace, where he rudely took possession of the royal apartments. "He had the doors broken open, and King Henry hear[Pg 99]ing the great noise gave place, and took him another chamber that night."

This unceremonious eviction of his sovereign was only the beginning of the Duke's violent conduct. Next morning he went to the House of Lords, and approaching the throne laid his hand on the cushion as if about to take formal possession of the seat. Archbishop Bourchier asked him what he would do, and the Duke then made a lengthy reply "challenging and claiming the realm and crown of England as male heir of King Richard the Second, and proposing without any delay to be crowned on All Hallows' Day then following." The lords listened with obvious disapproval and dismay, and York did not even venture to seat himself on the throne. The meeting broke up without further transaction of business.

"Now when the Earl of Warwick, who had not been present that day, heard this, he was very wroth, and sent for the Archbishop and prayed him to go to the Duke and tell him that he was acting evilly, and to remind him of the many promises he had made to King Henry." Warwick in short remembered his oath of July 4th, and was determined that Henry should not be despoiled of his throne, but only placed in the hands of Yorkist ministers. The Archbishop refused to face the Duke.

    Then the Earl sent for his brother Thomas Neville, and entered into his barge, and rowed to the palace. It was all full of the Duke's men-of-arms, but the Earl stayed not, and went straight to the Duke's chamber, and found him standing there, leaning against ............