BOOK XII.
THE BATTLE OF BARNET.
CHAPTER I.
A KING IN HIS CITY HOPES TO RECOVER HIS REALM--A WOMAN IN HER CHAMBER
FEARS TO FORFEIT HER OWN.
Edward and his army reached St. Alban's. Great commotion, great joy,
were in the Sanctuary of Westminster! The Jerusalem Chamber, therein,
was made the high council-hall of the friends of York. Great
commotion, great terror, were in the city of London. Timid Master
Stokton had been elected mayor; horribly frightened either to side
with an Edward or a Henry, timid Master Stokton feigned or fell ill.
Sir Thomas Cook, a wealthy and influential citizen, and a member of
the House of Commons, had been appointed deputy in his stead. Sir
Thomas Cook took fright also, and ran away. [Fabyan.] The power of
the city thus fell into the hands of Ureswick, the Recorder, a zealous
Yorkist. Great commotion, great scorn, were in the breasts of the
populace, as the Archbishop of York, hoping thereby to rekindle their
loyalty, placed King Henry on horseback, and paraded him through the
streets from Chepeside to Walbrook, from Walbrook to St. Paul's; for
the news of Edward's arrival, and the sudden agitation and excitement
it produced on his enfeebled frame, had brought upon the poor king one
of the epileptic attacks to which he had been subject from childhood,
and which made the cause of his frequent imbecility; and, just
recovered from such a fit,--his eyes vacant, his face haggard, his
head drooping,--the spectacle of such an antagonist to the vigorous
Edward moved only pity in the few and ridicule in the many. Two
thousand Yorkist gentlemen were in the various Sanctuaries; aided and
headed by the Earl of Essex, they came forth armed and clamorous,
scouring the streets, and shouting, "King Edward!" with impunity.
Edward's popularity in London was heightened amongst the merchants by
prudent reminiscences of the vast debts he had incurred, which his
victory only could ever enable him to repay to his good citizens.
[Comines.] The women, always, in such a movement, active partisans,
and useful, deserted their hearths to canvass all strong arms and
stout hearts for the handsome woman-lover. [Comines.] The Yorkist
Archbishop of Canterbury did his best with the ecclesiastics, the
Yorkist Recorder his best with the flat-caps. Alwyn, true to his
anti-feudal principles, animated all the young freemen to support the
merchant-king, the favourer of commerce, the man of his age! The city
authorities began to yield to their own and the general metropolitan
predilections. But still the Archbishop of York had six thousand
soldiers at his disposal, and London could be yet saved to Warwick, if
the prelate acted with energy and zeal and good faith. That such was
his first intention is clear, from his appeal to the public loyalty in
King Henry's procession; but when he perceived how little effect that
pageant had produced; when, on re-entering the Bishop of London's
palace, he saw before him the guileless, helpless puppet of contending
factions, gasping for breath, scarcely able to articulate, the
heartless prelate turned away, with a muttered ejaculation of
contempt.
"Clarence had not deserted," said he to himself, "unless he saw
greater profit with King Edward!" And then he began to commune with
himself, and to commune with his brother-prelate of Canterbury; and in
the midst of all this commune arrived Catesby, charged with messages
to the archbishop from Edward,--messages full of promise and affection
on the one hand, of menace and revenge upon the other. Brief:
Warwick's cup of bitterness had not yet been filled; that night the
archbishop and the mayor of London met, and the Tower was surrendered
to Edward's friends. The next day Edward and his army entered, amidst
the shouts of the populace; rode to St. Paul's, where the archbishop
[Sharon Turner. It is a comfort to think that this archbishop was,
two years afterwards, first robbed, and then imprisoned, by Edward
IV.; nor did he recover his liberty till a few weeks before his death,
in 1476 (five years subsequently to the battle of Barnet).] met him,
leading Henry by the hand, again a captive; thence Edward proceeded to
Westminster Abbey, and, fresh from his atrocious perjury at York,
offered thanksgiving for its success. The Sanctuary yielded up its
royal fugitives, and, in joy and in pomp, Edward led his wife and her
new-born babe, with Jacquetta and his elder children, to Baynard's
Castle.
The next morning (the third day), true to his promise, Warwick marched
towards London with the mighty armament he had now collected. Treason
had done its worst,--the metropolis was surrendered, and King Henry in
the Tower.
"These things considered," says the Chronicler, "the earl saw that all
calculations of necessity were brought to this end,--that they must
now be committed to the hazard and chance of one battle." [Hall.] He
halted, therefore, at St. Alban's, to rest his troops; and marching
thence towards Barnet, pitched his tents on the upland ground, then
called the Heath or Chase of Gladsmoor, and waited the coming foe.
Nor did Edward linger long from that stern meeting. Entering London
on the 11th of April, he prepared to quit it on the 13th. Besides the
force he had brought with him, he had now recruits in his partisans
from the Sanctuaries and other hiding-places in the metropolis, while
London furnished him, from her high-spirited youths, a gallant troop
of bow and bill men, whom Alwyn had enlisted, and to whom Edward
willingly appointed, as captain, Alwyn himself,--who had atoned for
his submission to Henry's restoration by such signal activity on
behalf of the young king, whom he associated with the interests of his
class, and the weal of the great commercial city, which some years
afterwards rewarded his affection by electing him to her chief
magistracy. [Nicholas Alwyn, the representative of that generation
which aided the commercial and anti-feudal policy of Edward IV. and
Richard III., and welcomed its consummation under their Tudor
successor, rose to be Lord Mayor of London in the fifteenth year of
the reign of Henry VII.--FABYAN.]
It was on that very day, the 13th of April, some hours before the
departure of the York army, that Lord Hastings entered the Tower, to
give orders relative to the removal of the unhappy Henry, whom Edward
had resolved to take with him on his march.
And as he had so ordered and was about to return, Alwyn, emerging from
one of the interior courts, approached him in much agitation, and said
thus: "Pardon me, my lord, if in so grave an hour I recall your
attention to one you may haply have forgotten."
"Ah, the poor maiden; but you told me, in the hurried words that we
have already interchanged, that she was safe and well."
"Safe, my lord,--not well. Oh, hear me. I depart to battle for your
cause and your king's. A gentleman in your train has advised me that
you are married to a noble dame in the foreign land. If so, this girl
whom I have loved so long and truly may yet forget you, may yet be
mine. Oh, give me that hope to make me a braver soldier."
"But," said Hastings, embarrassed, and with a changing countenance,
"but time presses, and I know not where the demoiselle--"
"She is here," interrupted Alwyn; "here, within these walls, in yonder
courtyard. I have just left her. You, whom she loves, forgot her!
I, whom she disdains, remembered. I went to see to her safety, to
counsel her to rest here for the present, whatever betides; and at
every word I said, she broke in upon me with but one name,--that name
was thine! And when stung, and in the impulse of the moment, I
exclaimed, 'He deserves not this devotion. They tell me, Sibyll, that
Lord Hastings has found a wife in exile.' Oh, that look! that cry!
they haunt me still. 'Prove it, prove it, Alwyn,' she cried. 'And--'
I interrupted, 'and thou couldst yet, for thy father's sake, be true
wife to me?'"
"Her answer, Alwyn?"
"It was this, 'For my father's sake only, then, could I live on; and--'
her sobs stopped her speech, till she cried again, 'I believe it not!
thou hast deceived me. Only from his lips will I hear the sentence.'
Go to her, manfully and frankly, as becomes you, high lord,--go! It
Is but a single sentence thou hast to say, and thy heart will be the
lighter, and thine arm the stronger for those honest words."
Hastings pulled his cap over his brow, and stood a moment as if in
reflection; he then said, "Show me the way; thou art right. It is due
to her and to thee; and as by this hour to-morrow my soul may stand
before the Judgment-seat, that poor child's pardon may take one sin
from the large account."
