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quiet, war broke out again between the rival factions. The Yorkists were again victorious at Blore Heath.

110. Battle of Northampton, 1460 (July 10).-The royal forces were defeated by the Earl of Warwick, the chief of the Duke of York's partisans; the king was again taken prisoner, and Margaret fled into Scotland.

111. Battle of Wakefield, 1460 (December 30).-The queen beat the Duke of York, who was killed. His head, crowned with a paper crown, was set up over York Gate by Margaret's orders, and his son, the young Earl of Rutland, was murdered by Lord Clifford.

112. Battle of Mortimer's Cross, 1461 (February 2).—A new actor now appeared upon the scene, in the person of Edward (afterwards Edward IV.), York's eldest son. He defeated the queen's forces at Mortimer's Cross, and was shortly afterwards proclaimed king. With him begins the House of York.

113. Second Battle of St. Albans, 1461 (February 19).— The queen here defeated the Earl of Warwick; but the victory gave her little or no advantage.

114. EDWARD IV. (of York), 1461-1483.-Married in 1463 to Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers. He was handsome, brave, and popular, but sensuous and

cruel.

115. Battle of Towton, 1461.-The queen, still struggling, was defeated by Edward, at Towton; subsequently by Edward's forces at the

116. Battle of Hedgely Moor, 1464 (April 25), and finally at the

117. Battle of Hexham, 1464 (May 15). She then fled, and escaped to Flanders; the king fell into Edward's hands.

118. Battle of Barnet, 1471 (April 14).-Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had alienated the Earl of Warwick from his cause. That nobleman, whose part in the civil wars had gained him the title of the 'Kingmaker,' now entered into an alliance with the fugitive queen, and obliged Edward to take flight. The king, however, speedily returned, and defeated Warwick at Barnet, where he, and his brother the Marquis of Montacute, who had deserted from Edward's cause, were both slain.

119. Battle of Tewkesbury, 1471 (May 4).—The last effort of the queen, who was here defeated by Edward IV. Her son, Prince Edward, was murdered after the battle by the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, and others. Margaret was thrown into the Tower,

and Henry VI., who was already confined there, died a few days afterwards. Rumour alleges that he also was killed by the Duke of Gloucester.

120. Treaty of Pecquigny, 1475.-Between France and England, and arose from Edward's invasion of the former country. By this treaty, Queen Margaret was released from confinement, and ransomed by Louis XI. of France, to whom her father surrendered his county of Anjou for this purpose. Louis engaged to pay Edward an annual pension to withdraw his army, and the dauphin was to marry Edward's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York. (See p. 35, s. 125.)

121. Death of the Duke of Clarence, 1478.-The Duke of Clarence, who at first sided with his father-in-law, the Earl of Warwick, in the aforementioned rupture between that nobleman and the king, subsequently deserted to Edward, whose favour he never thoroughly regained. Towards the close of the reign he was accused of treason, and condemned. He was afterwards found dead in the Tower. Vulgar tradition declares him to have been drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

122. EDWARD V., 1483.-Son of Edward IV. He was soon dethroned, and finally murdered in the Tower, with his brother Richard, Duke of York, by the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., who had been appointed Protector. Horace Walpole's Historic Doubts have for object the clearing of Gloucester's character. The bones of the young princes were, however, found in the Tower in 1674 ; and there is every reason for believing that the murder was perpetrated by the Protector's orders.

123. RICHARD III., 1483-1485.-Uncle of Edward V. ; married in 1472 to Anne Neville, widow of Henry VI.'s son, Prince Edward, and daughter of the Earl of Warwick. He was an able and valorous prince, but allowed no atrocity to stand in the way of his ambitious designs. He first sent consuls abroad, and abolished the taxes called 'Benevolences,' which had become a serious evil under Edward IV.

124. Battle of Bosworth Field, 1485.-Between Richard III. and Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. This was the final battle in the Wars of the Roses. (See p. 30, s. 108.) The king, deserted by all his forces, was here slain, fighting desperately to the end. He was the last of the Plantagenet race, and Richmond, picking up his crown on the battle field, installed a new dynasty, with the title of Henry VII.

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*These numbers are continued from the table on p. 27.

Elizabeth of York (See pp. 32, 35, ss. 120, 125) "White Rose'

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CHAPTER VI.

THE HOUSE OF TUDOR.

1485-1603.

125. HENRY VII., 1485–1509.-The old nobility having been almost annihilated, either on the battle-field or the scaffold, during the Wars of the Roses, Henry VII. was enabled to reign without opposition. He was the son of Margaret Beaufort (great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by his second wife, Catherine Swineford) and Edmund Tudor (son of Owen Tudor and Henry V.'s widow, Catherine of France). (See p. 29, s. 99.) To strengthen his position, he married, in 1486, Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV., thus uniting the rival Houses of York and Lancaster. Her right to the throne was greater than his, by reason of her descent from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III.; but as he had been made king by Act of Parliament, and had conquered the crown from an usurper, he was in reality the sole ruler.

His master passion was avarice. To gratify this, the Star Chamber of Edward III., with its fines and tyrannical jurisdiction, was revived, to commence the course of oppression which culminated under Charles I. (see p. 46, s. 169); the arbitrary 'Benevolences,' abolished by Richard III., were re-established, and many other vexatious imposts were levied. His dislike to war, however, was the cause of peace; hence his rule was highly beneficial to the country, exhausted as it was by thirty years of contention. Commerce was greatly promoted in this reign, and Sebastian Cabot discovered Newfoundland. The Tudor architecture, a very beautiful and ornate style, as illustrated by King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, was also first introduced.

126. The Insurrection of Lambert Simnel, 1487.-Lambert Simnel was an impostor of low extraction, who was employed to personate the son of the Duke of Clarence, Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, who had been thrown into the Tower by Henry, after the Battle of Bosworth. Many persons of eminence supported Simnel's pretensions to the crown. They were finally defeated at the Battle

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