road, where again a fog favoured him, and there, also at Tewkesbury shortly afterwards, the Lancastrians were thoroughly defeated; and for the remaining twelve years of his life Edward IV., with his now acknowledged Queen, Elizabeth, reigned unopposed. He died when only about 40, quite worn out, and left two sons by Elizabeth, and four daughters. His eldest son reigned a few days as Edward V., and then was murdered in the Tower, together with his younger brother, Richard Duke of York, by the Duke of Gloucester, their uncle, who then reigned as King Richard III. Some call him a murderous ruffian, and though he was either an accessory before the fact to the murder of his brother's boys in the Tower, if not the actual murderer, and also at least an accessory to the murder of Prince Edward of Lancaster after Tewkesbury, still Richard III. could fight, and had ability, and an undeniable backbone, and was altogether without the inglorious weakness of Edward IV., which so nearly cost him his throne.

Richard III. then sought to marry Anne Neville, widow of Prince Edward of Lancaster, but her brother-in-law, George Duke of Clarence, whose wife Isabella was the other coheiress of the late Earl of Warwick, kept her in concealment in London. Eventually Richard discovered her in the disguise of a cook-wench, and forcibly married her, and so got that grand castle of Middleham, in North Riding, where she had a son, and was then shut up there by Richard until she mysteriously died. Then Richard, it is said, desired to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV., although he had proclaimed all his brother's children, by Elizabeth Wydeville, illegitimate, as he denied the secret marriage at Grafton. The Lancastrians, however, had now rallied, and acknowledged as their leader Henry Tudor Earl of Richmond, a Welshman, claiming through his mother, and the Somersets, a descent from John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III., by his (Lancaster's) third marriage with the widow of Sir Otho de Swynford, which marriage was made legal by Act of Parliament, after their son's birth. Then came an end to Richard III.'s short reign of only two years, as he was killed at the battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Henry VII. had no valid claim to the Throne: because although John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset-the natural son of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford—had been legitimised as above mentioned, yet, says Burke, the very Act of Parliament, which conferred that favour, had also in express terms made him, and his posterity, incapable of succeeding to the Throne of England, and if that Act was valid in one part, surely it was also valid in the other. Henry readily expressed his willingness to marry Elizabeth of York, and such a marriage is said to have been contemplated by her father, Edward IV., but, of course, without the Throne if his sons had lived.

By this time everyone was sick of fighting, and so Henry VII. became King, and married Elizabeth of York, and was very unkind to that beautiful Queen. Thus the White and Red Roses were at last united, and Elizabeth had a son, Prince Arthur, but notwithstanding this she was not crowned for 18 months after her marriage.

Henry VII. had only a couple of Pretenders to deal with, and the final fight of all was against Lambert Simnel at Stoke, near Newark. Here on June 16th, 1487, the adherents of Lambert Simnel, who personated Richard, second son of Edward IV., and claimed the Throne, were defeated by the Royalists, under the Earl of Oxford. Sir Richard Croft was made a Knight Banneret on the field of Stoke for gallantry in the field, and was afterwards Treasurer of the Household to Prince Arthur and his wife, Katherine of Arragon, at Ludlow Castle; but there Prince Arthur died of fever, and after some delay his brother Henry, now Prince of Wales, and afterwards King Henry VIII., obtained a dispensation, and married his brother's widow. The Throne of England, however, descended to the Stuarts by the marriage of Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., and Elizabeth of York, with James IV., of Scotland, and not through any child of Henry VIII., who had no grandchild. However, Henry VIII.'s daughter Elizabeth had a prosperous reign of 45 years, and left the Crown to her cousin, James I., of England, and VI., of Scotland, the first of the ill-fated Stuarts. Luckily James I. had a daughter, Elizabeth, who married the King of Bohemia, and she had a daughter, Sophia, who was the wife of the Elector of Hanover, and on her Protestant descendants the Throne of England was settled in the days of Queen Anne. And at the beginning of the 18th century, in 1714, the son of the Electress Sophia became King of England as George I., the first of the Guelph line. King George I. was a German, and not a lover of England, but his great-great-great grand-daughter, Queen Victoria (who is 12th in descent from Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York) is very English, and excellent in every relation of life.

There are but very few, I opine, of the wayfarers who pass the little "Three Horse Shoes" inn at the junction of the two roads from Kingsland to Aymestrey, and turn perchance to read the inscription on the stone Tuscan pedestal erected there in memory of the great battle of Mortimer's Cross,

Who could tell us all about the war
And what they killed each other for.

And we must account too, I suppose, for the scanty records we possess of those cruel battles between the houses of the White and Red Roses, and the few details we get of those frequent and fierce engagements, to the circumstance of men in those days being more taken up with the use of pike and sword than with the pen; and it may be that even our best chroniclers, the Monks, in those most troublous times, went less frequently on their walks abroad, and kept close inside their religious houses, trembling at the din of war.

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The inscription on the monument if you approach and read (for thou canst read ") is this:-"This pedestal is erected to perpetuate the memory of an obstinate, bloody, and decisive battle fought near this spot in the Civil Wars between the ambitious houses of York and Lancaster, on the 2nd February, 1460, between the forces of Edward Mortimer, Earl of March, afterwards Edward IV. on the side of York, and those of Henry VI. on the side of Lancaster. The King's forces were commanded by Jasper, Earl of Pembroke. Edward commanded his own in person, and was victorious. The slaughter was great on both sides, 4,000 being left dead upon the field, and many Welsh persons of the first distinction were taken prisoners, among whom was Owen Tudor, great grandfather of Henry VIII., and a descendant of the illustrious Cadwallader, who was afterwards beheaded at Hereford. This was the decisive battle which fixed Edward IV. upon the Throne of England. He was proclaimed King on the 5th of March following. Erected by subscription 1799."

The inscription upon the pedestal faces the scene of the battle which occurred a short distance north of this site. The accompanying illustration is reproduced from a photograph by Mr. Fredk. E. Rogers, of Eardisland, taken from a northern aspect, as the pedestrian walks from Mortimer's Cross towards Kingsland village.

This battle of Mortimer's Cross was the sixth of the twelve which was fought during the Wars of the Roses, the first battle taking place at St. Alban's, May 23rd, 1455, and the last at Tewkesbury, May 4th, 1471. And many of the noble families aud gentry of our North Hereford would join the side of the Yorkists with their retainers, for as a youth Edward, Duke of York, lived at Ludlow Castle, and was, therefore, a friend, or at least a neighbour, of the Mortimers of Wigmore Castle, and Crofts of Croft Castle, and both these families, we know, fought for him.

Wigmore would of itself supply a principal portion of the soldiery, for from