Page:The Queens of England.djvu/275

ELIZABETH OF YORK. 235 face of her mother, and in the gloomy ones of those around her. Happy immunity from care permitted only to child- hood ! But better days were in store for both mother and daughter . The Duke of Bourgogne, less desirous to serve the interests of his wife's brother, Edward, than to forward his own against Louis the Eleventh, who had espoused the part of Warwick, now furnished Edward with money, and allowed Louis de Bruges, lord of Grothuse, governor of Holland, to supply him with forces. With this powerful aid and about one thousand or fifteen hundred English soldiers, Edward made a descent on England, the successful termination of which at Raven- spur, in Yorkshire, may, in a great measure, be attributed to his having persuaded the Yorkists that he came not to depose King Henry, but to recover the duchy of York, his own patri- mony. Once in possession of York, he strengthened it, raised new forces, obtained money, and proceeded towards London, which, by a train of fortuitous circumstances, the treason of some of Warwick's partisans and the devotion of Edward's, he was enabled to enter on the nth of April, and immediately seized the palace of his helpless rival, Henry the Sixth, and committed him to the Tower. He then hastened to the sanc- tuary, where his infant son was presented to him by its joy- ful mother. The meeting must have been a touching one ; for although Edward had been so successful, all danger was not yet over; he knew Warwick too well not to be fully aware that that brave soldier would manfully contest the cause he had adopted ; and although he removed the queen and his children from the sanctuary to Baynard's Castle that day, he could not count what the result of the battle, which he knew must be fought within a short time, might produce, or whether they might not again be driven to have recourse to it. Edward was not permitted to devote many hours to his wife and chil- dren, and having placed them in the Tower, where the unfor- tunate Henry the Sixth was a prisoner, he on Easter-day, the 14th of April, 1471, gained the hard-fought battle of Barnet, in which he displayed no less courage than military skill. Here Warwick and his brother, the Marquis of Montacute, lost their lives. The first, having achieved wonders of bravery, fell dead covered with wounds. The second was said to have been killed by one of Warwick's officers, on seeing him, when the battle was lost, putting on Edward's livery to save him- self.