[236]
his forces could muster there, and threatening a siege, compelled him to a battle. Shakespeare has faithfully delineated York's character, when he makes him despise the great inequality of the numbers which were opposed to each other on the occasion:
" Five men to twenty! though the odds be great,
" I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.
" Many a battle have I won in France,
" When as the enemy hath been ten to one;
" Why should I not now have the like success?"
But the event did not justify his confidence. The Yorkists were routed, the Duke killed, and the castle taken. On the spot where the Duke fell, a stone memorial was erected, after the discomfiture of the Queen's party, and continued there till the civil wars in the seventeenth century, when it was removed. The ruins are picturesque, but not extensive; and evince that the situation must have been strong, before the destructive effects of gunpowder were known.
Opposed to this pleasing object, and its surrounding scenery on the left, was a more magnificent landscape to the right— the village of Heath, with its many noble mansions reposing upon the side of hill, which swelled gently out of a rich valley, watered by the river Calder. The bridge
