Coventry parliament were reversed, and an assignment was made to the duke during the king's lifetime of the principality of Wales with lands to the value of ten thousand marks (6,666l. 13s. 4d.), of which one half the revenues were to go to himself, three thousand six hundred marks to his eldest son, the Earl of March, and one thousand marks to his second son, Edmund, earl of Rutland. The duke then withdrew from Westminster Palace to his own mansion in the city.
That evening the king and duke and a large number of the lords heard evensong at St. Paul's, and there was a procession next day in the city, the king occupying the bishop of London's palace, whither he had been removed from Westminster against his will. On the following Saturday (Fabyan dates it 9 Nov., but the 9th was Sunday) the duke was proclaimed heir-apparent and protector; parliament, it is said, had reappointed him to his old office, though the fact does not appear in the records. Parliament also, according to one writer, had ordained that he should be called Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester, but this is not recorded either. Margaret, however, who had withdrawn into Wales for security, had been sending messages abroad to her own adherents for a general meeting in the north. Lord Neville, brother to the Earl of Westmorland, obtained a commission from the Duke of York to chastise the rebels. He raised men but carried them over to the enemy, and, in conjunction with the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Clifford, oppressed the tenants of the Duke of York and Lord Salisbury in Yorkshire; while the young Duke of Somerset from Corfe Castle, with the Earl of Devonshire, passed through Bath, Evesham, and Coventry to York. The Duke of York, with the Earl of Salisbury, left London on the 2nd, or, as another writer more probably says, on 9 Dec., to put down this rebellion. They were attacked on reaching Worksop by a body of the Duke of Somerset's men, and sustained great losses, but they succeeded in reaching York's castle of Sandal, near Wakefield, on the 21st, and kept Christmas day there; while the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Northumberland occupied Pontefract with much larger forces. A truce was taken till Thursday after Epiphany (8 Jan.). But the enemy resolved to cut off York's supplies and besiege him in his castle. On 30 Dec. they had nearly closed him in, but he had sent for his son Edward, earl of March, then at Shrewsbury, and was strongly counselled not to risk anything by prematurely meeting his enemy in the field. This advice he scorned, saying he had never kept castle in France even when the Dauphin came to besiege him, and he would not be caged like a bird. He led his men in good order down the hill on which the castle stands, and, turning at the base to meet the enemy, found himself surrounded. He fell fighting. The engagement was known as the battle of Wakefield. The spot where York was killed is still pointed out. His vindictive enemies cut off his head, crowned it with a paper crown, and stuck it on the walls of York, where that of Salisbury, who was taken alive in the battle, kept it company.
By his wife Cicely, sister of Richard, earl of Salisbury, York had four sons and three daughters. Of the sons, two, Edward, the eldest, and Richard, the youngest, became kings of England as Edward IV and Richard III. The second son, Edmund, earl of Rutland, was killed with his father in 1460 at the battle of Wakefield; and the third son, George, duke of Clarence, was put to death in 1478 [see Plantagenet, George]. Of the daughters, Anne, the eldest, married Henry Holland, duke of Exeter; Elizabeth, the second, married John de la Pole, second duke of Suffolk [q. v.]; and Margaret, the youngest, married Charles the Bold of Burgundy. The Duchess of York died on 31 May 1495.
[A short biography of Richard, Duke of York, will be found in Sandford's Genealogical History; but, though based on authentic documents, it is very imperfect. Much further information as to his public career will be found in modern histories, especially Sir James Ramsay's Lancaster and York; Beaucourt's Histoire de Charles VII; Gilbert's History of the Viceroys of Ireland; Leland's History of Ireland. Of earlier authorities the Chronicles of Hall and Fabyan contain the substance of what is generally known about him, and Campion's Historie of Ireland has some slight notices. But the details of his life are mainly drawn from contemporary sources, of which the chief (besides unedited records) are the Paston Letters; Historiæ Croylandensis Continuatio in vol. i. of Fulman's Scriptores; Stevenson's Wars of the English in France, Riley's Registrum Johannis Whethamstede, Wavrin's Chron. (the last three in the Rolls Ser.); W. Wyrcester's Annales, ed. Hearne; Rotuli Parliamentorum; Nicolas's Privy Council Proceedings (Record Commission); Chronicle of London; Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon, ed. J. A. Giles; An English Chronicle, ed. Davies, Collections of a London Citizen, and Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, ed. Gairdner (these three last Camden Soc.); Chronique de Mathieu d'Escouchy, Basin's Hist. des Règnes de Charles VII et de Louis XI, Wavrin's Anchiennes Croniques, ed. Dupont (these three published by the Soc. de l'Histoire de France); Jean Chartier's Chronique de Charles VII.]
