any business; and the Duke of York was thereupon appointed protector, with a yearly salary of 2,000 marks. The Lancastrian party, however, took care to define the duties and the powers of this office, so as to maintain the rights of the king. The title of protector was to give no authority, but merely precedence in the council, and the command of the army in time of rebellion or invasion. It was to be revocable at the will of the king, should he at any time recover soundness of mind; and, in case that he remained so long incapacitated for Government, the protectorate was to pass to the prince on his coming of age. The command at sea was entrusted to five noblemen, chosen from the two parties; and the Government of Calais, a most important post, was taken from Somerset, and given to York.
With all this change, the session of Parliament appears to have been stormy. The Duke of York had instituted an action for trespass against Thorpe, the Speaker of the Commons, and one of the Barons of the Exchequer, and obtained a verdict with damages to the amount of £1,000, and Thorpe was committed to prison till he gave security for that sum, and an equal fine to the crown. In vain did the Commons petition for the release of the Speaker. The Lords refused; and they were compelled to elect a new one. Many of the Lords, not feeling themselves safe, absented themselves from the House, and were only compelled to attend by heavy fines. The Duke of Exeter was taken into custody, and bound to keep the peace; and the Earl of Devonshire, a Yorkist, was accused of high treason and tried, but acquitted. So strong was the opposition of the court party, that oven York himself was compelled to stand up and defend himself.
These angry commotions were but the prelude to a more decisive act. The king was found something better, and the fact was instantly seized on by the queen and her party to hurl York from power, and reinstate Somerset. About Christmas the king demanded from York the resignation of the protectorate, and immediately liberated Somerset. This was not done without Somerset being at first held to bail for his appearance at Westminster to answer the charges against him. But he appealed to the council, on the ground that he had been committed without any lawful cause; and the court party being now in the ascendant, he was at once freed from his recognisances. The king himself appeared anxious to reconcile the two dukes—a circumstance more convincing of his good nature than of his sound sense—for it was an impossibility. He would not restore the Government of Calais to the Duke of Somerset, but he took it from York and retained it in his own hands. York perceived that he had been regularly defeated by the queen, and he retired again to his castle of Ludlow to plan more serious measures.
The Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Salisbury and his son, the celebrated Earl of Warwick, destined to acquire the name of the King-maker, hastened there at his summons, and it was resolved to attempt the suppression of the court party by force of arms. They were quickly at the head of 3,000 men, and with these they hoped to surprise the royalists. But no sooner did the news of this approaching force reach the court, than the king was carried forth at the head of a body of troops equal to those of York, and a march was commenced against him. The royal army had reached St. Albans, and on the morning of the 23rd of May, as it was about to resume its progress, the hills bordering on the high road were beheld covered with the troops of York. This army marching under the banners of the house of York, now for the first time displayed in resistance to the sovereign, halted in a field near the town, and sent forward a herald announcing that the three noblemen were come in all loyalty and attachment to the king; but with a determination to remove the Duke of Somerset from his councils, and demanding that he and his pernicious associates should be at once delivered up to them. The Yorkists declared that they felt this to be so absolutely necessary, that they were resolved to destroy those enemies to the peace of the country, or to perish themselves. An answer was returned by or for the king, "that he would not abandon any of the lords who were faithful to him, but rather would do battle upon it, at the peril of life and crown."
It would have appeared that the royal army had a most decided advantage by being in possession of the town, which was well fortified, and where a stout resistance might have been made in the narrow streets; but, spite of this, the superior spirit of the commanders on the side of York triumphed over the royalists. York himself made a desperate attack on the barriers at the entrance of the town, while Warwick, searching the outskirts of the place, found, or was directed by some favouring persons to a weak spot. He made his way across some gardens, burst into the city, and came upon the royal forces where he was little expected. Aided by this diversion, York redoubled his attack on the barriers, and, notwithstanding their resolute defence by Lord Clifford, forced an entrance. Between the cries of "A York! a York!" "A Warwick! a Warwick!" confusion spread amongst the king's forces, they gave way, and fled out of the town in utter rout. The slaughter among the leaders of the royal army was terrible. The Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland, and Lord Clifford were slain; the king himself was wounded in the neck; the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Dudley in the face, and the Earl of Stafford in the arm. All these were arrow wounds, and it was plain that here again the archers had won the day. The fall or wounds of the loaders, indeed, settled the business, and saved the common soldiers; for though Hall reports that 8,000, Stowe that 5,000 men full, yet Crane, in a letter to his cousin, John Paston, written at the time, declares that there were only six-score, and Sir William Stonor states that only forty-eight were buried in St. Albans.
The king was found concealed in the house of a tanner; and there York visited him, on his knees renewed his vows of loyal affection, and congratulated Henry on the fall of the traitor Somerset. He then led the king to the shrine of St. Albans, and afterwards to his apartment in the abbey. It might have been supposed that the fallen king, being now in the hands of York and his party, the claims of York to the crown would have been asserted. But at this time York either had not really determined on seizing the throne, or did not deem the public fully prepared for so great a change. On the meeting of Parliament it was repeated that York and his friends sought only to free the king from the unpopular ministers who surrounded him, and to redress the grievances of the nation. That party complained—with what truth does not appear—that, on the very morning of the battle, they had sought
