next morning between four and five, but a dense mist still obscured matters, and while Edward's forces, being greatly outflanked to the left by those of Warwick, began to give way, they had an almost equal advantage over their opponents at the opposite or eastern end; and while fugitives from the western part of the field carried to London the news that the day was lost for Edward, the combat was still maintained with varying fortunes for three hours or more. Owing to the fog Warwick's men fired upon those of the Earl of Oxford, whose badge, a star with streams, was mistaken for 'the sun of York,' and Oxford with his company fled the field, crying 'Treason!' as they went. At length, after great slaughter on both sides, Edward was completely triumphant, and Warwick and Montague lay dead upon the field. The Earl of Oxford escaped to Scotland.
Next day Edward caused the bodies of Warwick and his brother to be brought to London and exhibited at St. Paul's. He had little leisure to rest in London, for news arrived on Tuesday the 16th of the landing of Margaret and her son at Weymouth; and, after arranging for the sick and wounded who had been with him at Barnet, he left on Friday the 19th, first for Windsor, where he duly kept the feast of St. George, and afterwards to Abingdon, which he reached on the 27th. Uncertain of the enemy's motions he was anxious to intercept them either on the road to London, if they attempted to march thither direct, or near the southern seacoast if they came that way, or passing northwards by the borders of Wales. At length he fought with them at Tewkesbury on 4 May and was completely victorious. Margaret was taken prisoner, her son slain, or more probably murdered after the battle; and Edward further stained his laurels by a gross act of perfidy in beheading two days later the Duke of Somerset and fourteen other persons who had sought refuge in the abbey of Tewkesbury, and been delivered up to him on the assurance of their lives being spared.
The news of the victory at once sufficed to quiet an insurrection that was on the point of breaking out in the north; to suppress which, however, Edward had scarcely gone as far as Coventry when he heard of a much more formidable movement in the south. For Calais being still under the government of Warwick's deputies, they had sent over to England a naval captain named the Bastard Falconbridge [q. v.], who after overawing Canterbury endeavoured to force an entrance into London, 5 May. Foiled in this attempt the Bastard withdrew westward to Kingston-upon-Thames, intending to have offered battle to King Edward in the centre of the kingdom, for he had a strong force with him, reckoned at twenty thousand men, which grew as he advanced, while most of Edward's followers had dispersed after the victory of Tewkesbury. But Scales managed to prevail on one of his adherents, Nicholas Faunt, mayor of Canterbury, to urge him to return to Blackheath, from which place he stole away with only six hundred horsemen out of his army by Rochester to Sandwich, where he stood simply on the defensive.
Edward in the meantime was issuing commissions and raising men in the different counties, so that he arrived in London, 21 May, at the head of thirty thousand men. On the night of his arrival Henry VI died—of a broken heart as Edward's friends pretended. Next day Edward knighted no less than twelve aldermen of London for the good service they had done him, and the day following (Ascension day) he marched forward into Kent. Coming to Canterbury he caused Nicholas Faunt to be brought thither from the Tower and hanged, drawn, and quartered. Some other adherents of the Bastard were also put to death. Commissions were also issued for Kent, Sussex, and Essex to levy fines on those who had gone with him to Blackheath, and many who were not really there were made to pay exorbitantly, some unfortunate men having to sell their spare clothing and borrow money before they were admitted to mercy. On 26 May Edward and his army reached Sandwich, where the Bastard surrendered the town and all his navy, amounting to forty-three vessels.
Edward had now triumphed so decisively over his enemies that the rest of his reign was passed in comparative tranquillity. The direct line of Lancaster was extinct, and the family of John of Gaunt was represented only by Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, whose ancestors, the Beauforts, were of doubtful legitimacy. Henry's uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, finding no safety in Wales, took him over sea, meaning to go to France, but they were forced to land in Brittany, where Duke Francis II detained them in a kind of honourable confinement, refusing more than one application from King Edward to deliver them up to him, but promising that they should not escape to do him injury. Yet it could only have been on behalf of Richmond that the Earl of Oxford sought unsuccessfully to invade the kingdom in 1473. He landed first at St. Osyth in Essex, 28 May, but made a speedy retreat on hearing that the Earl of Essex was coming to meet him. Then on 30 Sept. he took St. Michael's Mount in
