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secret messengers had been also sent to the lady Margaret, advertising her what was passed in Ireland, imploring succours in an enterprise, as they said, so pious and just, and that God had so miraculously prospered the beginning thereof; and making offer, that all things should be guided by her will and direction, as the sovereign patroness and protectress of the enterprise. Margaret was second sister to King Edward the fourth, and had been second wife to Charles, surnamed the Hardy, duke of Burgundy; by whom having no children of her own, she did with singular care and tenderness intend the education of Philip and Margaret, grandchildren to her former husband; which won her great love and authority among the Dutch. This Princess, having the spirit of a man, and malice of a woman, abounding in treasure by the greatness of her dower and her provident government, and being childless, and without any nearer care, made it her design and enterprise, to see the majesty royal of England once again replaced in her house; and had set up King Henry as a mark, at whose overthrow all her actions should aim and shoot; insomuch as all the counsels of his succeeding troubles came chiefly out of that quiver. And she bare such a mortal hatred to the house of Lancaster, and personally to the King, as she was no ways mollified by the conjunction of the houses in her niece's marriage, but rather hated her niece, as the means of the King's ascent to the crown, and assurance therein. Wherefore with great violence of affection she embraced this overture. And upon counsel taken with the earl of Lincoln, and the lord Lovel, and some other of the party, it was resolved, with all speed the two lords, assisted with a regiment of two thousand Almains, being choice and veteran bands, under the command of Martin Swart, a valiant and experimented captain, should pass over into Ireland to the new King; hoping, that when the action should have the face of a received and settled regality, with such a second person as the earl of Lincoln, and the conjunction and reputation of foreign succours, the fame of it would embolden and prepare all the party of the confederates and

malecontents within the realm of England to give them assistance when they should come over there. And for the person of the counterfeit, it was agreed, that if all things succeeded well he should be put down, and the true Plantagenet received; wherein nevertheless the earl of Lincoln had his particular hopes. After they were come into Ireland, and that the party took courage, by seeing themselves together in a body, they grew very confident of success; conceiving and discoursing amongst themselves, that they went in upon far better cards to overthrow King Henry, than King Henry had to overthrow King Richard: and that if there were not a sword drawn against them in Ireland, it was a sign the swords in England would be soon sheathed or beaten down. And first, for a bravery upon this accession of power, they crowned their new King in the cathedral church of Dublin; who formerly had been but proclaimed only; and then sat in council what should farther be done. At which council, though it were propounded by some, that it were the best way to establish themselves first in Ireland, and to nrake that the seat of the war, and to draw King Henry thither in person, by whose absence they thought there would be great alterations and commotions in England; yet because the kingdom there was poor, and they should not be able to keep their army together, nor pay their German soldiers, and for that also the sway of the Irishmen, and generally of the men of war, which, as in such cases of popular tumults is usual, did in effect govern their leaders, was eager, and in affection to make their fortunes upon England; it was concluded with all possible speed to transport their forces into England. The King in the mean time, who at the first when he heard what was done in Ireland, though it troubled him, yet thought he should be well enough able to scatter the Irish as a flight of birds, and rattle away this swarm of bees with their King; when he heard afterwards that the earl of Lincoln was embarked in the action, and that the lady Margaret was declared for it; he apprehended the danger in a true degree as it was, and saw plainly that his kingdom must again be

put to the stake, and that he must fight for it. And first he did conceive, before he understood of the earl of Lincoln's sailing into Ireland out of Flanders, that he should be assailed both upon the east parts of the kingdom of England, by some impression from Flanders, and upon the north-west out of Ireland. And therefore having ordered musters to be made in both parts, and having provisionally designed two generals, Jasper, earl of Bedford, and John, earl of Oxford, meaning himself also to go in person where the affairs should most require it, and nevertheless not expecting any actual invasion at that time, the winter being far on, he took his journey himself towards Suffolk and Norfolk, for the confirming of those parts. And being come to St. Edmond's-Bury, he understood that Thomas, marquis Dorset, who had been one of the pledges in France, was hasting towards him, to purge himself of some accusations which had been made against him. But the King, though he kept an ear for him, yet was the time so doubtful, that he sent the earl of Oxford to meet him, and forthwith to carry him to the Tower; with a fair message nevertheless, that he should bear that disgrace with patience, for that the King meant not his hurt, but only to preserve him from doing hurt, either to the King's service, or to himself; and that the King should always be able, when he had cleared himself, to make him reparation.

From St. Edmond's-Bury he went to Norwich, where he kept his Christmas. And from thence he went, in a manner of pilgrimage, to Walsingham, where he visited our lady's church, famous for miracles, and made his prayers and vows for help and deliverance. And from thence he returned by Cambridge to London. Not long after the rebels, with their King, under the leading of the earl of Lincoln, the earl of Kildare, the lord Lovel, and colonel Swart, landed at Fouldrey in Lancashire; whither there repaired to them Sir Thomas Broughton, with some small company of English. The King by that time, knowing now the storm would not divide, but fall in one place, had levied forces in good number; and in person, taking with him his two de

signed generals, the duke of Bedford, and the earl of Oxford, was come on his way towards them as far as Coventry, whence he sent forth a troop of light horsemen for discovery, and to intercept some stragglers of the enemies, by whom he might the better understand the particulars of their progress and purposes, which was accordingly done; though the King otherwise was not without intelligence from espials in the camp.

The rebels took their way toward York, without spoiling the country, or any act of hostility, the better to put themselves into favour of the people, and to personate their King: who, no doubt, out of a princely feeling, was sparing and compassionate towards his subjects: but their snow-ball did not gather as it went. For the people came not in to them; neither did any rise or declare themselves in other parts of the kingdom for them; which was caused partly by the good taste that the King had given his people of his government, joined with the reputation of his felicity; and partly for that it was an odious thing to the people of England, to have a King brought in to them upon the shoulders of Irish and Dutch, of which their army was in substance compounded. Neither was it a thing done with any great judgment on the party of the rebels, for them to take their way towards York: considering that howsoever those parts had formerly been a nursery of their friends; yet it was there, where the lord Lovel had so lately disbanded, and where the King's presence had a little before qualified discontents. The earl of Lincoln, deceived of his hopes of the countries concourse unto him, in which case he would have temporised, and seeing the business past retract, resolved to make on where the King was, and to give him battle; and thereupon marched towards Newark, thinking to have surprised the town. But the King was somewhat before this time come to Nottingham, where he called a council of war, at which was consulted whether it were best to protract time, or speedily to set upon the rebels. In which council the King himself, whose continual vigilancy did suck in sometimes causeless suspicions, which few else knew, inclined to the accelerating a bat

tle; but this was presently put out of doubt, by the great aids that came in to him in the instant of this consultation, partly upon missives, and partly voluntaries, from many parts of the kingdom.

The principal persons that came then to the King's aid, were the earl of Shrewsbury, and the lord Strange, of the nobility; and of knights and gentlemen, to the number of at least threescore and ten persons, with their companies, making in the whole, at the least, six thousand fighting men, besides the forces that were with the King before. Whereupon the King, finding his army so bravely reinforced, and a great alacrity in all his men to fight, was confirmed in his former resolution, and marched speedily, so as he put himself between the enemies camp and Newark; being loth their army should get the commodity of that town. The earl, nothing dismayed, came forwards that day unto a little village called Stoke, and there encamped that night, upon the brow or hanging of a hill. The King the next day presented him battle upon the plain, the fields there being open and champion. The earl courageously came down and joined battle with him. Concerning which battle the relations that are left unto us are so naked and negligent, though it be an action of so recent memory, as they rather declare the success of the day, than the manner of the fight. They say, that the King divided his army into three battails; whereof the vant-guard only, well strengthened with wings, came to fight that the fight was fierce and obstinate, and lasted three hours, before the victory inclined either way; save that judgment might be made by that the King's vant-guard of itself maintained fight against the whole power of the enemies, the other two battails remaining out of action, what the success was like to be in the end that Martin Swart with his Germans performed bravely, and so did those few English that were on that side; neither did the Irish fail in courage or fierceness; but being almost naked men, only armed with darts and skeins, it was rather an execution than a fight upon them; insomuch as the furious slaughter of them was a great discouragement and appalement to the rest: that there died upon the place all the chieftains ;

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