The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [242]
The King went immediately to St Paul’s Cathedral to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury give thanks for his restoration to the throne and declare King Henry deposed. Then he entered the bishop’s palace where Archbishop Neville presented him to Henry VI. Henry embraced him, saying, ‘My cousin of York, you are very welcome. I know that in your hands my life will not be in danger.’ Edward received him into custody and ordered his immediate transfer to the Tower, commanding also that a number of Yorkist prisoners incarcerated there be set at liberty without delay. He had already sent a deputation to Westminster Abbey to escort the Queen and her children from sanctuary to the Palace of Westminster. The King then went himself to Westminster Abbey, where Archbishop Bourchier set the crown on his head to demonstrate to the people that he was formally restored to the throne, after which Edward knelt to give thanks to God, St Peter and St Edward the Confessor.
Giving orders that his army of 7000 men be deployed in manning the city’s defences and holding it against Warwick, whom he knew to be in pursuit, Edward went in procession to the Palace of Westminster, where Queen Elizabeth and their children awaited him. The sight of his little daughters and his wife holding his firstborn son, now five months old, moved the King to tears. He kissed the children ‘full tenderly’ and took the Prince in his arms, expressing his ‘greatest joy’ and ‘his heart’s singular comfort and gladness’, referring to the infant as ‘God’s precious sending and gift, and our most desired treasure’. Having embraced and comforted his wife, he escorted his family to ‘the lodging of my lady his mother’ at Baynard’s Castle, where they heard Mass and stayed the night.
On the morning of the 12th, Edward took counsel with his brothers and the great magnates before attending a solemn service in his mother’s private chapel to mark Good Friday. When it ended, he installed the Queen, the royal children, the Duchess of York and the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Tower of London for their safety. He had spent as much time in London as he dared, long enough for his captains to recruit and muster more reinforcements, and the time had now come to face Warwick. The Arrivall states that the King ‘took pains to encounter him before he came near to the city and as far from it as possible’. On the afternoon of the 13th, taking King Henry with him, he led his army ten miles north to Barnet, where his advance guard met the advance guard of Warwick’s host and, after a skirmish, chased them out of the town for a distance of half a mile. Edward, when he arrived and was told what had happened, forbade his men to remain in Barnet ‘but had them all to the field with him, and drew towards his enemies outside the town’.
Earlier that day, Warwick had moved his army through St Albans to Barnet, arriving, like the King, after dark. Both armies spent some considerable time searching for advantageous positions, and Warwick finally drew up his men on a 400-foot ridge concealed ‘under a hedge side’ and running south from Hadley Green to the village of Barnet. Edward ‘could not see very well where his enemies lay, and he camped with all his host before them, much nearer than he supposed’. By a stroke of fortune, the King’s right wing overlapped Warwick’s left wing, and Warwick’s right wing overlapped Edward’s left. This meant that Warwick’s cannon, which he had positioned on the far right, were pointed at no one. The Arrivall states that the Earl’s soldiers ‘shot guns almost all night, thinking thereby to do great damage to the King and his host. But it so happened that they always overshot the King’s army and did them no harm, because the King’s host lay much nearer than they thought.’ Edward refused to allow his men to fire their