Historic%20Yorkshire

Chapter XVI.
THE BATTLE OF TOWTON, 1461.
FTER the deathof the Duke of York at Wake
field,his son, Edward, outstepping the limits
of his father's ambition, caused himself to be
proclaimedKingunder thestyle ofEdwardIV.
Margaret,whoseactivityleft him no rest,had,
after the defeat of some of her party at Mortimer's
Cross and her own victory at St. Albans,
retired to Yorkshire, the south being more than ever
disaffected to her cause. Here she raised an army of
no less than 60,000 men. Edward, not reposing for an
instant upon his newly-acquired throne, sent out the Earl
of Warwick inpursuit of Queen Margaret. The Earl, so
properly named the " Kingmaker," was of immense
popularity,and espousedthe cause of Edward with such
fervour that when Edward joined him at Pontefract
some four days later it was found that an army of
nearly 41,000 Yorkists had been gathered together.
The first incident of the now imminent battle was the
capture of the passage of the Aire at Ferrybridge by the
" Black Clifford," and its re-captureby the Yorkists, and
the death of that blood-thirsty nobleman by a chance
arrow. The entire army of Edward crossed the Aire,
after a proclamation had been made which gave any
who might be disaffected liberty to withdraw before the