and no imaginary union of interests could ever suffice to obliterate them; that, even if the leaders were willing to forget past offences, the animosity of their adherents would prevent a sincere coalition of parties, and would, in spite of all temporary and verbal agreements, preserve an eternal opposition of measures between them; and that a prince who deserted his own kindred, and joined the murderers of his father, left himself single, without friends, without protection, and would not, when misfortunes inevitably fell upon him, be so much as entitled to any pity or regard from the rest of mankind.  Clarence was only one-and-twenty years of age, and seems to have possessed but a slender capacity; yet could he easily see the force of these reasons; and, upon the promise of forgiveness from his brother, he secretly engaged, on a favorable opportunity, to desert the Earl of Warwick and abandon the Lancastrian party.

During this negotiation Warwick was secretly carrying on a correspondence of the same nature with his brother, the Marquis of Montagu, who was, entirely trusted by Edward; and like motives produced a like resolution in that nobleman.  The Marquis, also, that he might render the projected blow the more deadly and incurable, resolved on his side to watch a favorable opportunity for committing his perfidy, and still to maintain the appearance of being a zealous adherent to the house of York.

After these mutual snares were thus carefully laid, the decision of the quarrel advanced apace.  Louis prepared a fleet to escort the Earl of Warwick, and granted him a supply of men and money.  The Duke of Burgundy, on the other hand, anxious to support the reigning family in England, fitted out a larger fleet, with which he guarded the Channel.  Edward was not sensible of his danger; he made no suitable preparations against the Earl of Warwick; he even said that the Duke might spare himself the trouble of guarding the seas, and that he wished for nothing more than to see Warwick set foot on English ground.

The event soon happened of which Edward seemed so desirous.  A storm dispersed the Duke of Burgundy’s navy, and left the sea open to Warwick.  That nobleman seized the opportunity, and, setting sail, quickly landed at Dartmouth with the Duke of Clarence, the earls of Oxford and Pembroke, and a small body of troops, while the King was in the North, engaged in suppressing an insurrection which had been raised by Lord Fitz-Hugh, brother-in-law to Warwick.  The scene which ensues resembles more the fiction of a poem or romance than an event in true history.  The prodigious popularity of Warwick, the zeal of the Lancastrian party, the spirit of discontent with which many were infected, and the general instability of the English nation occasioned by the late frequent revolutions drew such multitudes to his standard that in a very few days his army amounted to sixty thousand men and was continually increasing.  Edward hastened southward to encounter him; and the two armies approached each other near Nottingham, where a decisive action was every hour expected.