The rapidity of Warwick’s progress had incapacitated the Duke of Clarence from executing his plan of treachery; and the Marquis of Montagu had here the opportunity of striking the first blow.  He communicated the design to his adherents, who promised him their concurrence; they took to arms in the night-time, and hastened with loud acclamations to Edward’s quarters; the King was alarmed at the noise, and, starting from bed, heard the cry of war usually employed by the Lancastrian party.  Lord Hastings, his chamberlain, informed him of the danger, and urged him to make his escape by speedy flight from an army where he had so many concealed enemies and where few seemed zealously attached to his service.  He had just time to get on horseback and to hurry with a small retinue to Lynne, in Norfolk, where he luckily found some ships ready, on board of which he instantly embarked.  The Earl of Warwick, in eleven days after his first landing, was left entire master of the kingdom.  But Edward’s danger did not end with his embarkation.  The Easterlings or Hanse Towns were then at war both with France and England; and some ships of these people, hovering on the English coast, espied the King’s vessels and gave chase to them; nor was it without extreme difficulty that he made his escape into the port of Alkmaar in Holland.

Immediately after Edward’s flight had left the kingdom at Warwick’s disposal, that nobleman hastened to London; and taking Henry from his confinement in the Tower, into which he himself had been the chief cause of throwing him, he proclaimed him King with great solemnity.  A parliament was summoned, in the name of that Prince, to meet at Westminster.  The treaty with Margaret was here fully executed; Henry was recognized as lawful king; but, his incapacity for government being avowed, the regency was intrusted to Warwick and Clarence till the majority of Prince Edward; and in default of that Prince’s issue, Clarence was declared successor to the crown.

The ruling party were more sparing in their executions than was usual after any revolution during those violent times.  The only victim of distinction was John Tibetot, Earl of Worcester.  All the other considerable Yorkists either fled beyond sea or took shelter in sanctuaries, where the ecclesiastical privileges afforded them protection.  In London alone it is computed that no less than two thousand persons saved themselves in this manner, and among the rest Edward’s Queen, who was there delivered of a son, called by his father’s name.  Queen Margaret had not yet appeared in England, but, on receiving intelligence of Warwick’s success, was preparing with Prince Edward for her journey.  All the banished Lancastrians flocked to her, and, among the rest, the Duke of Somerset, son of the Duke beheaded after the battle of Hexham.  This nobleman, who had long been regarded as the head of the party, had fled into the Low Countries on the discomfiture of his friends; and as he concealed his name and quality, he had there languished in extreme indigence.  But both Somerset and Margaret were detained by contrary winds from reaching England, till a new revolution in that kingdom, no less sudden and surprising than the former, threw them into greater misery than that from which they had just emerged.