for the Lancastrians.  But the elements opposed themselves to her purpose with so much pertinacity and consistency that it is not strange that men should have seen therein the visible hand of Providence.  Three times did she embark, but only to be driven back by the wind, and to suffer loss.  Some of her party sought to persuade her to abandon the enterprise, as Heaven seemed to oppose it; but Margaret was a strong-minded woman, and would not listen to the suggestions of superstitious cowards.  She sailed a fourth time, and held on in the face of bad weather.  Half a day of good weather was all that was necessary to reach England, but it was not until the end of almost the third week that she was able to effect a landing, and then at a point distant from Warwick.  Had the King-maker been the statesman-soldier that he has had the credit of being, he never would have fought Edward until he had been joined by Margaret; and he must have known that her non-arrival was owing to contrary winds, he having been himself a naval commander.  But he acted like a knight-errant, not like a general, gave battle, and was defeated and slain, “The Last of the Barons.”  Having triumphed at Barnet, Edward marched to meet Margaret’s army, which was led by Somerset, and defeated it on the 4th of May, after a hardly-contested action at Tewkesbury.  It was on that field that Prince Edward of Lancaster perished; and as his father, Henry VI., died a few days later, “of pure displeasure and melancholy,” the line of Lancaster became extinct.

In justice to the memory of a monarch, to whom justice has never been done, it should be remarked, in passing, that Edward IV. deserved the favors of Fortune, if talent for war insures success in war.  He was, so far as success goes, one of the greatest soldiers that ever lived.  He never fought a battle that he did not win, and he never won a battle without annihilating his foe.  He was not yet nineteen when he commanded at Towton, at the head of almost fifty thousand men; and two months before he had gained the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, under circumstances that showed skillful generalship.  No similar instance of precocity is to be found in the military history of mankind.  His victories have been attributed to Warwick, but it is noticeable that he was as successful over Warwick as he had been over the Lancastrians, against whom Warwick originally fought.  Barnet was, with fewer combatants, as remarkable an action as Towton; and at Mortimer’s Cross Warwick was not present, while he fought and lost the second battle of St. Alban’s seventeen days after Edward had won his first victory.  Warwick was not a general, but a magnificent paladin, resembling much Coeur de Lion, and most decidedly out of place in the England of the last half of the fifteenth century.  What is peculiarly remarkable in Edward’s case is this:  he had received no military training beyond that which was common to all high-born youths in that age.  The French wars had long been over, and what