In those years, while there were two kings, nobody knew which king to obey. Few people minded the laws, and the armies of the Lancastrians and the Yorkists did a great deal of mischief in every part of the country. A great many battles were fought, and many thousands of Englishmen were killed.

After one of these battles, which was fought at Towton, in Yorkshire, King Henry was obliged to hide himself for a long time in Scotland, and the parts of England close to it. He sometimes slept in the woods, and sometimes in caves, and was near dying of hunger.

At last Queen Margaret contrived to gather another army; but the Yorkists beat her at Hexham, and King Henry was taken prisoner, and sent to the Tower. Queen Margaret and the young prince escaped into a wild forest. There they were met by some robbers, who took away the queen’s necklace and her rings, and then began to quarrel about who should have the most.

Queen Margaret took the opportunity of their quarrelling, and, holding her little son by the hand, she began running through the forest, in hopes of meeting some of her friends; but she only met with another robber. She was afraid he would kill her and the little prince, because they had nothing to give him. Margaret then fell upon her knees, and owned she was the queen, and begged the robber to protect his king’s son. The robber was surprised, indeed, to see the queen and prince by themselves, half-starved, and weary with running in that wild place. But he was a good-natured man, and took them under his care; he got them some food, and took them to a cottage to rest; after which he contrived to take them safely to the seaside, where they got on board ship and went to Flanders.

Now that King Henry was safe in the Tower of London, and Queen Margaret was gone abroad, everybody in England hoped there would be an end to the civil wars, and King Edward of York married a beautiful lady called Elizabeth Woodville, and he had many children, and there was nothing but feasting and rejoicing.

But the king had two brothers, George Duke of Clarence, who was rather foolish, and Richard, who was young, brave, and clever, but deformed and wicked. The Duke of Clarence had married a daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who had been very useful to the Yorkists. But he was vexed with the king for marrying without asking his advice, so he determined to begin the civil war again.

This Earl of Warwick was a very brave man, but he was very changeable; at one time he fought for Edward of York, at another for Margaret and Henry of Lancaster; so, as he chose to call first one of them king, and then the other, he was nicknamed the King-maker. Once Warwick forced King Edward to flee from England, and put Henry on the throne again. But Edward came back, and Warwick was killed in a battle at Barnet, near London, and poor Henry was sent back to the Tower.

About three weeks after that battle of Barnet, there was another at Tewkesbury, where Edward of York took Queen Margaret and her son Edward prisoners; for they had come to England again, in hopes the Earl of Warwick would get the kingdom back for the Lancastrians.

When they were brought before King Edward, he asked the boy how he dared to come to England. The brave lad answered, that he came to try to get back his father’s crown; upon which Edward cruelly struck him on the face, and his brothers Clarence and Gloucester, and two other lords, stabbed the poor prince till he died.

This was even more cruel than anything Margaret had ever done.

That miserable queen was sent to prison in the Tower immediately afterwards, where her poor husband was a prisoner. But a very few days after the battle of Tewkesbury, Henry was found dead in his prison, and he was most likely murdered. The King of France paid Edward a large sum of money to set Queen Margaret free.

Now, all Edward of York’s enemies being either dead or overcome, he feasted and enjoyed himself, and was very wicked and cruel. His foolish brother, the Duke of Clarence, quarrelled with the queen and her relations, and also with the Duke of Gloucester. So Edward had Clarence sent to the Tower, where he was put to death. Many people thought that the Duke of Gloucester murdered King Henry the Sixth, and caused the Duke of Clarence to be drowned in a cask of Malmsey wine; but I am not sure of this.

About four years after this, King Edward the Fourth died, and left two little sons and five daughters.

I can say very little good of him, except that he was brave and handsome, and good-humoured in company; but then he was cruel and revengeful, and, when the wars were over, he loved his own pleasure and amusement too well to do anything good or useful for the people, and he did them much wrong.