heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

THE CLIFFORDS. 269
"Wast thou ordained, dear father.
To lse thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age,
And (in thy reverence and thy chair-days) thus
To die in ruffian battle ? Even at this sight
My heart is turned to stone, and while 'tis mine
It shall be stoney.
" York not our old men spares,
No more will I their babes ;
tears virginal
Shall be to me even as the din to fire,
And beauty (that the tyrant oft reclaims)
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
Henceforth I will not have to do with pity
:
Meet I an infant of the House of York,
Into as many gobbets will I cut it
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did.
In cruelty will I seek out my fame ;
Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's House !"
The great dramatist was scarcely accurate in the first part, for
Thomas Lord Clifford could not have been more than forty-one at this
time. But the son's passionate anger
at his father's death is true to
nature ; specially in family quarrels.
And certainly he soon evidenced in action what he is here made to
express in word, for the battle of St. Albans took place May 22nd, 1455,
and the battle of Wakefield followed, December, 1460. The Duke of
Somerset commanded the Lancastrian force, while Lord Clifford and the
Earl of Wiltshire each had charge of a strong reserve concealed from
the main body. The Duke of York was drawn from his stronghold,
Sandal Castle, by the taunts of Queen Margaret. "All men," said he,
"would cry wonder, and report dishonour that a woman had made a
" dastard of me whom no man could even to this day report as a
" coward ;
and surely my mind is rather to die with honour than to live
" with shame. Advance, my banners, in the name of God and St. George.''
But the unsuspected ambushes assailed his rear when he attacked the main
body. Thus surrounded, his forces were literally hacked to pieces, and he
and all his chief leaders were slain.
Lord Clifford carried out his determination only too ruthlessly.
Meeting
the Duke's son, the young Earl of Rutland, hurrying from the bloody
scene, he repelled his tutor Aspall, who appealed to him for protection,
and, as the rancorous memories of St. Albans filled his " breast, By God's
" blood," he " said, thy father slew mine, and so will I thee and all thy
" kin ;
" and plunging his dagger into his heart, he said to the chaplain,
with a scornful leer,
" Go, bear him to his mother, and tell her what thou
" hast seen and heard."
L2