are allowed to count,--was that of Towton, the chief action in the Wars
of the Roses; and its decision was due to the effect of the weather on
the defeated army. It was fought on the 29th of March, 1461, which was
the Palm-Sunday of that year. Edward, Earl of March, eldest son of the
Duke of York, having made himself King of England, advanced to the North
to meet the Lancastrian army. That army was sixty thousand strong, while
Edward IV. was at the head of less than forty-nine thousand. After some
preliminary fighting, battle was joined on a plain between the villages
of Saxton and Towton, in Yorkshire, and raged for ten hours. Palm-Sunday
was a dark and tempestuous day, with the snow falling heavily. At first
the wind was favorable to the Lancastrians, but it suddenly changed, and
blew the snow right into their faces. This was bad enough, but it was
not the worst, for the snow slackened their bow-strings, causing their
arrows to fall short of the Yorkists, who took them from the ground, and
sent them back with fatal effect. The Lancastrian leaders then sought
closer conflict, but the Yorkists had already achieved those advantages
which, under a good general, are sure to prepare the way to victory. It
was as if the snow had resolved to give success to the pale rose. That
which Edward had won he was resolved to increase, and his dispositions
were of the highest military excellence; but it is asserted that he
would have been beaten, because of the superiority of the enemy in men,
but for the coming up, at the eleventh hour, of the Duke of Norfolk, who
was the Joseph Johnston of 1461, doing for Edward what the Secessionist
Johnston did for Beauregard in 1861. The Lancastrians then gave way,
and retreated, at first in orderly fashion, but finally falling into
a panic, when they were cut down by thousands. They lost twenty-eight
thousand men, and the Yorkists eight thousand. This was a fine piece of
work for the beginning of Passion-Week, bloody laurels gained in civil
conflict being substituted for palm-branches! No such battle was ever
fought by Englishmen in foreign lands. This was the day when