As the words left the duke's lips, and Warwick, one foot on his dumb
friend's corpse, gave the mandate, a murderous discharge from the
archers in the covert rattled against the line of the Yorkists, and
the foe, still advancing, stepped over a hundred corpses to the
conflict. Despite the vast preponderance of numbers, the skill of
Warwick's archers, the strength of his position, the obstacle to the
cavalry made by the barricades, rendered the attack perilous in the
extreme.

But the orders of Edward were prompt and vigorous. He cared not for
the waste of life, and as one rank fell, another rushed on. High
before the barricades stood Montagu, Warwick, and the rest of that
indomitable chivalry, the flower of the ancient Norman heroism. As
idly beat the waves upon a rock as the ranks of Edward upon that
serried front of steel. The sun still shone in heaven, and still
Edward's conquest was unassured. Nay, if Marmaduke could yet bring
back the troops of Somerset upon the rear of the foe, Montagu and the
earl felt that the victory might be for them. And often the earl
paused, to hearken for the cry of "Somerset" on the gale, and often
Montagu raised his visor to look for the banners and the spears of the
Lancastrian duke. And ever, as the earl listened and Montagu scanned
the field, larger and larger seemed to spread the armament of Edward.
The regiment which boasted the stubborn energy of Alwyn was now in
movement, and, encouraged by the young Saxon's hardihood, the
Londoners marched on, unawed by the massacre of their predecessors.
But Alwyn, avoiding the quarter defended by the knights, defiled a
little towards the left, where his quick eye, inured to the northern
fogs, had detected the weakness of the barricade in the spot where
Hilyard was stationed; and this pass Alwyn (discarding the bow)
resolved to attempt at the point of the pike, the weapon answering to