98 



Elizabeth Percy, went early to the French wars, where he 

 was a distinguished commander. He and his men took the 

 strong town of Ponthoise. One snowy night, they clad them- 

 selves in white, and surprised and took the town. After much 

 service in France, he returned to England, and fought in the 

 terrible Wars of the Roses, he fell at the first battle of St. Albans, 

 fighting for the Lancastrians. His son John, then only twenty 

 years of age, being fiercely engaged in the same cause. This John 

 occupies an unenviable niche in history for his cold-blooded murder 

 of the young Earl of Rutland, Edmond, son of the Duke of York 

 and his Duchess Cicely Neville. The incident, though well 

 known, is so closely connected with my subject that it cannot well 

 be omitted. 



After the disastrous battle of Wakefield, in which the Duke of 

 York and the Earl of Sahsbury (the Duchess Cicely's brother) 

 were overcome and slain, the youth Edmond, sixteen years of age, 

 was captured, and taken to Clifford, who, while the poor youth 

 begged on his knees for mercy, exclaimed, "Thy father slew mine, 

 and I will slay thee !" and stabbed him to death. 



The Countess of Pembroke disputes this, the accepted version 

 of the story, and thinks he must have been killed in battle ; but 

 the youth of Edmond, and the well-accredited chronicles of the 

 time, would appear to make the blacker version of the story 

 incontestible. The brutal Clifford was himself slain three months 

 after, in the battle of Towton,* when the Lancastrian cause was 

 crushed, and the House of York put in possession of the throne. 



This bad Lord Clifford left a widow, Margaret, daughter and 

 heiress of Henry, Lord Bromflete Baron Vescey (she bringing that 

 title into the Clifford family), and upon her and her two sons of 

 tender years fell heavily the vengeance of the triumphant Yorkists. 

 They were attainted, their possessions seized, and the two boys 

 sought for their destruction, so implacable was the fury of the 

 victors. 



Their mother got them away to the east coast, and shipped 

 them for the Low Countries ; but only the younger was sent ; the 

 * At Dintingdale, just before the battle of Towton. 



