their friends, fufpected they were betrayed, and fled towards the enemy with great precipitation. This gave an opportunity for Edward's routed wing to rally: the charge was renewed by the Yorkifts with great vigour; and the diforder and confufion became general among Warwick's troops.

The Earl of Warwick in vain exerted his moft vigorous ef forts, in order to rally and encourage his difpirited forces. And his fending off his horfes at the beginning of the engagement, in order to convince his men that he was determined to fhare the fate of the meaneft foldier in the army, did in the end contribute to his defeat. Because it prevented his being perfonally prefent in every place where his direction and affiftance were neceffary, and becaufe his men were no longer animated by the fight of their Commander, under whofe eye they believed themfelves to be unconquerable. At length, the Earl of Warwick, after having performed every thing that could be expected from the most confummate General, and the moft undaunted hero, and difdaining life when victory was gone, rushed into the middle of Edward's ranks, and fell in the midst of his enemies, cowered with wounds. His brother, the Marquis of Montague, met with the fame fate. The Earl of Warwick's death compleated the defeat of his army, and King Edward remained

master of the field.

Such was the end of RICHARD NEVIL, Earl of Warwick, who appears to have been the greatest man of his time; and in fortune, power, and influence, was the most confiderable fubject who ever appeared in England." He was," fays Mr. Hume, the greatest, as well as the laft, of thofe mighty Ba

rons, who formerly overawed the Crown, and rendered the "people incapable of any regular fyftem of civil government." The Earl of Warwick was fometimes called THE KING-MAKER, becaufe he placed Edward IV. upon the Throne, and afterwards, dethroning him again, reftored Henry VI. It is obferved by Rapin, that "fince the beginning of the quarrel be"tween the Houfes of Lancaster and York, the Earl of War"wick had made in England fo great a figure, as no fubject "had ever done the like before him. In a word, he had made "and unmade Kings just as he pleafed. This (adds the hiftorian) is the moft glorious thing that could be faid of a private man, if true glory confifted in excess of power." Indeed, it must be acknowledged, that little can be faid in defence of the Earl of Warwick's moral character. For it appears evidently, that he facrificed every thing to his ambition; and that to indulge his own paffions, and private refentments, h made no fcruple of involving his country in all the horrors. and calamities of civil war.

The bodies of the Earl of Warwick and his brother Montague were conveyed to London after the battle, and exposed to public view in two coffins in St. Paul's cathedral, for three days

together,

together, and afterwards King Edward allowed them to be de-. cently buried in the priory of Bifham in Berkshire, among their ancestors. It appears that the Earl of Warwick had a grant from the Crown, of preheminence above all English Earls; he was also a Knight of the Garter; and had, on account of his greatness, a peculiar officer called WARWICK-HERALD.

His Lady, the Countefs of Warwick, was reduced to great fraits after her husband's death. The cafe of this Lady was peculiarly hard; fhe had poffeffed, in her own right, one of the most confiderable eftates in the kingdom; but all her inheritance was taken from her, and fettled upon her daughters; and they appear fo much to have neglected her, that she is faid to have been forced to take fanctuary in abbies, in a very mean condition, till in the reign of Henry VII, the acts of Parliament, by which he was deprived of her estates, were repealed; she furviving her husband many years.

The Earl of Warwick left no male iffue. His eldest daughser, Ifabel, was, as is related in the foregoing life, married to George, Duke of Clarence (n). His other daughter, Anne, who was first married to Edward, Prince of Wales, fon to King Henry VI. was afterwards married to that cruel tyrant, Richard III. one of the murderers of her first husband. She had one fon by Richard, who died an infant; and she was carried of herfelf in 1484, partly by the unkind treatment she received from Richard, and partly, as is fuppofed, by poison administered to her by him.

(n) The Duke of Clarence, notwithstanding all his fervices in deferting the Earl of Warwick, was never able to regain the King his brother's friendship. And in 1478, a pretended accufation of treat nable defigns was brought against him; in coniequence of which, though the charge was very ill fupported, he was put to death, at the inftigation chiefly of his brother Gloucefter. It is faid, however, that he was favoured with the choice of his own death,

and that he was privately drowned in a butt of Malmsey in the Tower. He had by his Dutchefs, Warwick's daughter, a son named Edward, who was ftiled Earl of Warwick, and was beheaded on Tower-Hill in the reign of Henry VII. and a daughter, named Margaret, Countess of Salif. bury, who was alfo beheaded on Tower-Hill, in the reign of Henry VIII. when he was upwards of fe venty years of age.

THE

The Life of Sir JOHN FORTESCUE, Lord High Chancellor of England.

J

OHN FORTESCUE was defcended from the antient family of the Fortefcues in Devonshire; but there is no certain account of the time, or place of his birth; and there is fome diverfity in the accounts of his immediate parentage. But the account which appears to be the best fupported, is, that he was the third fon of Sir Henry Fortefeue, Lord Chief Juftice of Ireland; though it is highly probable that he was born in the Weft of England (o). Nor is there any certain account in what Univerfity he ftudied, or, indeed, whether he ftudied in any; but, according to Bishop Tanner, he was educated in Exeter College, Oxford; and which, from the great learning diffufed throughout his writings, and particularly his great kill in the civil law, appears not improbable.

When he turned his thoughts to the municipal laws of England, he refolved to betake himself to that profeffion. Accordingly, in purfuance of this determination, he fettled in Lincoln's-Inn, where he quickly diftinguished himself in a very uncommon manner; and where, it is afferted, that his lectures were crowded, on account of the high reputation which he had acquired, in the civil as well as in the common law. And it is a very remarkable circumstance, that at the period in which Fortefcue lived, in which learning in general appears manifeftly to have been at a very low ebb, the particular study of the law eminently flourished (p). In an age in which we meet not

(o) Mr. Prince, in his Wertbies of Devorbire, fays, that Sir John Fortefcue, Knight, Lord Chief Juftice, and Lord High Chancellor of England, was born most likely at Nor reis, in the parish of North Huish, near South Brent, in the county of Devon. He fays alfo, that he was the fecond fon of Sir John Fortefcue, of Norreis. But Lord Fortefcue, formerly one of the juftices of the Court of King's Bench, and af. terwards of the Common Pleas, was very clear that he was the third fon of Sir Henry Fortefcue, Lord Chief

with

Juftice of Ireland; which Sir Henry was fon of Sir John Fortescue, whe had the honour of Knighthood conferred on him for his valour in the French wars under Henry V. and was made Governor of Meaux in Berry.

(p) Sir John Fortefcue, in his excellent treatife, entitled, De Laudibus Legum Anglike, which was written by him for the instruction of Prince Edward, fon to King Henry VI. has given us a very curious account of the state of the Inns of Court and Chancery in his time. Addrefing

Limfeif

with a fingle writer, on any other fubject or science, worth reading, except for the fake of antiquity; in which neither Philofopher, Poet, Divine, or Hiftorian, of any eminence, appeared; a treatife on the common law of England was written, which Lord

Lord Coke has declared to be "the most perfect and abfolute "work that ever was written in any human fience (q).

The first date which occurs with refpect to Fortefcue's preferments, is the fourth year of the reign of Henry VI. when he was made one of the Governors of Lincoln's Inn, and was honoured again with the fame employment three years after. In Michaelmas term, 1430, he was promoted to the degree of Serjeant at Law, and kept his feaft upon that occafion with great fplendour (r). In 1441, he was made one of the King's Serjeants at Law; and the following year he was conftituted Chief Juftice of the King's Bench at Weftminster, He was greatly esteemed for the gravity, wifdom, and integrity, with which he prefided in that court for many years. He continued in great favour with the King, of which, in the twentieth year of his reign, he received a fignal proof, by an unusual augmen tation of his falary; for befides the ufual allowance of a Chief Juftice, he had granted him an annuity of one hundred and eighty marks out of the Hanaper; a great fum in those days.

Sir John Fortefcue held his high office throughout the whole reign of Henry the Sixth, to whom he very feadily adhered, and whom he ferved with great fidelity in all his troubles. And on this account, in the firit Parliament under King Edward IV. which began at Weminfter on the 4th of November, 1461, he was attainted of high treason, by the fame Act of Parliament in which King Henry VI. Queen Margaret, Edward their fon, the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, and the Earls of Devonshire and Pembroke, and a great number of perfons of diftinction, were likewife attainted. And on the thirteenth of March following, Sir John Markham was appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Fortefcue's room.

(9) Sir Thomas Lyttleton's treatife on the tenures or titles, by which all eftates were antiently held in England. Vid. Pref. to Coke's Inftitutes, 2d Edit. Befides Fortefsue and Lyttleton, Lord Coke enumerates feveral other famous and expert fages of the law in the fame age; particularly Sir John June, Sir John Hody, Sir John Markham, and Sir Thomas Billing, Juftices of the King's Bench; and Sir Richard Newton, Sir John Prifot, Sir Robert Danby, Sir Thomas Brian, Sir Pierce Arderne, Sir Richard Choke, and Walter Moyle, Juftices of the Court of Common Pleas.

(r) In that treatife of his which we have already mentioned, he takes notice, that thofe who were raised to the degree of Serjeant, according to the custom then in fe, gave a

After

great dinner, like the feast at a King's coronation, and continued their entertainmonts for feven days; which, when there were eight Serjeants made at a time, amounted to three thoufand two hundred marks, or four hundred marks a piece. He is very particular in marking the number and price of the gold rings; of which, he fays, not fo much as a clerk in the Common Pleas, but received one, and that when himself was called to the degree of Serjeant, thofe rings coft him fifty pounds. He takes notice likewife, that none could be raised to the office of a Judge, either in the King's Bench, or Com-. mon Pleas, but must be of the degree of a Serjeant; to which degree men could not then he raised, till they had been at kaft fixteen years at the bar.