Richard and George left the tent together. “You know I could command as well as you, don’t you?” George said.

Arrogant prick, Richard thought. “Aye, I do not doubt you think that, George, but you have no one to blame but yourself, and I cannot pity you. Do you blame Edward for wanting to keep you close? To me you are no less a traitor than Warwick.” He strode off to his own tent.

George glared after his younger brother. “Runt,” he muttered, “and a deformed runt at that.”

The battle of Tewkesbury, with the magnificent abbey standing sentinel a half mile away, was a decisive but bloody climax to the quarrel between cousins. Edward’s four thousand Yorkist soldiers crushed Lancastrian Henry’s five thousand commanded by the duke of Somerset.

Once again, Edward owed much of the triumph to his youngest brother, Richard, whose force at first was taken by surprise by Somerset. But Richard held on valiantly, thanks to some two hundred spearmen concealed in a copse to his left, who at his command suddenly emerged from cover and scattered Somerset’s right flank. As the fleeing Lancastrians raced for sanctuary in the abbey, George and some of his men caught and killed young Edouard, giving George something to crow about and earning Edward’s gratitude.

“He whimpered like a pup,” George told the group gathered around Edward when the fighting was over. “He cried for his mother, poor baby. I killed him in revenge for Edmund.”

“Good for you, George,” Edward said. “But now, we must find Somerset.”

Richard caught George’s eye and acknowledged the revenge with a respectful nod before following the king and others in a search for the Lancastrian leaders. Most had taken sanctuary, but Edward, uncaring of his mortal soul, had them dragged out of the church and put in chains. This time Somerset and his cronies could expect no mercy from Edward, who had pardoned them for previous rebelling. Subsequently the next day, Richard, as constable of England, together with the earl marshal, Norfolk, tried them all for treason and had them executed in the town square. Richard stayed to watch, his heart hard, as one by one the heads rolled. “They should be shown no mercy,” he told Edward. “Not this time.”

His victory complete and his throne secure, Edward could afford to be magnanimous. He prohibited the rebels’ bodies to be quartered and exhibited in public places as was customary but instead had them buried in the churchyard. In deference to his rank, their prince, Edouard, was entombed in the abbey’s nave.

“This business is not finished until we find Margaret,” Edward declared, “but we go north from here. There is more trouble brewing.”