It was the curse of the strife of the Roses that treachery and a change of sides was always suspected, and too often with good cause, between men who had been friends and allies heretofore.

The Duke of Somerset at once concluded that Lord Wenlock had turned traitor to the cause, and riding furiously up to him as he sat, he dashed out his brains with his battle-axe, without so much as pausing to ask a single question.
The followers of both leaders who saw the deed were struck with new terror.

With loud cries of "Treason, treason!" they threw down their arms and fled they knew not whither, and the retreat became a confused rout, in which the thought of each man was to save his own life.
Such, in brief, was the deplorable story of the battle of Tewkesbury.

But we are concerned less with the main course of the fortunes of the day than with the individual adventures of certain persons concerned, who, if isolated acts of gallantry and devotion could have saved the day, would have turned the fortunes of even the fatal field of Tewkesbury.
The prince was stationed in the main body of the army, under the care, as was supposed by his anxious mother, of the military Prior of St.John's Longstruther.

And by his side was his faithful shadow, Paul, whose solemn purpose that day was to keep beside the prince throughout the course of the battle, and shield him from harm even at the cost of his own life.