From no period in our annals do we turn with such weariness and disgust.

Their savage battles, their ruthless executions, their shameless treasons, seem all the more terrible from the pure selfishness of the ends for which men fought, for the utter want of all nobleness and chivalry in the contest itself, of all great result in its close.

And it is this moral disorganization that expresses itself in the men whom the civil war left behind it.

Of honour, of loyalty, of good faith, Warwick knew nothing.

He had fought for the House of Neville rather than for the House of York, had set Edward on the throne as a puppet whom he could rule at his will, and his policy seemed to have gained its end in leaving the Earl master of the realm.
[Sidenote: Edward the Fourth] In the three years which followed Towton the power of the Nevilles overshadowed that of the king.