Warwick was now all-powerful in the state, but the cessation of the war was the signal for a silent strife between the Earl and his young sovereign.

In Edward indeed Warwick was to meet not only a consummate general but a politician whose subtlety and rapidity of conception were far above his own.

As a mere boy Edward had shown himself among the ablest and the most pitiless of the warriors of the civil war.
He had looked on with cool ruthlessness while grey-haired nobles were hurried to the block.

The terrible bloodshed of Towton woke no pity in his heart; he turned from it only to frame a vast bill of attainder which drove twelve great nobles and a hundred knights to beggary and exile.

When treachery placed his harmless rival in his power he visited him with cruel insult.