He hastened to secure the person of Henry VI, who was locked up in the Tower of London, before reuniting with his wife Elizabeth Woodville and his children, who had taken refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey since October.

Guessing that Margaret intended to rally reinforcements in Wales, Edward quickly assembled his army and left the command of London to his brother-in-law Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers.

However, the most dangerous Lancastrian forces were in Kent, where Thomas Neville, a cousin of Warwick, had been tasked since January with patrolling the English Channel to intercept Edward IV's fleet.

Edward IV was also informed of Neville's uprising and quickly ordered an army to be summoned to defend the capital, so that a week later he found himself with a force of 30,000 men under his command, according to Warkworth's Chronicle.

The reason he persisted in a siege was probably the presence of Henry VI in the Tower of London: despite the death of his only son, his release would revive the cause of the House of Lancaster.

Informed of Edward IV's arrival in Coventry, Neville withdrew to Southwark to avoid being caught in a pincer movement and lined up his cannons with the aim of bombarding the Tower of London, where not only Elizabeth Woodville and her children were present, but also Henry VI.

However, reinforcements led by Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, came to support the London militia; estimated at 4,500 men, they inflicted many losses on Neville's insurgents and pushed them back from the banks of the Thames, without however preventing them from taking 50 of Gould's butcher's oxen destined for the Tower garrison on their ships.

Meanwhile, Neville removed his cannons from his ships and lined them up on the right bank of the Thames to cover some of his men, who again attacked London Bridge and set fire to the small buildings there, in order to clear a point of entry into the city without having to pass through a gate.

[6] It is possible that Neville was informed of the imminent arrival of Edward IV's vanguard, who had been warned on 13 May by Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, of the collapse of the Yorkshire uprising after the announcement of his victory at Tewkesbury and had dispatched on 14 May 1,500 men from Coventry to support Rivers.

That same night, Henry VI died suddenly in the Tower, most likely assassinated at the instigation of Edward in order to eliminate any threat from the House of Lancaster, Neville's uprising having no doubt underlined the danger of leaving the deposed king alive.

The king's severity was excessive on this occasion: the Lord mayor of Canterbury Nicholas Faunt was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered on 29 May, and many executions or fines were carried out.