BARNET, residential district, Hertfordshire, England; I om. north of London, served by the L.N.E. railway. The three chief divisions are as follows :—(I ) CHIPPING or HIGH BARNET, a market town and urban district (Barnet) . Pop. (1931) 14,721. The second epithet denotes its position on a hill; the first derives from the market ("cheaping") granted to the abbots of St. Albans by Henry II. An obelisk marks the field of a battle fought during the Wars of the Roses. There are paper works and metal works in the neighbourhood. The town is on the Great North road on which it was formerly an important coaching station ; a large annual horse fair is still held. The Barnet By-Pass road (1927) runs near the town. (2) EAST BARNET 2m. south of Chipping Barnet has a church containing specimens of Norman architecture. This region is a residential area for London. Pop. of urban district 18,S42. (3) NEW BARNET lies rm. east by south from Chipping Barnet. FRIERN BARNET, urban district, Middlesex, lies 3m. south of Chipping Barnet. Pop. (1931) 23,081. The prefix recalls the former lordship of the manor held by the friary of St. John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell, London. Friern Barnet adjoins Finchley on the north and Whetstone on the south. The district is residential for London, and has many workers in wood and metal. (X.) Battle of Barnet.—The battle fought at Barnet between Yorkists and Lancastrians on April 14, 1471, actually decided the issue of the long-protracted English Wars of the Roses, though it was not until Tewkesbury, three weeks later, that the last effort of the Lancastrian forces was crushed. After Barnet the Yorkist Edward IV. entered the capital as king, leaving his powerful enemy, Warwick the kingmaker, dead upon the field, and the sub sequent murder in the Tower of London of the rightful sovereign, Henry VI., made his throne secure. Edward had been driven from the country the previous year. He landed with a small ex pedition on the Yorkshire coast, whereupon it became between Yorkists and Lancastrians a contest of march and manoeuvre to reach London first. Edward arrived before the city walls on April II, and by treachery within the gates were opened to him. He stayed only two days, to pray at St. Paul's for victory and to take out the feeble Henry VI. as a hostage in his camp, after which he doubled back to find the Lancastrian army, led by Warwick, drawn up for battle facing London, upon a plain "half a mile from Barnet" (Paston Letters). The battlefield can be accurately identified as Hadley Green.
The battle took place on the morning of Easter Day, in dense mist, the armies closely confronting one another. Edward had moved his troops forward at nightfall, determined that his enemy should not escape. Fortune at the outset favoured the Lan castrians. The Earl of Oxford and Lord Montagu, commanding a strong body of horse, crushed the Yorkist left wing, driving the force before them off the field and back through Barnet town towards Enfield Chase. The first news received in London was that the Yorkist cause was lost. The pursuit was carried too far, and the soldiers stayed to plunder. Oxford, guided by the noise of battle, led his troops back, and wheeling in the fog after having reissued from the houses of Barnet, he suddenly found himself brought up against a strong body of archers, who shot into his ranks. It was the Lancastrian centre, largely composed of the Duke of Somerset's retainers. Much execution was done before the mistake was realized, and when at length recognition was made each party suspected treacherous desertion to the Yorkists in the other, and the fratricidal killing continued. Edward, in formed of the cause of the melee on his front, launched his re serves in full strength against the Lancastrians' confused ranks, which were pierced and broken. Somerset, now convinced of treachery, fled with the Lancastrian centre in one direction, Oxford in another, leaving the Earl of Warwick and the left wing to be surrounded and cut down by the exultant Yorkists. Edward hur riedly made for London, having ordered that no quarter should be given to the common soldiers in the pursuit. An obelisk on Hadley Green marks the traditional spot where Warwick fell. Sir John Paston, who fought with the Lancastrians, computed the killed on both sides at "more than a thousand." (W. G. B.)