The Wars of the Roses

After having so auspiciously commenced his Northumbrian campaign, Montagu paused; but when Edward did not appear, the noble warden lost patience, and determined to strike a decisive blow. Hearing that the Lancastrians were encamped on Level's Plain, on the south side of the Dowel Water, near Hexham, he, on the 8th of May, bore down upon their camp. Somerset, who commanded the Lancastrians, was taken by surprise, and, indeed, had at no time the martial skill to contend with such a captain as Montagu. The northern men, however, met the unexpected attack with their usual intrepidity; but their courage proved of no avail. For a time, it appears that neither side could boast of any advantage; till Montagu, growing impatient, urged his men to "do it valiantly;" and, after a desperate effort, the Yorkists entered the queen's camp. A bloody conflict ensued; the Lancastrians were put to the rout; poor Henry fled in terror and amaze, and, mounted on a swift steed, contrived to get out of the fray, leaving part of his equipage in the hands of the victors.

A few days after Hexham, Edward arrived at York, and, having been there met by Montagu, was presented with the high cap of state called "Abacot," which Henry of Windsor had left behind on the day of battle. Out of gratitude, the king granted to his victorious warden the earldom of Northumberland, which, having been forfeited by the Percies, whose heir was then either a captive in the Tower or an exile in Scotland, could hardly have been more appropriately bestowed than on a lineal descendant of Cospatrick and Earl Uchtred.

Edward, however, had to punish as well as reward, and such of the Lancastrians as fell into the hands of the victors were treated with extreme severity. Somerset, who knew not where to turn, who had no reason to expect mercy in England, and no reason to expect protection in Scotland – since his revelations as to Mary of Gueldres had led Warwick to break off matrimonial negotiations on behalf of Edward – was discovered lurking in a wood, carried to Hexham, tried by martial law, and beheaded. The ill-starred duke died unmarried, but not without issue; and his descendants, in the illegitimate line, were destined to occupy a high place among the modern aristocracy of England. It happened that a fair being, named Joan Hill, without being a wife, became a mother. Of her son, Somerset was understood to be the father. After the duke's execution, the boy went by the name of Charles Somerset; and, as years passed over, he won the favor of the Tudors. By Henry the Eighth he was created Earl of Worcester; and by Charles the Second the Earls of Worcester were elevated in the peerage to the dukedom of Beaufort.

About the time when Somerset perished on the scaffold, the Red Rose lost a chief, scarcely less conspicuous, by the death of Lord de Roos. His widow found a home with her eldest daughter, the wife of Sir Robert Manners, of Etal; his son Edmund escaped to the Continent; and his Castle of Belvoir, inherited through an ancestress from William de Albini, was granted by King Edward to William Hastings, who, since Towton, had become a baron of the realm, and husband of Warwick's sister, Katherine Neville, the widow of Lord Bonville, slain at Wakefield. Hastings hurried to Leicestershire, to take possession of Belvoir; but the county, faithful to the banished De Roos, turned out under an esquire named Harrington and compelled the Yorkist lord to fly. Perceiving that to hold the castle under such circumstances would be no easy task, Hastings returned with a large force, spoiled the building, and carried off the leads to the stately pile he was rearing at Ashby de la Zouch.

The Lord Hungerford, with Sir Humphrey Neville, and William Tailbois, whom the Lancastrians called Earl of Kent, died, like Somerset, on the scaffold. But a punishment much more severe was added in the case of Sir Ralph Grey. This unfortunate renegade, when found in the Castle of Bamburgh, was condemned, ere being executed, to degradation from the rank of knighthood. Every thing was prepared for the ceremony; and the master cook, with his apron and knife, stood ready to strike off the gilded spurs close by the heels. But from respect to the memory of the knight's grandfather, who had suffered much for the king's ancestors, this part of the punishment was remitted.

The hopes of the Lancastrians could hardly have survived so signal a disaster as their defeat at Hexham, if one circumstance had not rendered the victory of Montagu incomplete. Margaret of Anjou had, as if by miracle, escaped; and, while she was in possession of life and liberty, friends and adversaries were alike conscious that no battle, however bravely fought or decisively won, could secure the crown or assure the succession to the house of York.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WOODVILLES

About the opening of 1464, Edward, King of England, then in his twenty-fourth year, was diverting himself with the pleasures of the chase in the forest of Whittlebury.

One day, when hunting in the neighborhood of Grafton, the king rode to that manor-house and alighted to pay his respects to Jacqueline, Duchess of Bedford. The visit was, perhaps, not altogether prompted by courtesy. He was then watching, with great suspicion, the movements of the Lancastrians, and he probably hoped to elicit from the duchess, who was a friend of Margaret of Anjou, some intelligence as to the intentions of the faction to which she belonged – forgetting, by-the-by, that the duchess was a woman of great experience, and had long since, under trying circumstances, learned how to make words conceal her thoughts.

Jacqueline of Luxembourg, a daughter of the Count of St. Pol, when young, lively, and beautiful, found herself given in marriage to John, Duke of Bedford. John was a famous man, doubtless, but very considerably the senior of his bride; and when he died at Rouen, Jacqueline probably considered that, in any second matrimonial alliance, she ought to take the liberty of consulting her own taste. In any case, one of the duke's esquires, Richard Woodville by name, was appointed to escort her to England; and he, being among the handsomest men in Europe, made such an impression on the heart of the youthful widow, that a marriage was the result. For seven long years their union was kept secret; but at length circumstances rendered concealment impossible, and the marriage became a matter of public notoriety.

The discovery that the widow of the foremost prince and soldier of Europe had given her hand to a man who could not boast of a patrician ancestor or a patriotic achievement caused much astonishment, and such was the indignation of Jacqueline's own kinsmen that Woodville never again ventured to show his face on the Continent. To the esquire and the duchess, however, the consequences, though inconvenient, were not ruinous. A fine of a thousand pounds was demanded from Woodville; and, having paid that sum, he was put in possession of Jacqueline's castles.

As time passed on, the Duchess of Bedford, as "a foreign lady of quality," insinuated herself into the good graces of Margaret of Anjou; and Woodville was, through the interest of his wife, created a baron. About the same period their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, became a maid of honor to the queen, and, subsequently, wife of John Grey of Groby, a zealous Lancastrian, who died after the second battle of St. Albans. Finding herself a widow, and the times being troublous, Elizabeth placed herself under the protection of her mother at Grafton. There she was residing when the Yorkist king appeared to pay his respects to the duchess.

Elizabeth probably regarded Edward's visit as providential. She had two sons; and, as the partisans of York were by no means in a humor to practice excessive leniency to the vanquished, the heirs of Grey were in danger of losing lands and living for their father's adherence to the Red Rose. Believing that she had now a capital opportunity of obtaining the removal of the attainder, she resolved to throw herself at the king's feet and implore his clemency.

An oak-tree between Grafton and Whittlebury Forest has since been indicated by tradition as the scene of Elizabeth Woodville's first interview with Edward of York. Standing under the branches, holding her sons by the hand, and casting down her eyes with an affectation of extreme modesty, the artful widow succeeded in arresting his attention. Indeed, there was little chance of Edward of York passing such a being without notice. Elizabeth was on the shady side of thirty, to be sure; but time had not destroyed the charms that, fifteen years earlier, had brought suitors around the portionless maid of honor. Her features were remarkable for regularity; her complexion was fair and delicate, and her hair of that pale golden hue then deemed indispensable in a beauty of rank.

Edward's eye was arrested, and, being in the fever of youth, with a heart peculiarly susceptible, he was captivated by the fair suppliant. Too young and confident to believe in the possibility of his addresses being rejected, the king made love, though not in such terms as please the ear of a virtuous woman. Elizabeth, however, conducted herself with rare discretion, and made her royal lover understand that monarchs sometimes sigh in vain. At length the duchess took the matter in hand; and, under the influence of a tactician so expert, the enamored king set prudential considerations at defiance, and offered to take the young widow for better or for worse. A secret marriage was then projected; Jacqueline applied her energies to the business; and, with her experience of matrimonial affairs, the duchess found no difficulty in arranging every thing to satisfaction.

The ceremony was fixed for the 1st of May, and, since privacy was the object, the day was well chosen. Indeed, May-day was the festival which people regarded as next in importance to Christmas; and they were too much taken up with its celebration to pry into the secrets of others. It was while milkmaids, with pyramids of silver plate on their heads, were dancing from door to door, and every body was preparing to dance round the maypole, that Edward secretly met his bride at the chapel of Grafton, and solemnized that marriage which was destined to bring such evils on the country. As the duchess probably suspected that it was not the first time the king had figured as a bridegroom, she was careful, in the event of any dispute arising, to provide herself with other witnesses than the priest and the mass-boy. With this view she brought two of her waiting-women; and the king, having gone through the ceremony, took his departure as secretly as he came. Ere long, however, Edward intimated to the father of the bride that he intended to spend some time with him at Grafton; and Woodville, who still feigned ignorance of the marriage, took care that his royal son-in-law should have nothing to complain of in regard to the entertainment.

Having thus wedded her daughter to the chief of the White Rose, the Duchess of Bedford converted her husband and sons from violent Lancastrians into unscrupulous Yorkists, and then manifested a strong desire to have the marriage acknowledged. This was a most delicate piece of business, and, managed clumsily, might have cost the king his crown. It happened, however, that while Edward, in the shades of Grafton, had forgotten every thing that he ought to have remembered, Montagu, by his victory at Hexham, had so firmly established Edward's power that the king deemed himself in a position to inflict signal chastisement on any one venturesome enough to dispute his sovereign will. Nevertheless, it was thought prudent to ascertain the feeling of the nation before taking any positive step; and agents were employed for that purpose.

Warwick and Montagu were not, of course, the men for this kind of work. The chief person engaged in the inquiry, indeed, appears to have been Sir John Howard, a knight of Norfolk, whose family had, in the fourteenth century, been raised from obscurity by a successful lawyer, and, in the fifteenth, elevated somewhat higher by a marriage with the Mowbrays, about the time when the chief of that great house was under attainder and in exile. Howard, inspired, perhaps, by his Mowbray blood, cherished an ardent ambition to enroll his name among the old nobility of England; and, to get one inch nearer the gratification of his vanity, he appears to have undertaken any task, however undignified. Even on this occasion he was not by any means too nice for the duty to be performed; and he was careful to return an answer likely to please those who were most interested. Finding that the Woodvilles were rising in the world, he reported, to their satisfaction, that the people were well disposed in regard to the king's marriage. At the same time the aspiring knight was not forgetful of his own interests. He entreated the Woodvilles to obtain, for himself and his spouse, places in the new queen's household; and, by way of securing Elizabeth's favor, presented her with a palfrey, as a mark of his devotion to her service. What dependence was to be placed on the faith or honor of Sir John Howard, Elizabeth Woodville found twenty years later, when her hour of trial and tribulation came.

And now Edward, whose fortunes half the royal damsels of Europe, among others Isabella of Castile, afterward the great Queen of Spain, were eager to share, resolved upon declaring his marriage to the world; and, with that purpose, he summoned a great council, to meet at the Abbey of Reading, in the autumn of 1464. Having there presented Elizabeth to the assembled peers as their queen, he ordered preparations to be made for her coronation in the ensuing spring.

In the mean time, the king's marriage caused serious discontent. Warwick and Edward's brother, the young Duke of Clarence, in particular, expressed their displeasure; the barons murmured that no King of England, since the Conquest, had dared to marry his own subject; and ladies of high rank, like the Nevilles and De Veres, were, in no slight degree, indignant at having set over them one whom they had been accustomed to consider an inferior. At the same time, the multitude, far from regarding the marriage with the favor which Sir John Howard had led the Woodvilles to believe, raised the cry that the Duchess of Bedford was a witch, and that it was under the influence of the "forbidden spells" she practiced that the young king had taken the fatal step of espousing her daughter.

But nobody was more annoyed at Edward's marriage than his own mother, Cicely, Duchess of York, who, in other days, had been known in the north as "The Rose of Raby," and who now maintained great state at Baynard's Castle. From the beginning, Elizabeth found no favor in the eyes of her mother-in-law. With the beauty of the Nevilles, Cicely inherited a full share of their pride; and, in her husband's lifetime, she had assumed something like regal state. To such a woman an alliance with third-rate Lancastrians was mortifying, and she bitterly reproached her son with the folly of the step he had taken. Moreover, she upbraided him with faithlessness to another lady; but Edward treated the matter with characteristic recklessness. "Madam," said he, "for your objection of bigamy, by God's Blessed Lady, let the bishop lay it to my charge when I come to take orders; for I understand it is forbidden to a priest, though I never wist it was forbidden to a prince."

Not insensible, however, to the sneers of which Elizabeth was the object, Edward determined on proving to his subjects that his bride was, after all, of royal blood, and therefore no unfit occupant of a throne. With this purpose he entreated Charles the Rash, Count of Charolois, and heir of Burgundy, to send her uncle, James of Luxembourg, to the coronation. The count, it appears, had never acknowledged the existence of the Duchess of Bedford since her second marriage; but, on hearing of the position Jacqueline's daughter had attained, his sentiments as to the Woodville alliance underwent a complete change, and he promised to take part in the coronation.

Faithful to his promise, the count appeared in England with a magnificent retinue; and his niece was brought from the palace of Eltham, conducted in great state through the city of London, and crowned, with much pomp, at Westminster. Hardly, however, had Elizabeth Woodville been invested with the symbols of royalty, than she found the crown sit uneasily on her head. The efforts made to render King Edward's marriage popular had failed. Even the presence of a Count of Luxembourg had not produced the effect anticipated. Still the old barons of England grumbled fiercely; and still the people continued to denounce the Duchess of Bedford as a sorceress who had bewitched the king into marrying her daughter. Ere long, this widow of a Lancastrian knight, when sharing the throne of the Yorkist king, found that, with the White Rose, she had plucked the thorn.

The new queen conducted herself in such a way as rapidly to increase the prejudices of the nation. After her marriage she too frequently reminded people of the school in which she had studied the functions of royalty. Indeed, Elizabeth Woodville, when elevated to a throne, assumed a tone which great queens like Eleanor of Castile and Philippa of Hainault would never have dreamed of using. Charitably inclined as the patrician ladies of England might be, they could hardly help remarking that Margaret of Anjou's maid of honor did credit to the training of her mistress.

The people of England might have learned to bear much from Edward's wife; but, unfortunately, the queen was intimately associated in the public mind with the rapacity of her "kindred." Elizabeth's father, Richard Woodville, was created Earl Rivers, and appointed Treasurer of England; and she had numerous brothers and sisters, for all of whom fortunes had to be provided. Each of the sisters was married to a noble husband – Katherine, the youngest, to Henry Stafford, the boy-Duke of Buckingham; and for each of the brothers an heiress to high titles and great estates had to be found. Unfortunately, while the Woodvilles were pursuing their schemes of family aggrandizement, their interests clashed with those of two powerful and popular personages. These were the Duchess of York and the Earl of Warwick.

Among the old nobility of England, whose names are chronicled by Dugdale, the Lord Scales occupied an eminent position. At an early period they granted lands to religious houses and made pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and in later days fought with the Plantagenet kings in the wars of Scotland and France. The last chief of the name, who, after Northampton, suffered for his fidelity to the house of Lancaster, left no sons. One daughter, however, survived him; and this lady, having been married to a younger son of the Earl of Essex, was now a widow, twenty-four years of age, and one of the richest heiresses in England.

Upon the heiress of Scales, Elizabeth Woodville and the Duchess of York both set their hearts. The Duchess wished to marry the wealthy widow to her son George, Duke of Clarence; and the queen was not less anxious to bestow the young lady's hand on her brother, Anthony Woodville, who was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of the age. The contest between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law was, doubtless, keen. The queen, however, carried her point; and the duchess retreating, baffled and indignant, wrapped herself up in cold hauteur.

Of all the English heiresses of that day, the greatest, perhaps, was the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Exeter. The duke, having fought at Towton and Hexham for the Red Rose, was now braving poverty and exile for the house of Lancaster; but the duchess had not deemed it necessary to make any such sacrifice. Being a daughter of the Duke of York, she remained quietly at the court of King Edward, her brother, and, while enjoying the estates of her banished husband, acquired the right to dispose of his daughter's hand.

The heiress of the Hollands was, of course, a prize much coveted; and Warwick thought her hand so desirable, that he solicited her in marriage for his nephew, young George Neville, the son of Lord Montagu. The queen, however, was determined to obtain this heiress for her eldest son, Thomas Grey, who had been created Marquis of Dorset. The Duchess of Exeter was, accordingly, dealt with, and in such a fashion that the earl was disappointed, while the queen congratulated her son on having obtained a bride worthy of the rank to which he had been elevated.

Warwick was nephew of the Duchess of York, and both had already a grievance of which to complain. They were now to have their family pride wounded in a manner which, to souls so haughty, must have been well-nigh intolerable.

Long ere the Wars of the Roses were thought of, Katherine Neville, elder sister of the proud duchess, and aunt of "The Stout Earl," was espoused by John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The duke departed this life in 1433, and Katherine gave her hand to an esquire named Strangways. When time passed on, and Strangways died, she consoled herself with a third husband in the person of Viscount Beaumont. The viscount went the way the duke and the esquire had gone, and Katherine found herself a third time a widow. But the dowager had buried her share of husbands; she had passed the age of eighty; and as to a fourth dash at matrimony, that was surely a subject which could never have entered into her head.

The Woodvilles were aware of the existence of the old Duchess of Norfolk, and knew that the venerable dame was rich; and the queen's youngest brother remained to be provided for. Setting decency at defiance, they resolved upon a match; and though the wealthy dowager had considerably passed the age of fourscore, and John Woodville had just emerged from his teens, a marriage was solemnized. The nation was deeply disgusted with the avarice manifested on this occasion. Even Sir John Howard must now have confessed that the king's alliance with the Woodvilles was not quite so satisfactory to the people as he had predicted. The clamor raised was too loud and general to be either disregarded or suppressed. The Nevilles must have writhed under the ridicule to which their aged kinswoman was exposed; other adherents of the White Rose must have blushed for the disgrace reflected on Edward of York from his wife's family; and the Lancastrian exiles, wearing threadbare garments and bearing fictitious names, as they climbed narrow stairs and consumed meagre fare in the rich cities of Flanders, must have felt hope and taken heart, when to their ears came tidings of the shout of indignation which all England was raising against the new "queen's kindred."

CHAPTER XIX

THE LANCASTRIANS IN EXILE

On that day when Lord Montagu inflicted so severe a defeat on the Lancastrians at Hexham, and while the shouts of victory rose and swelled with the breeze, a lady of thirty-five, but still possessing great personal attractions, accompanied by a boy just entering his teens, fled for safety into a forest which then extended over the district, and was known far and wide as a den of outlaws. The lady was Margaret of Anjou; the boy was Edward of Lancaster; and, unfortunately for them, under the circumstances, the dress and appearance of the royal fugitives marked them too plainly as personages of the highest rank.

While treading the forest path with a tremulous haste, which indicated some apprehension of pursuit, Margaret and her son suddenly found themselves face to face with a band of ferocious robbers. The bandits were far from paying any respect to the queen's rank or sex. Having seized her jewels and other valuables, they dragged her forcibly before the chief of the gang, held a drawn sword before her eyes, and menaced her with instant death. Margaret besought them to spare her life, but her prayers and tears had no effect whatever in melting their hearts; and they appeared on the point of carrying their threats into execution, when, luckily, they fell to wrangling over the partition of the spoil, and, ere long, took to settling the dispute by strength of hand.

Alarmed, as Margaret well might be, she did not lose her presence of mind. No sooner did she observe the bandits fighting among themselves than she looked around for a way of escape; and, seizing a favorable opportunity, she hurried her son into a thicket which concealed them from view. Pursuing their way till the shades of evening closed over the forest, the royal fugitives, faint from fatigue and want of food, seated themselves under an oak-tree, and bewailed their fate.

No wonder that, at such moments of desolation and distress, the Lancastrian queen felt a temptation to rid herself of a life which misfortune made so miserable. Even the heroic spirit of Margaret might have given way under circumstances so depressing as those in which she was now placed. But a new and unexpected danger occurred to recall her to energy while indulging in those pensive reflections; for, as the moon began to shine through the branches of the trees, she suddenly became aware of the approach of an armed man of huge stature. At first she was under the impression that he was one of the robbers from whom she had already experienced treatment so cruel, and gave herself up for lost; but seeing, by the light of the moon, that his dress and appearance were quite different, she breathed a prayer, and resolved upon a great effort to save herself and her son.

Margaret knew that escape was impossible. She, therefore, made no attempt at flight; but, rising, she took her son by the hand, advanced to meet the man, explained in pathetic language the distress in which she was, and, as a woman and a princess, claimed his protection. "It is the unfortunate Queen of England," said Margaret, "who has fallen into your hands;" and then, suiting the action to the word, she added in accents not to be resisted, "There, my friend, I commit to your care the safety of your king's son."

The queen had taken a bold course, but she had correctly calculated the effect of her appeal. Her courage and presence of mind had saved her. The generosity of the outlaw prevailed; and, touched with the confidence reposed in him, he threw himself at Margaret's feet, and vowed to do all in his power to save the mother and the son. Having once promised, the man of the forest kept his word with a loyalty that his betters might have envied. He conducted the fugitives to his dwelling in a rock, which is still shown as "The Queen's Cave," instructed his wife to do every thing that would tend to their comfort, and promised to discover for them the means of escape.

Leaving Margaret and her son in his cave, the mouth of which was protected by the bank of a rivulet, and screened from view by brushwood, the outlaw went to inquire after such of her friends as had escaped the carnage of Hexham. More fortunate than could have been expected, he met Sir Peter Brezé, who was wandering about looking for the queen, and, soon after, Brezé found the Duke of Exeter, who had concealed himself in a neighboring village, and, with the duke, Edmund Beaufort, who had now, by the death of his brother on the scaffold, become head of the house of Somerset. With these noblemen, Margaret and the prince went secretly to Carlisle, and there, with the assistance of the generous outlaw, embarked for Kirkcudbright.

Margaret, on reaching Scotland, visited Edinburgh to make another appeal to the government, but was not successful in obtaining farther aid. In fact, although the matrimonial negotiations between Mary of Gueldres and Edward of York had come to naught, the Scottish government was now utterly hostile to the interests of Lancaster. The Duke of Burgundy, hereditary foe of Margaret, had sent Louis de Bruges, one of his noblemen, as embassador to the Scottish court, and contrived to make the regency play false, repudiate the marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Scotland, and conclude a treaty with the new King of England.

The Lancastrians now perceived that for the present action was impossible, and exile inevitable. Even in France their influence had diminished; for, since Margaret's visit to Paris, Mary of Anjou, her aunt and the mother of Louis, had died; and less inclination than ever felt the crafty king to make sacrifices for his fiery kinswoman. Margaret, therefore, yielded to fate, and, not without vowing vengeance on Burgundy, submitted to the harsh necessity of once more returning to the Continent. With this view, she repaired to Bamburgh, which was still held by Lancastrians, and with her son, and Sir Peter Brezé, and seven ladies, she embarked for France.

It was summer, but notwithstanding the season the weather proved unpropitious, and the unfortunate queen, driven by adverse winds, was under the necessity of putting into a port belonging to the Duke of Burgundy. Enemy of her father as the duke was, Margaret determined upon seeing him, and, suppressing all feelings of delicacy, she dispatched a messenger to demand an interview.

The house of Burgundy, like that of Anjou, derived descent from the kings of France, but had been blessed with far fairer fortunes. About 1360, on the death of Philip de Rouvre, the dukedom, having reverted to the crown, was bestowed by King John on his fourth son, Philip the Bold. Philip played his cards well. While his brother Charles was struggling with the English, he became an independent prince by espousing the heiress of Flanders; and his son, John the Fearless, played a conspicuous part in those civil commotions that preceded the battle of Agincourt. The son of John, known as Philip the Good, affected greater state than any prince of his age, and instituted the order of the Golden Fleece to mark the splendor of his reign.

Philip's first wife was Michelle, daughter of the King of France, and sister of Katherine de Valois. His second wife was Isabel of Portugal, a granddaughter of John of Gaunt. The good duke was, therefore, nearly and doubly connected with the house of Lancaster. Unfortunately, however, Philip had proved an enemy of King René; and Margaret, who from infancy had cherished a bitter hatred toward the house of Burgundy, was reputed to have vowed that if ever the duke was at her mercy the executioner's axe should pass between his head and his shoulders. Such having been the language held by the queen, it is not wonderful that the duke, while receiving her message with politeness, should have pleaded sickness as an excuse for not granting her a personal interview.

Margaret was in no mood to be satisfied with excuses. She had expressed her intention of seeing the duke, and was determined to accomplish her purpose. She was hardly in a condition, indeed, to pay a royal visit, for her purse was empty, and her wardrobe reduced to the smallest compass. But, scorning to be subdued by fortune, the queen hired a cart covered with canvas, and, leaving her son at Bruges, commenced her progress to St. Pol, where the duke was then residing. It was about the time when Margaret, dressed in threadbare garments, was traveling from Bruges to St. Pol in a covered cart, that, in the Abbey of Reading, her maid of honor, Elizabeth Woodville, was presented to peers and prelates as Queen of England.

While pursuing her journey, with a spirit of heroism which set outward circumstances at defiance, Margaret was met by Charles the Rash, that impersonation of feudal pride, whose exploits against the Swiss, when Duke of Burgundy, have been celebrated by Sir Walter Scott. Charles, at this time, had hardly passed the age of thirty, and, as son and heir of Philip the Good, with whom he was then at enmity, bore the title of Count of Charolois. As the son of Isabel of Portugal, and great-grandson of John of Gaunt, the count had always declared himself friendly to the house of Lancaster, and he now manifested his sympathy by treating Margaret with chivalrous respect. Moreover, on being made aware of her extreme poverty, Charolois presented her with five hundred crowns; and Burgundy, hearing of the landing of English forces at Calais, sent a body of his archers to escort her from Bethune to St. Pol. Having, after her interview with Charolois, pursued her way toward Bethune, and escaped some English horsemen who lay in wait to arrest her, she reached St. Pol in safety.

Duke Philip did not immediately grant Margaret an interview. After some delay, however, he indulged her wish; and, touched with compassion at the sight of a great queen reduced to a plight so hapless, entertained her with princely courtesy, and treated her with all the honors due to royalty. Having listened to the story of Margaret's woes, he gave her two thousand crowns of gold, and advised her to await events with patience. As Margaret parted from the duke her heart melted, and she shed tears as she bade adieu to the old man whom she had threatened to behead as she had done York and Salisbury. Perhaps on that occasion she, for one of the first times in her life, felt something like remorse. "The queen," says Monstrelet, "repented much and thought herself unfortunate that she had not sooner thrown herself on the protection of the noble Duke of Burgundy, as her affairs would probably have prospered better."