and mounted to strike for King Henry; not, perhaps, without some presentiment of filling a warrior's grave. But death by a mean hand the lordly warrior would not contemplate; and with a spirit as high as his progenitor, who fought at Acre with Richard Cœur de Lion, he could hardly dream of falling by a weapon less renowned than Warwick's axe, or Edward's lance, or the sword of William Hastings, who, in the young king's track, slaughtering as he rode, was winning golden spurs and broad baronies. No death so distinguished, however, awaited Lord Dacre of the North. While in a large field, known as the North Acre, and still in rustic tradition and rhyme associated with his name, the haughty Borderer, probably making a last effort to rally the beaten and retreating Lancastrians, was mortally wounded with an arrow shot by a boy out of an auberry-tree, and prostrated among dead and dying on the miry ground.

"All is lost," groaned Exeter and Somerset, in bitter mood, as together they spurred over mounds of slain, and galloped toward York, to warn the queen that her foes were conquerors. And well, indeed, might the Lancastrian dukes express themselves in accents of despair, for never before had an English army been in a more hapless plight than that which they were now leaving to its fate. At first, the retreat of the Lancastrians was conducted with some degree of order; but, ere long, their ranks were broken by the pursuing foe, and every thing was confusion as they fled in a mass toward Tadcaster. No leader of mark remained to direct or control the ill-fated army in the hour of disaster. John Heron, and Leo, Lord Welles, were slain. Andrew Trollope, after having "done marvelous deeds of valor," lay cold on the ground; Northumberland stooped his lofty crest as low as death; Devon and Wiltshire were heading the flight, and in vain endeavoring to place themselves beyond the vengeance of the victors. Resistance was hopeless; quarter was neither asked nor given; the carnage was so frightful that the road to York was literally red with the blood and strewn with the bodies of the slain; and the pursuit was so hot and eager that multitudes were drowned in attempting to cross the rivulet of Cock, while the corpses formed a bridge over which the pursuers passed. The brook ran purple with blood, and crimsoned, as it formed a junction with, the waters of the Wharfe.

Evening closed, at length, over the field of Towton, but without putting an end to the work of destruction. Till the noon of Monday the pursuit was keenly urged, and a running fight, kept up beyond the Tyne, caused much bloodshed.[7] The Chief Justice of England and the Parson of Blokesworth escaped. But Devon and Wiltshire were less fortunate. One was taken near York, the other seized near Cockermouth by an esquire named Richard Salkeld; and both were executed by martial law.

After his signal victory on Towton Field, Edward knighted Hastings, Humphrey Stafford, and others, and then rode in triumph to York. Henry, with Queen Margaret and the prince, having fled from the city, the inhabitants received him with humble submission; and, having taken down the heads of his kinsmen from the gates, and set up those of Devon and Wiltshire instead, Edward remained at York, and kept the festival of Easter with great splendor. After visiting Durham, and settling the affairs of the north, the young king turned his face toward London.

From the day on which Edward rode out of Bishopgate until Easter, the citizens had been in fearful suspense. At length a messenger reached Baynard's Castle to inform the Duchess of York that the Lancastrians had been routed; and, when the news spread, the metropolis was the scene of joy and rejoicing. Men of all ranks breathed freely, and thanked God for giving King Edward the victory; and minstrels, in grateful strains, sang the praise of the royal warrior who had saved the fair southern shires from the fierce and rude spearmen of the north.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE QUEEN'S STRUGGLES WITH ADVERSITY.

On Palm Sunday, when, on Towton Field, the armies of York and Lancaster were celebrating the festival with lances instead of palms, Margaret of Anjou, with the king, the Prince of Wales, and Lord De Roos, remained at York to await the issue of the conflict. The Lancastrians, when they rode forth, appeared so confident of victory that, in all probability, the queen was far from entertaining serious apprehensions. As the day wore on, however, Somerset and Exeter spurred into the city, announced that all was lost, and recommended a speedy flight.

Margaret was not the woman to faint in the day of adversity. The news brought by her discomfited partisans was indeed hard to hear, but their advice was too reasonable to be rejected. Dauntless in defeat, as merciless in victory, that resolute princess could, even at such a moment, dream of fresh chances, and calculate the advantages to be derived from placing herself beyond the reach of her enemies. Besides, it was necessary to do something, and that quickly. The day, indeed, was cold and stormy; but what were snow and sleet in comparison with the Yorkist foe, headed by a chief who had proved at Mortimer's Cross that he could exercise a degree of cruelty almost as unsparing as that of which, at Wakefield, she had been guilty? The queen, therefore, determined on carrying her husband and her son to Scotland; and the whole party, mounting in haste, rode northward with all the speed of which their horses were capable.

The way was long and the weather was cold; but the fear of pursuit overbore all such considerations, and the royal fugitives were fortunate enough to reach Newcastle without being overtaken by the light horsemen whom Edward had sent out in pursuit. From the banks of the Tyne the queen proceeded to Berwick, and thence found her way to Kirkcudbright. In that ancient town of Galloway, near which, on an island in Lockfergus, stood the palace of the old kings of the province, Margaret left her husband to tell his beads, while she undertook a journey to Edinburgh, that she might concert measures for another effort to retrieve her disasters.

At the Scottish court the unfortunate queen was received with distinction, and warm sympathy was expressed for her mishaps. But the Scots, though dealing in fair words, were in no mood to assist Margaret without a consideration; and, to tempt them, she agreed to surrender the town of Berwick, the capital of the East Marches and the last remnant of the great Edwards' conquests in Scotland.

Berwick having thus been placed in their possession, the Scots commenced operations in favor of the Red Rose. One army attacked Carlisle, another made an incursion into the Bishopric of Durham. Both expeditions resulted in failure. Early in June, Warwick's brother, John Neville, Lord Montagu, defeated the Scots under the walls of Carlisle; and, ere the close of that month, the Lancastrians, under Lord De Roos, were routed at Ryton and Brancepath, in Durham.

Margaret, however, was in no humor to submit to fortune. Finding the Scottish court unable to render any effectual assistance, the exiled queen dispatched Somerset to implore aid from France. An appeal to the French monarch could hardly, she thought, fail of producing the desired effect; for he was her relative; he had negotiated her marriage with Henry; and he entertained so high an opinion of his fair kinswoman, that, at parting, he had remarked, almost with tears in his eyes, "I feel as though I had done nothing for my niece in placing her on one of the greatest of European thrones, for it is scarcely worthy of possessing her."

Misfortunes are said never to come singly; and Margaret had, ere long, reason to believe such to be the case. Having lost her throne, she lost the only friend who, for her own sake, would have made any exertions to restore her. Ere Somerset reached the court of Paris, King Charles had expired at the age of threescore; and his son, known in history and romance as Louis the Crafty, had succeeded to the French crown.

Louis had no ambition to incur the enmity of Edward of York. He even evinced his disregard for his kinswoman's claims by causing Somerset and other Lancastrians to be arrested while they were traveling in the disguise of merchants. The duke was, ere long, set free, and admitted to the king's presence; but he could not prevail on Louis to run any risk for the house of Lancaster; and, after lurking for a time at Bruges, to elude Edward's spies, he was fain to return to Scotland.

This was not the worst. The mission of Somerset proved doubly unfortunate. Not only had he failed in his object with the King of France, but he had given mortal offense to the Queen of Scots. The duke, it would seem, had, during his residence in Scotland, been attracted by the charms of Mary of Gueldres, and the widowed queen had showed for him a much too favorable regard. In an hour of indiscreet frankness Somerset revealed their familiarity to the King of France; and, the secret becoming known at Paris, reached the Scottish court. The royal widow, on learning that her weakness was publicly talked of, felt the liveliest indignation; and forthwith employed Hepburn of Hailes, a new lover, to avenge her mortally on the chief of the Beauforts. Moreover, she availed herself of the opportunity to break off friendly relations with the Lancastrian exiles.

Matters had now, in fact, reached such a stage that Mary of Gueldres could hardly have avoided a quarrel with the Lancastrians. The young King of England was far from indifferent to the advantage of a close alliance with the Scots; and Warwick commenced negotiations by proposing, on behalf of Edward, a marriage with their queen. Crossing the Border in the spring of 1462, the king-maker arrived at Dumfries to arrange a matrimonial treaty.

Margaret of Anjou must now have been somewhat perplexed. Even if she had not received warning to quit the country, the presence of "The Stout Earl" at Dumfries was a hint not to be mistaken. Feeling that it was time to be gone, the Lancastrian queen obtained a convoy of four Scottish ships, and, embarking with her son, sailed for the Continent. Landing on the coast of Brittany, Margaret visited the duke of that province; and he, compassionating her misfortunes, advanced her a sum of money. After passing some time with King René, who was then at Anjou, she proceeded with the Prince of Wales to the French court, and implored Louis to aid in restoring Henry of Windsor to his father's throne.

The French monarch had as little inclination as before to rush into war with a powerful nation merely to redress the wrongs of a distressed princess. But Louis had a keen eye to his own interests, and no objection to meet Margaret's wishes, if, while doing so, he could advance his projects. He, therefore, went cunningly to work, declaring at first that his own poverty was such as to preclude the possibility of interference in the affairs of others, but gradually making Margaret comprehend that he would furnish her with money if Calais were assigned to him as security.

After the battle of Cressy, Calais had been taken from the French by the third Edward, and was a conquest for a king to boast of. Such, at least, continued the opinion of the commons of England. Indeed, when sighing over the memory of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, and reflecting on their subsequent disasters, patriots never failed to console themselves with the thought that, so long as Calais remained in their possession, they carried the keys of France and of Flanders at their girdle. Margaret did not, of course, sympathize with such sentiments; and, catching at the proposal of Louis, she put Calais in pawn for twenty thousand livres. Having received this sum, she raised an army of two thousand men.

At that time there was languishing in prison a French captain of great renown, named Peter de Brezé, who, in the reign of King Charles, had occupied a high position, and greatly distinguished himself at a tournament held in honor of Margaret's bridal. Inspired on that occasion by the Provençal princess with a chivalrous devotion which was proof against time and change, he offered, if set free, to conduct her little army to England; and Louis, hoping, it is said, that the brave captain might perish in the enterprise, gave him his liberty.

Brezé, embarking with the queen, set sail for Northumberland. Fortune did not, in any respect, favor the invaders. They, indeed, escaped the vigilance of Edward's fleet, and attempted to land at Tynemouth; but, the weather proving unfavorable, they were driven ashore near Bamburgh. The queen had anticipated that the whole north would hail her coming, but she was utterly disappointed; for, instead of friends rushing to her aid, there appeared Sir Robert Manners of Etal, and the Bastard Ogle, who, zealous for the White Rose, attacked her little force with so much determination that the Frenchmen were utterly routed.

Margaret was fain to turn toward Berwick; but, undismayed by reverses, she determined to persevere. Leaving her son in safety, and having been joined by some English exiles and a body of Scots, she seized the Castles of Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, and Alnwick. While in Alnwick, the strong-hold of the Percies, she was dismayed by intelligence of Warwick's approach; and, after taking counsel with Brezé, retired to her ships. As she put to sea, however, a storm arose, scattered her little fleet, and wrecked the vessels bearing her money and stores on the rocky coast of Northumberland. The queen was in the utmost danger; but, having been placed on board a fishing-boat, she had the fortune, in spite of wind and weather, to reach Berwick.

Warwick, meanwhile, approached with twenty thousand men; and Edward, following, took up his quarters at Durham. The queen's French troops fared badly. Five hundred of them, endeavoring to maintain themselves on Holy Island, were cut to pieces; and the garrisons of the three northern castles were soon in a desperate condition. Indeed, the plight of the Lancastrians appeared so utterly hopeless, that Somerset submitted to Edward, and, having been received into the king's favor, fought against his old friends.

Becoming most anxious to save Brezé, who, within the Castle of Alnwick, was reduced to extremity, Margaret applied to George Douglas, Earl of Angus, to rescue the gallant Frenchman from the jeopardy in which he was placed. "Madam," replied Angus, who was father of the famous Bell-the-Cat, "I will do my utmost;" and, having crossed the Border with a chosen band of spearmen, he broke through the ranks of the besiegers and carried off the garrison in safety.

The prospects of the Lancastrians were now dismal. Margaret, however, did not despair. Her courage was still too high—her spirit too haughty—to give up the game, which she had hitherto played with so little success. Being on the Scottish marches, she cultivated the friendship of those chiefs whose spearmen were the plague of lordly wardens and the terror of humble villagers.

In the halls of Border lords, who, with hands strong to smite, had, under their coats of mail, hearts far from insensible to the tears of a beautiful woman and the supplications of a distressed princess, Margaret told the story of her wrongs. With a voice now stirring as the sound of a trumpet, now melancholy as the wind sighing among sepulchral yews, she reminded them what she had been, when, eighteen years earlier, England's nobles paid homage to her at Westminster, as she sat on the throne, wearing the crown of gold and the mantle of purple; how, when a fugitive, pursued by enemies thirsting for her blood, she had endured want and hunger; and how, when an exile, depending for bread on the charity of rivals, she had been humbled to beg from a Scottish archer the mite which she placed on the shrine of a saint. Her poetic eloquence, potent to move the heart, drew tears from ladies, and caused men to lay their hands upon their swords, and swear, by God and St. George, that such things must no longer be. Ever, when Margaret was in distress, and laid aside her imperious tone and haughty manner, she became too persuasive and insinuating to be resisted. It was impossible for listeners to resist the conclusion that of all injured ladies she had suffered most, and that they would be unworthy longer to wear the crest and plume of knights who did not use every effort to restore her to that throne which they believed her so well qualified to grace.

Thus it came to pass that when the winter of 1463 had passed, and the spring of 1464 again painted the earth, the Red Rose-tree began to blossom anew. Margaret found herself at the head of a formidable army; and Somerset, hearing of her success, deserted Edward's court, rode post-haste to the north, and took part in the Lancastrian insurrection. All over England there was a spirit of discontent with the new government; and Edward, while watching the movements of the malcontents, got so enthralled by female charms that, instead of taking the field against the Lancastrian warriors, he was exerting all his skill to achieve a triumph over a Lancastrian widow. However, he called upon his subjects to arm in his defense, and ordered a numerous force to march to the aid of Lord Montagu, who commanded in the north.

Margaret was all fire and energy. Carrying in her train her meek husband and hopeful son, she, in April, once more raised the Lancastrian banner, and marched southward. Somerset and his brother, Edmund Beaufort, were already at her side; and thither, also, went Exeter, De Roos, Hungerford, with Sir Ralph Percy, who had for a while submitted to Edward, and Sir Ralph Grey, who, having been a violent Yorkist, had lately, in revenge for not being granted the Castle of Alnwick, become enthusiastic for Lancaster.

Montagu, as Warden of the Marches, now found his position too close to the enemy to be either safe or pleasant. Undismayed, however, that feudal captain met the crisis with a courage worthy of his noble name, and a vigilance worthy of his high office. At Hedgley Moor, near Wooler, on the 25th of April, he fell on a party of the Lancastrians, under Sir Ralph Percy, and defeated them with slaughter. Sir Ralph, a son of the great northern earl slain at St. Albans, and a high-spirited warrior, fell fighting, exclaiming, with his latest breath, "I have saved the bird in my bosom."

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."