tion of the feminine accomplishments of the Bellona of English history, whom the general reader would rather expect to find instructing the bonnie Scots to sharpen battle-axes, than beguiling her sorrowful hours by teaching their wives and daughters to handle needles. Yet there is nothing inconsistent with Margaret's real characteristics in the tradition : she inherited her father's love for the refinements of polished life, and possessed a natural taste for the statistics of trade and commerce. She was, moreover, the patroness of the only female company ever established in England,—the sisterhood of the silk-women, an evidence of the interest she took in the industrious occupations of her own sex, and her desire to improve their condition in the state. Circumstances compelled her to become a leader of armies; but her royal foundation of Queen's College, Cambridge, and the fact of her fitting out ships, at her own expense, to trade with the ports of the Mediterranean, prove that nature intended her for better things. The stormy influence of evil times acted for evil on her excitable temperament, and turned her energies to fierce and destructive purposes. Edward IV. was accustomed to say, "He feared her more when a fugitive, and in want of the absolute necessaries of life, than he did all the princes of the house of Lancaster combined." She was, indeed, the only individual of that party who possessed sufficient talent to give him cause for uneasiness. The friendly relations she had succeeded in establishing with the Scottish queen and cabinet secured so honourable and suitable an asylum for king Henry, that he was enabled to emerge from his retreat at Kirkcudbright, and appear in his own character once more. The exchequer rolls of Scotland bear record of payments made before the 22nd of February, 1461, to John Kincard, keeper of the palace of Linlithgow, for repairing the said palace in expectation of the coming of the king of England; also of payment of the sum of 51l. 7s. 11d. to Sir Henry Kingham, steward of the queen [of Scotland], for expenses incurred by the latter in Dumfries, Lanark, and Linlithgow, in sally [salvage or wild] cattle and sheep delivered to the king and queen of England." The pecuniary distress of the royal pair is sufficiently indicated by the next entry of the same date: "Payment made of one hundred pounds to the queen of England for a golden chalice or cup, pledged to our lady the queen, through the hands of the keeper of the privy seal." There is also an entry of payment made between the 17th of March, 1461, and the penult of July, of two hundred pounds to the queen of England, and of grain and provender for six horses of the prince of England in Falkland during twenty-three days, by order of our lady the queen." 93 Edward of Lancaster was at that time treated as the be trothed of the sister of the youthful sovereign of Scotland. 1 Le Moine. 2 Excerpts from the Exchequer rolls of Scotland, communicated by Mr. Riddell. 3 Ibid. 1451.] King, queen, and prince attainted. 593 While Margaret of Anjou, with the formidable activity of a chessqueen, was attempting, from her safe refuge in Scotland, to check her adversary's game, she was, with the king her husband and her little son, proscribed and attainted by the parliament of the rival sovereign of England, and it was forbidden to all their former subjects to hold any sort of communication with them, on pain of death.1 The whole of England was now subjected to the authority of Edward IV.; yet there was still an undying interest pervading the great body of the people in favour of the blameless monarch, to whom their oaths of allegiance had been in the first instance plighted. Poetry, that powerful pleader to the sympathies of generous natures in behalf of fallen princes, failed not to take the holy Henry for its theme. The following lines, from the contemporary verses of John Awdlay, the blind poet, have some rugged pathos, and afford a specimen of the minstrelsy of the period : "I pray you, sirs, of your gentry, Sing this carol reverently, For it is made of king Henry. Great need for him we have to pray; Or else we may lament full sorely: For him shall weep full many an eye, The devoted nature of the attachment Margaret excited among the Lancastrian chiefs, may be gathered from the following letter from two of her adherents, whom she had sent, with the duke of Somerset, on a private mission to her royal kinsman and friend, Charles VII. These letters, which were intended to break to the luckless queen the calamitous tidings of that monarch's death, were addressed to Margaret in Scotland, but were intercepted at sea : "Please your good grace, we have since your coming hither written to your highness thrice, one by the carvel in which we came, the other two from Dieppe. But, madam, it was all one thing in substance,-putting you in knowledge of your uncle's death (Charles VII.), whom God assoil, and how we stood arrested, and do yet. But on Tuesday next we shall up to the king (Louis XI.) your cousin-german. His commissaires, at the first of our tarrying, took all our letters and writings, and bare them up to the king, leaving my lord of Somerset in keeping [under arrest] at the castle of Arques, and my fellow Whyttingham and me (for we had safe-conduct) in the town of Dieppe, where we are yet. "Madam, fear not, but be of good comfort; and beware ye venture not your person, ne my lord the prince, by sea, till ye have other word from us, unless your person cannot be sure where ye are, and extreme necessity drive ye thence. And for God's sake let the king's highness be advised of the same, for, as we are informed, the earl of March (Edward IV.) is into Wales by land, and hath sent his navy thither by sea. And madam, think verily, as soon as we be delivered, we shall come straight to you, unless death take us by the way (which we trust he will not), till we see the king and you peaceably again in your realm; the which we beseech God soon to see, and to send you that your highness desireth. Written at Dieppe the 30th day of August, 1461. Your true subjects and liegemen, "HUNGERFORD and WHYTTINGHAM.” These faithful adherents of Margaret had, with the duke of Somerset, been arrested in the disguise of merchants by the orders of Louis XI., who, with his usual selfish policy, was willing to propitiate the victorious Edward of York: 2 after much trouble, queen Margaret succeeded in obtaining their liberation through the intercession of the count of Charolois. "In the month of March," says William of Worcester, "the duke of Somerset returned in a ship from Flanders to Scotland; and the queen of Scotland conceived the greatest hatred to him, because he revealed her too favourable regard for him to the king of France, for which she carried her resentment to such a height, that she engaged the lord of Hailes to devise a plot for taking away his life." Though Somerset was so fortunate as to escape the vengeance he so richly merited, this untoward business was doubtless the cause of breaking up the friendly relations which Margaret had established with the court of Scotland, for we find that, in the first week in April, she and her son, and a party of their followers, embarked at Kirkcudbright for France. The same month, the earl of Warwick, with other Yorkist nobles, came to Dumfries on an embassy for contracting a marriage between the Scottish queen and their victorious sovereign, Edward IV. Dumfries is but three hours' journey from Kirkcudbright, there was good cause for Margaret's departure; but, doubtless, she had already received her congé, to pave the way for the reception of the Yorkist ambassade.3 As Margaret, being entirely destitute of money, was indebted for the means of performing this voyage to the gratitude of a French merchant, to whom, in her early days, she had rendered an important service at her father's court at Nanci. He had since amassed great wealth, by establishing a commercial intercourse between the Low Countries and Scotland. He was in Scotland at the time of Margaret's sore distress, and provided her with ships and money for the purpose she required.* The pecuniary aid supplied by private friendship is, however, seldom proportioned to the exigencies of exiled royalty, and Margaret was con.pelled to make an appeal to the compassion of the duke of Bretagne immediately after she entered his dominions. The duke received her well and honourably, and presented her with the seasonable donation of twelve thousand crowns; with which she was enabled to administer to the necessities of some of her ruined followers, and to pursue her journey to Chinon, in Normandy, where Louis XI. was with his court. "It was to that imperturbable politician-that man without a human sym1 Paston Papers, vol i. p. 247. 3 Wm. of Wor., pp. 492-3. Barante. Leclerque. Monstrelet. 4 Prevost. 2 Ibid. 1461.] Pawns Calais to Louis XI. 595 pathy-that the fallen queen turned in her despair, not knowing where else to look for aid." Louis was cousin-german both to Margaret and her consort, for Henry VI. was the son of his aunt, Katherine of Valois, and Margaret was the daughter of his maternal uncle, René of Anjou ; but what were ties of kindred or affection to a prince, who constantly played among his royal compeers the part which Æsop has assigned to the fox in the fable? Louis had watched, with malicious pleasure, the progressive acts of the sanguinary tragedy of the rival roses, and done his utmost to keep up the fierce strife by underhand excitement. Such, indeed, had always been the policy of France during domestic broils in England; but Louis, with a keen eye to his political interest, calculated on being able to snatch a portion of the prey for which the kindred lions of Plantagenet were contending. The moment for him to make the attempt he conceived was now at hand, and with sarcastic satisfaction thus intimated his anticipated success to one of his ministers :-" As soon as you receive my letters, come to Amboise. You will find me there, preparing for the good cheer I shall have, to recompense me for all the trouble I have had in this country all the winter. The queen of England has arrived. I pray you to hasten hither, that we may consult on what I have to do. I shall commence on Tuesday, and expect to play my game to some purpose; so, if you have nothing very good to suggest, I shall work it out my own way, and I assure you I foresee good winnings." "The good cheer," says Michelet, "that Louis had in view, was the recovery of Calais, and to recover it by English hands in the name of Henry VI. and of Marguerite. That sad queen of England, sick with shame and thirst of vengeance since her defeat at Towton, had followed Louis from place to place,—to Bourdeaux, to Chinon, imploring his assistance. Louis played with her impatience, turned a deaf ear to her supplications, and allowed her to remain in suspense. What had she to give him? Nothing but her honour and promises of gratitude. Louis demanded proofs, something tangible." When, at last, he granted an audience to his unfortunate kinswoman, and she threw herself at his feet, and with floods of tears implored his assistance in behalf of her dethroned consort, she found him callous to her impassioned eloquence, and not only indifferent to her grief, but eager to profit by the adverse circumstances which had brought her as a suppliant to the foot of his throne. The only condition on which he would even advance a small loan of 20,000 livres in her dire necessity was, that she should, in the name of king Henry, pledge Calais to him as a security for its repayment within twelve months. The exigency of her situation compelled Margaret to accede to these hard terms. Probably she considered, in the very spirit of a female politician, that she made little sacrifice in 1 Michelet, Histoire de France, tom. viii. p. 161. 2 Ibid. stipulating to surrender that which was not in her possession, and which, after all, Louis never got. The agreement into which queen Margaret entered with Louis did not, as her enemies have represented, involve the sale of Calais, but simply amounted to a mortgage of that important place. The document by which the arrangement is explained is still preserved in the archives of France. This transaction was reported greatly to Margaret's disadvantage in England, and, like the recent surrender of Berwick, was considered by the great body of the people as an act of treason againt the realm. Louis bestowed many deceitful marks of regard on Margaret while this negotiation was in progress, and she was complimented by being united with him in the office of sponsor to the infant son of the duke and duchess of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII. of France, whom she presented at the baptismal font.2 It was fruitless for Margaret to look for succour from her own family. King René and his son were engaged in a desperate and ruinous contest with Alphonso, king of Arragon, which the resources of Anjou and Provençe were over-taxed to support.3 Kindred and countrymen had failed her in her sore adversity, but her appeal to all true knights to aid her in her attempts to redress the wrongs of her royal spouse, and vindicate the rights of her son, met with a response which proved that the days of chivalry were not ended. "If we are to believe the French historians," says Guthrie, "Pierre Brezé, the seneschal of Normandy, impelled by a more tender motive than that of compassion or ambition, entered as a volunteer, with two thousand men, into her service." Brezé had formerly been the minister and favourite of Margaret's uncle, Charles VII. He was one of the commissioners by whom her inauspicious marriage with Henry VI. was negotiated, and he had greatly distinguished himself at her bridal tournament. Eighteen years of care and sorrow had passed over the royal beauty, in whose honour Sir Pierre de Brezé had maintained the pre-eminence of the "daisye flower," against all challengers, in the Place de Carrière; and now that she, who had been the star and inspiration of the poets and chevaliers of France, had returned to her native land, desolate, sorrow-stricken, and discrowned, Pierre de Brezé manifested a devotion to her interests which proved how little external circumstances had to do with the attachments excited by this princess. 4 CHAPTER III. MARGARET sailed for England in October, after an absence of five months, and, eluding the vigilance of Edward's fleet, which had been long in waiting to intercept her, she made the coast of Northumberland. 1 Lingard. 2 Philip de Comines. Barante. 3 Barante. Villeneuve. 4 Ibid. |