CHAPTER VIII

MARGUERITE D’ANJOU--“THE MOST INTREPID OF QUEENS”

I.

“Margaret of Anjou was the loveliest, the best-educated, and the most fearless Princess in Christendom!” High praise indeed, but not more than her due, and universally accorded her by every historian who has undertaken to chronicle her character and career.

Born at the Castle of Pont-à-Mousson,--one of the finest in all Lorraine, and a favourite residence of her father and mother,--on March 23, 1429, Margaret was the youngest child of René, Duke of Bar, and Isabelle of Lorraine his wife. Her father was far away from his home when this pretty babe first smiled upon her sweet mother. He was escorting _La Pucelle_ to Chinon, and leading the troops of Charles VII. to victory. Her mother was Lieutenant-General of the duchies--a devoted and heroic spouse. The little girl’s cradle was rocked amid the rivalries and hostilities of the Houses of Lorraine and Vaudémont. She was the child of Mars. She was baptized by Henri de Ville, Bishop of Toul, who had just been created, by the Emperor Sigismund, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The Bishop was a trusty friend of Duke René in shower and shine.

That ducal nursery, where faithful Théophaine la Magine bore maternal nursing sway, was a merry one; for Margaret’s brothers Jean, Louis, and little Nicholas,--twin with her only sister Yolande,--were all vigorous youngsters. Then, besides these legitimate children, the Castle of Bar-le-Duc sheltered another Jean and Blanche and Madeleine, born to their father out of wedlock. The ducal sepulchre had given rest to two other baby boys, Charles and René, own brothers to little Margaret.

Margaret’s experience of the joys and sorrows of the world began at a very early age. Her doting father was a captive away at Dijon under the rigorous hand of the Duke of Burgundy, and Duchess Isabelle was up and about seeking his deliverance. René and she had succeeded Charles II. as Duke and Duchess of Lorraine the same year that saw the Tour de Bar receive its distinguished prisoner, and upon Isabelle fell all the complications and difficulties attending the succession. To be sure, she had the very able help of the Dowager Duchess, her own dear mother Marguerite, godmother of her little girl, but the first consideration in her mind was her husband’s liberty. Handing over the reins of government to Duchess Marguerite and the Council of State, Isabelle betook herself to the Court of Charles VII. to claim his assistance and interference. With her she took her two little daughters--Yolande, only three years old, and Margaret, but two. Her sons were sent to Burgundy to stand as hostages at the Duke’s orders, and little Nicholas remained with his grandmother at Nancy.

At Vienne, where the French Court was at the time, having gone south from Reims and the coronation, the King gave his brother-in-law’s consort a very hearty greeting, but he hesitated to commit himself to action which might ferment once more evil blood between his people and the Burgundians. Isabelle held by their hands, as she pleaded for her dear husband, her two baby girls, and Charles’s indecision was overcome by little Margaret, then a dauntless infant, who ran up to him and insisted upon being nursed upon his knee and kissed. A child’s instinctive disingenuousness is affected by magnetic natures regardless of conventions and proprieties; how often and often again is this proved to be axiomatic! That interview was memorable for the meeting of Charles with a woman--to be sure, then a girl--who would in after-years affect him and his considerably. Agnes Sorel was in attendance upon the Duchess Isabelle. Charles beheld her for the first time, and her face and figure haunted him for good and ill many a long day.

Not content with winning over the King of France to intercede for the liberation of her consort, the Duchess returned to Lorraine, and went off at once to Vaudémont to plead with Count Antoine, the Duke of Burgundy’s brother, in the same cause. Vaudémont agreed to assist his kinswoman, but upon one chief condition, among others--that she would consent to Yolande, her eldest daughter, being betrothed to his eldest son Ferri. There was, of course, method in this extraordinary proposal,--for the child was only three years of age,--and it was this: He, the Count, claimed Lorraine, by the Salic Law, as first heir male against Isabelle. Whatever might eventuate, his son married to René’s daughter would be an additional lien upon the duchy. This policy also commended itself to Isabelle’s prudential mind, and she gave a qualitative consent dependent upon confirmation by Duke René later on. The Count added a rider to the stipulation, and that was the committal of the girl to the care of his wife, the Countess, for education and training. This, too, the Duchess accepted, although it cost her sore to part with her dear child. Margaret and Nicholas alone remained to solace her; but Isabelle was far too strong a character to spend much time in comforting or being comforted. Whilst René was in durance vile she could not remain idle; so off she went, taking Margaret and Nicholas with her, to the Castle of Tarascon, in order to enlist the sympathies and services of René’s devoted Provençals.

Isabelle’s coming into Provence provoked remarkable demonstrations on the part of the warm-hearted and loyal subjects of the county. Troubadours and glee maidens flocked to the Rhone shore; they sang, they danced, they ate, they drank, and laid floral offerings and votive crowns at the feet of their Countess and her tender children. Bonfires blazed from shore to shore, and echoes of the rejoicings might have been carried by the warm south wind right into the dungeoned ears of their beloved Count. Whilst Duchess Isabelle was in residence at Tarascon negotiations were already on foot for the betrothal of little Margaret. An eligible suitor arrived, the young Pierre de Luxembourg, eldest son of the Count of St. Pol, whose esquire, by a singular coincidence, happened to be the recipient at Bulgneville of Duke René’s sword. Arrangements for the ceremony of espousal were, however, rudely interrupted by a serious outbreak of plague, and Isabelle and her children fled to Marseilles, where they remained till René joined them, released upon a year’s parole.

When René was proclaimed King of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem, Duke of Anjou, and Count of Provence, upon the premature death of his elder brother, Louis III., at Cosenza, Isabelle was again at Marseilles, on her way to take possession of her husband’s rights in Naples. Such pageants and spectacles at those exhibited in her honour by the exuberant Marseillais that city had never seen. She rode through ranks on ranks of cheering citizens, in a great state chariot covered with crimson and gold, and wearing a queenly crown upon her head, and with her were Jean, her eldest son, and Margaret and Nicholas. The little Princess captivated everybody by her _naïveté_ and the graceful kissing of her little hand. Margaret sent kisses flying through every street, winning all men’s loyalty and the love of all the boys.

Queen Isabelle and her children took up their residence at the Palace of Capua. Queen Giovanna offered her the new royal palace in Naples, but Isabelle’s instinct was not in error when she chose to dwell a little distance from the royal hussy. There King René joined his family, bringing with him both Louis, his second son, and Yolande. The reunion was the happiest that could be. Upon the King devolved, of course, the onus of government, with the co-operation of Queen Giovanna. Queen Isabelle, relieved from the trammels of the executive, had now a much-longed-for respite in which to give attention to the neglected education of her children. She constituted herself their teacher-in-chief, but called to her assistance the very noted writer of French romance, Antoine de Salle. Alas! it was a brief interlude indeed, for the studies had hardly had time to affect the young pupils when the King of Aragon resumed his hostile demonstration against the Angevine dynasty, and René and his were locked in the grip of war. Very unwillingly Queen Isabelle agreed to return to France with her children, Naples being an armed camp and the whole country in a turmoil. They wended their way leisurely to Anjou, and not to Lorraine. Two reasons dictated this course. Angers was the capital _par excellence_ of the dominions of the King of Sicily-Anjou, the ancestral seat of his house, and Anjou was more favourably conditioned than Lorraine or Bar for the completion of the training of the royal children. Queen Yolande was only too delighted to welcome her brave daughter-in-law and to caress her beloved grandchildren. She went off to the Castle of Saumur, her favourite residence, and the walls of the grim Castle of Angers once more resounded to the merry laughter of childish games. Sadly enough those joyous sounds yielded place to saddest dirges when Prince Nicholas, not yet ten years old, died suddenly of poison. This was the first break by Death into that home circle.

The King and Queen were again in residence at the Castle of Tarascon in 1443, and there, on February 2, they received an imposing mission from the Duke of Burgundy, headed by Guillaume Harancourt, Bishop of Verdun, the Seigneurs Pierre de Beauprémont and Adolphe de Charny, with Antoine de Gaudel, the Duke’s principal secretary. They came to Tarascon to negotiate a marriage between the Duke’s nephew, Charles de Borugges, son of Philippe, Count of Nevers, and the Princess Margaret. This bridegroom expectant had been very much in the matrimonial market before accepting the choice of his uncle. His first fiancée was Jeanne, daughter of Robert, Count de la Marche; she gave place to Anne, Duchess of Austria; and she in turn was passed over before the greater charms of the Angevine Princess. The contract of betrothal with Pierre de Luxembourg was cancelled, and Charles de Nevers was the choice of René and Isabelle.

The date for signing the marriage contract was fixed, February 4, and to all the articles the King and Queen readily assented. The dowry was 50,000 _livres_, but how that large sum was to be raised neither René nor Isabelle had the slightest idea; they had exhausted their exchequer in the fruitless fight for Naples. The Duke of Burgundy, acting as next of kin to the bridegroom-elect, promised to settle a jointure of 40,000 _livres_ on Margaret. René had put forward a plea that the Duke should forego 80,000 _écus d’or_, which was due on loans, and Philippe agreed, receiving as further security and indemnity to the towns of Neufchâteau, Preny, and Longwy,--already in pawn to him,--the Castles of Clermont, Varennes, and Renne, all in Argonne. A secret clause was, however, at the eleventh hour foisted upon the Angevine Sovereigns--a proceeding quite in accordance with the proverbial cunning of the Court of Burgundy. It stipulated that the children of Charles and Margaret should be heirs-presumptive of Sicily-Anjou-Provence, Lorraine, and Bar, to the exclusion of the issue of Ferri and Yolande de Vaudémont.

The judicial mind of King René would not let his consent to this article be recorded until he had consulted both the Count de Vaudémont and King Charles of France. The former indignantly interviewed the Duke of Burgundy, and stated his determination to oppose the proposed marriage. Charles resented the stipulation upon the ground of its injustice, and warned his brother-in-law not to agree to any such proposals. The marriage contract was not signed, and, whilst acrimonious negotiations were carried on both at Dijon and Vienne, another and a very much more illustrious suitor of the hand of Princess Margaret appeared upon the scene, no less a person than Henry VI., King of England and France.

When the matter was first mooted, it was thought nothing of by the King and Queen of Sicily, because Henry had been all but betrothed to Isabelle, the daughter of the Count of Armagnac, to whom he owed so very much in earlier days. Indeed, the gossip went so far as to link the English King’s name in turn with all three daughters of the Count--the loveliest girls in France: “Three Graces of Armagnac” they were called. Henry had sent his favourite painter, Hans of Antwerp, to paint the three comely sisters, and his handiwork was so acceptable to the royal young bachelor that he sat and gazed at them for long, changing the order of their arrangement to see which face of the beauteous three made the most passionate appeal. The Armagnac marriage was backed by all the influence of the Duke of Gloucester, the younger of the King’s uncles, and lately Lord Protector of England.

What drew Margaret of Anjou into the orbit of Henry of England was that she had gone on a visit to her aunt, Queen Marie of France, and had at the French Court created quite a sensation. She was nearly fourteen years of age, and gave fascinating indications of those charms of mind and person which made her “the most lovely, the best-educated, and the most fearless Princess in Christendom.”

Cardinal Beaufort was also a visitor at King Charles’s castle at Chinon, and was immensely moved by Margaret’s appearance and accomplishments. He also detected her latent strength of character, and certain traits therein which marked her unerringly as the counterfoil of his royal pupil and master’s mental and moral weaknesses. The Cardinal returned to England full of the charms of the young Princess, and descanted upon them so enthusiastically to the King that Henry was in a perfect fever to behold the beauteous Princess for himself. His amorous appetite was further stimulated by conversations he quite accidentally had with one Jules Champchevier, a prisoner of war on parole from Anjou, lodging with Sir John Falstaff, in attendance upon the King. Champchevier was sent off to Saumur to obtain, if possible, a portrait of the bewitching young Princess. The King wished her to be painted quite simply and naturally “in a plain kirtle, her face unpainted, and her hair in coils.” He required information about “her height, her form, the colour of her skin, her hair, her eyes, and what size of hand she hath.”

Champchevier was taken prisoner on landing in France, and threatened with death for breaking his parole whilst executing the royal commission; but news reaching Charles VII. of the unfortunate fellow’s predicament, he laughed heartily at the situation when he learned the reason of his mission, and forthwith ordered his release. The idea of a matrimonial contract between his royal rival and his royal niece opened His Majesty’s eyes to possibilities created thereby of a satisfactory peace between the two countries. Once more,--and how many times before and since!--a royal maiden’s heart contained the key to great political issues.

The portrait was painted exactly to order--perhaps, and quite correctly, with a little artistic embellishment. The beauty of Nature is always enhanced by the decorative features of art. Henry was charmed with the sweet face he gazed and gazed upon, quite putting into the shade the other reigning beauties of his heart. He was himself as comely as might be, just four-and-twenty, highly educated, his mind unusually refined. In thought and deed he was pure and devout, and very shy of strange women. Upon the latter head he was emphatic, for when at Court or elsewhere he beheld women with open bosoms _à l’Isabeau de Bavière_ he was shocked, and turned away his face, muttering: “Oh fie! oh fie! ye be much to blame!” His earnest wish was marriage, not concubinage. The King’s choice very soon became noised abroad, and the Court became agitated and divided. The Duke of Gloucester, the King’s next of kin and heir-presumptive to the throne, championed the Armagnac match, whilst Cardinal Beaufort and the Earl of Suffolk decided for Margaret of Anjou.

There was, however, an obstacle in the way, quite consistently with the proverbial rugged course of all true love; the Count of Nevers refused to release his fiancée. He was prepared, he averred, to cancel the contentious clause in the marriage contract, made at Tarascon, and not to insist upon anything derogatory to the dignity of King René and his elder daughter, the Countess Ferri de Vaudémont. The prospect to René of such an auspicious union, however, which would place his daughter upon one of the greatest of European thrones, was too dazzling to be ignored, and the outcome of the imbroglio was the assembling in January, 1444, of a mixed Commission, representing England, France, Anjou, and Burgundy, at Tours, whereat two protocols were framed: a treaty for a two years’ peace, and a marriage agreement between the King of England and the Princess of Anjou. This was signed on May 28 of the same year. The marriage contract thus drawn out was very favourable to the House of Sicily-Anjou: Henry asked for no dowry, but required only the rights transmitted to King René by Queen Yolande with respect to the kingdom of Minorca. Henry further agreed to the retrocession of Le Mans and other points in Anjou held by the English.

To the Earl of Suffolk, the leading English plenipotentiary, was mainly due the successful issue of the conference. Henry created him Marquis and Grand Seneschal of the Royal Household. The King furthermore despatched to him an autograph letter to the following effect: “As you have lately, by the Divine favour and grace, in our name, and for us, engaged verbally the excellent, magnificent, and very bright Margaret, the second daughter of the King of Sicily, and sworn that we shall contract marriage with her, we consent thereto, and will that she be conveyed to us over the seas at our expense.” Arrangements were forthwith made for the immediate marriage of the Princess. Suffolk,--one of the handsomest and most cultivated men of the day, though now verging on fifty years of age,--headed a majestic embassy to Nancy, where the Sicily-Anjou Court was in residence. He bore with him a dispensation from his royal master to act as his proxy at the nuptial ceremony, and to receive in his name the hand of his fascinating bride. It was indeed a notable function, and held in the ancient cathedral of Tours, whereat all that was royal, noble, brave, and beautiful, forgathered. The witnesses for Margaret were the King and Queen of France, the King and Queen of Sicily-Anjou, and the Duke and Duchess of Calabria, with the Dauphin Louis. The Princess’s supporters were the Duke of Alençon, the most gallant and most accomplished Prince in France, and the Marquis of Suffolk, the premier noble of England. Upon the latter’s consort, the clever Marchioness, devolved the duties of Mistress of the Robes.

That day,--February 27, 1445,--was a red-letter day in the annals of all three kingdoms. Louis d’Harcourt, Bishop of Toul, was chief celebrant, assisted by half the prelates of France, and Cardinal Beaufort was in choir to administer the Papal benediction. The young Queen’s Maids of Honour were the two most lovely girls in France--Jehanne de Laval, in the suite of Queen Marie, and Agnes Sorel, in that of Queen Isabelle. It was a singular and delightful coincidence that these two lovely damsels were in evidence on that auspicious day; for were they not the charming cynosures respectively of two pairs of kingly eyes--René and Charles!

The interest and the importance of the celebration was heightened considerably by the fact that there was a double wedding: Count Ferri de Vaudémont and Princess Yolande of Sicily-Anjou were united in the bonds of matrimony immediately after the nuptials of the new Queen. Fêtes and festivities were carried out right royally for eight whole days and nights. The “Lists” were held in the great wide Place de Carrière in Nancy. Charles and René met in amicable conflict, but it was the former’s lance which was tossed up, and René gained the guerdon, which he presented gallantly enough to his sister, the Queen of France. The champion of champions, however, was none other than Pierre de Luxembourg, the earliest fiancée of Queen Margaret, and he had the happy satisfaction of receiving the victor’s crest of honour from her hands--now another’s! Minstrelsy and the stage also lent their aid to the general rejoicings. King René was already styled the “Royal Troubadour,” and he rallied his melodious, merry men in a goodly phalanx, whilst he himself led the music in person and recited his own new marriage poem. The theatre proper had only very recently been established in France. Church mysteries and pageant plays had had their vogue, when, in 1402, Charles VI. granted his charter to “_La Confrèrerie de la Passion_,”--a company, or guild, of masons, carpenters, saddlers, and other craftsmen, and women,--which he established at the village of St. Maur, near Vincennes. These merry fellows introduced to their distinguished audience, in the Castle of Nancy, secular travesties of the well-worn religious spectacles, and won the heartiest applause. King René personally, through the gracious hands of the royal bride, decorated the actors with gay ribbons and medallions.

The dress of the right royal company was, as may well be supposed, sumptuous in the extreme; but among the wearers of rich attire a pathetic note was struck, when it was mooted that royal Margaret had been dressed for her bridal by Queen Marie, her aunt, because her own parents were too much impoverished to supply suitable marriage robes! The bride’s dress was mainly that worn by Queen Marie herself, twenty-three years before, at her own nuptials with Charles VII. The kirtle was of cloth of gold cunningly embroidered with the white lilies of France--the same for Anjou; the robe of state was of crimson velvet bordered with ermine, which also formed the trimming of the stomacher she wore. Her hair was dressed _à l’Angloise_, its rich golden coils being crowned with a royal diadem, almost the only jewel of Queen Yolande’s treasury which had not been sold or pawned. The little Queen was slight of build and short of stature for her age; very fair of skin, with a peachy blush; her eyes light blue, her hair a golden auburn; her whole face and figure lent themselves to delightful expression and graceful pose. Above all, she was very self-possessed, and gave all beholders the impression of ability and decision beyond the average.

With respect to King René’s inability to provide a fitting trousseau for his daughter, there is an entry in the _Comptes de Roy René_ which indicates that he was not unmindful of the sartorial requirements of his family. Under date September 11, 1442, is an order, addressed to Guillaume de la Planche, merchant of Angers, for 11 _aulnes_ of cloth of gold, embroidered in crimson and pleated, at 30 _écus_ per _aulne_, with a suite of trimming to cost 30 _livres_. At the same time François Castargis, furrier of Angers, is directed to supply ten dozen finest marten skins at a cost of £15 7s. 6d., and to pack and despatch them to the care of the Seigneur de Precigny at Saumur, “for dresses for Madame Margaret.” This de Precigny was Bertrand de Beauvau, who married King René’s natural daughter Blanche d’Anjou.

At the wedding of Henry VI. and Margaret at Tours and Nancy, the courtiers were very richly attired in short jackets or tunics of pleated brocade trimmed with silk fringes; their body hose was of parti-coloured spun silk to match their tunics. Their shoes were made long, of white kid with high heels, and were laced with golden thread. Calves where skimpy were padded, and narrow shoulders were puffed out. They wore long pendent sleeves, pricked and furred. Their hair, generally worn _à la Nazarene_, hung in thick straight locks upon their shoulders, cut square over the forehead. A small _berretta_, with a heron’s plume and a jewelled brooch, completed the costume. Chains of gold and jewels were worn at will. The ladies of the Court wore short kirtles or petticoats, with long bunched-up trains of silk brocade in two contrasting colours; cloth of gold was reserved for dames of royal degree. Strict rules were observed in the wearing of fur--its quality and its breadth; ermine was reserved for royalty. Their gloves were long-fingered, and their shoes long-toed, the points of each being caught up with thin golden chains to their garters--“_un chose ridicule et absurde_,” as Paradin wrote. The salient mark adopted by the ladies of fashion was noted in their coiffures. The popular name, or, rather, the name of scorn,--thanks to Father Thomas of Brittany,--for the astounding headgear _à la mode_, “_hennin_,” was in select circles called _en papillons_--“butterflied.” Some ladies had double horns like the mitres of Bishops, some had round redoubts “_comme les donjons_,” some were half-moon shape, and some like hearts, whilst many goodly dames made themselves still more ridiculous by wearing miniature windmills! All these erections were made of white stiffened linen, built up on frameworks of wicker and carton. Over all _floquarts_,--thin gauze veils,--were gently cast. Collars of jewels and ropes of pearls were _de rigueur_, and most of the ladies wore badges of chivalry--the guerdons of their lords and sweethearts. One very pretty conceit was introduced at the time of Queen Margaret’s marriage--a dainty holder for the necessary pocket-handkerchief. This took the shape of a small heart of gold suspended from an enamelled white _marguerite_, and hung at the side of the jewelled cincture. The ladies’ shoes were richly embroidered with seed-pearls and gold thread. Rings were worn outside the gloves.

Among the suite sent by Henry to attend upon his bride were the Countess of Shrewsbury and the Lady Emma de Scales, with five Barons and Baronesses of the realm. In attendance, too, was Scrivener William Andrews, Private Secretary to the King, who acted as juris-consult at the signing of the marriage registers. In his diary he wrote: “Never have I seen or heard of a young Princess so greatly loved and admired.”

Upon the ninth day after the marriage ceremony Queen Margaret took a tearful but brave farewell of her fond parents and of the princely company, and King René committed her proudly, yet regretfully, to the care of the Marquis of Suffolk. An imposing cavalcade accompanied the parting Queen; indeed, all Nancy, noble and bourgeois, rich and poor, turned out to do honour to Her Majesty. King Charles and Queen Marie went as far as Toul, and then bade their niece adieu. Charles was strangely sad, and said with a deep-drawn sigh: “I seem to have done nothing for you, my well-beloved niece, in placing you upon one of the greatest thrones in Europe, but it certainly is worthy of possessing you as Queen.” Queen Marie’s farewell was very affecting: “I bid you God-speed, my best-loved niece. I am sure I do not know what we shall do without you. I weep for you, my child!”

King René and Queen Isabelle travelled with their dear daughter right on to Bar-le-Duc, where the cortège was enthusiastically received, and where a rest was called over the Sunday, and parents and daughter partook of the Communion. Then, on the morrow, Margaret broke down completely at the parting, and both René and Isabelle gave way to sobs and tears. If the prospect of the royal marriage had been pleasant to them all, its realization and the future filled their hearts with apprehension. A dearly loved child was now to make her way all alone among strangers--too young to go so far from home, but too good to err.

“_Je fais peur pour vous, ma fille_,” cried the sorrowing father, “_en vous plaçant sur un des plus grands trônes de Chrétienté; que le bon Dieu vous gardiez. Pour moi et pour vôtre mère, nous sommes tous les deux désolés._”[A] Queen Isabelle’s heart was too full for words. She folded her child to her bosom, and the two wept together. It was Margaret who first dried her tears, and said bravely: “_N’ayez aucun regret pour moi; je serai vôtre fille la plus devouée pour jamais. Si mon corps veçut en Angleterre, mon âme restera tousjours en France avec la vôtre._”[B]

[A] “I am fearful for you, my daughter, in placing you upon one of the mightiest thrones in Christendom; may the good God protect you. As for me and your mother, we are filled with desolation.”

[B] “Do not feel any regret for me; I shall be always your most devoted daughter. If my body dwells in England, my soul shall rest always in France with yours.”

Bare-headed, King René stood at the castle portal till Margaret and her escort had faded from his sight; then he and the Queen shut themselves up in their apartments and gave way to their pent-up feelings. Travelling as the Queen of England, Margaret had now for her supporters her brother, the Duke of Calabria, the Duke of Alençon, and the courteous Marquis of Suffolk. Leisurely enough the company traversed the fertile fields of Champagne, ever aiming for the north French coast. Besides a strong escort of soldiery, in the royal train were seventeen knights and two esquire-carvers, sixty-five esquires, twenty grooms, and 174 servitors of all kinds, and with them serving-maids and dressers. At every stopping-place heartiest greetings awaited the young Queen, and Princes and nobles knelt to pay their homage. The English garrisons _en route_ were forward in their loyal salutations; their new Queen was the pledge of a greatly-yearned-for _entente cordiale_.

At Nantes the Duke of York, King Henry’s near kinsman, and the representative of the older line of the English Royal House, received the Queen, and entertained her in the castle of the French Kings. On March 23 the royal progress ended at Rouen, where a week’s rest was called. Bicknoke, in his “_Computus_,” has enumerated several curious items in the bill of costs which covered the lengthy journey from Lorraine. The Barons and Baronesses of the Queen’s suite received each four shillings and sixpence a day, the knights had half a crown each a day, and, at the tail of the following, the grooms were paid no more than fourpence per diem. At Rouen the Queen paid four shillings and ninepence for fourteen pairs of shoes to give to certain poor women of the town. She also made many purchases of second-hand silver plate from a silversmith, Jean Tubande by name. The articles were chiefly cups and plates which bore the arms of Henry, Count of Luxembourg, father of her first fiancé. These escutcheons the Queen had removed, and in place of them _marguerites_ were engraved. The Queen, moreover, came short of ready cash, so she pawned some of her real silver wedding presents to the Marchioness of Suffolk, that she might have the wherewithal for gifts to the seamen on her transport to England.

The royal party embarked in river boats, and made for Honfleur, where the _Cokke John_, a great galley, was waiting off the port. Such a stormy passage as that which was the prelude to Queen Margaret’s triumphant progress to the English capital had hardly been exceeded for fury in the memory of the most ancient mariners. Thunder and lightning and sheets of ice-cold water threatened to destroy the stately craft and to engulf her lordly fares. After beating about in the Channel for one whole day and night, with utmost difficulty the harbour of Porchester was attained on April 10.

It was rather hard upon the Queen’s impoverished exchequer that she should have been called upon to pay £5 4s. 10d. for her pilot, £13 6s. 8d. for new hawsers, and £9 7s. for alterations and repairs in the vessel.

The terrified young Queen had never beheld the angry sea before nor tasted its misery, and she was utterly prostrated in her state-room, and wept and cried for her mother and to God for help. The Marquis raised her inanimate form gently in his arms, and wading bravely to land through the scudding sea-foam, he bore his precious burden, marching manfully along the fresh-rush-strewn streets of the little fishing town. King Henry was at Winchester, anxiously awaiting couriers who should gladden his ears by the news of his royal bride’s arrival, and he galloped off at once to greet her at the Goddes House of Southwick, whither she was borne for rest and treatment. Unhappily, Margaret had contracted some infectious complaint,--perhaps chicken-pox,--and, very tantalizing for herself and Henry, their meeting was postponed until her illness had abated.

At the priory church of St. Mary and All Saints the ceremony of the English espousal was celebrated by Cardinal Kemp, and Henry placed upon Margaret’s finger the ring which he had worn at his coronation in Paris eighteen years before. If the King was charmed by the portrait of his Queen, he was transported with joy and passion when he beheld and embraced beauteous Margaret. The half of her excellence had not been revealed in pigment; she was more, much more, lovely and attractive than he had imagined. Preparations for the state nuptials were hurried forward, and also for the coronation of the Queen, and Henry with his bride rowed on to Southampton, saluted as they passed by all the shipping in the Solent. Two Genoese galleys in particular were gaily festooned and manned, and as the royal barge swept by seven trumpeters blew a wedding fanfare, and then the crews shouted their loud “_Evviva_.” Margaret insisted on sending for the two captains of the foreign crafts, and gave them £1 3s. 4d. “for plaieing so merrielie my musique”--so the Queen phrased it. Another heavy item in the cost of her progress was her doctor’s fee; Maistre François of Nancy claimed £5 9s. 2d. for his professional services upon the journey. A further delay was caused in the completion of the nuptial arrangements by reason of the poverty of the Queen’s wardrobe. Her trousseau was quite unworthy of her rank, and Henry, although himself as poor as a King might be, despatched messengers to London to summon Margaret Chamberlayne, a famous tire-worker, and a number of craftswomen with sumptuous materials for the wedding gown. The King, indeed, had to pawn his own jewellery and plate to furnish sufficient funds for the double ceremony.

Henry of England and Margaret of Anjou were married by Cardinal Beaufort in the abbey church of Titchfield on April 22. The bride was just sixteen years of age--already a woman, but with the heart of a man. Most extraordinary presents were showered upon the young Queen: a lion in a cage, a score of hedgehogs, a dozen thick all-wool blankets, two tuns of English wine, a suit of bronze silver armour, several chairs,--two of state,--five young lambs’ fleeces, and so forth. Then the royal progress began to the capital. Halfway between Fareham and London the Duke of Gloucester, with 500 armed and superbly mounted retainers, greeted the King and Queen, and conducted them to the palace at Greenwich. Triumphal arches spanned the road, and maidens scattered spring blossoms before the royal couple.

On May 30 the King and Queen quitted Blackheath for Westminster, passing many notable pageant spectacles--“Noah’s Ark,” “Grace,” “God’s Chancellor,” “St. Margaret,” the “Heavenly Jerusalem,” and so forth--all marshalled in their honour. Somewhat wearied by the dust and the shaking of her chariot, and deafened by the plaudits of the crowds, Margaret was handed down by the King, at the great west door of the royal abbey. Her entry was accompanied by minstrelsy, for King René had sent over for the ceremonial a large company of the troubadours and glee maidens of Bar, Lorraine, and Provence, under the orders of his Groom of the Stole, Sire Jehan d’Escose. The cost of this expedition ran up to nearly £100, a great sum for the poor King of Sicily to disburse.

King Henry spared no expense, but ran still more heavily into debt to make the crowning of his Queen magnificent. Rarely had such a gallant and splendid company gathered for a royal wedding. Everybody wore the Queen’s badge--a red-tipped daisy. Three days were set apart for tournaments between Palace Yard and Broad Sanctuary, whereat the new Queen presided, wearing the Queen-consort’s jewelled crown of England.

Margaret was now _de facto_ and _de jure_ Queen of England and mistress of her destiny--her husband’s, also. What a unique elevation it was for a young girl of sixteen, all alone among strangers, rivals, and adventurers! A false step seemed inevitable; indeed, absolute rectitude and tactfulness of conduct under the exigeant circumstances which surrounded her would have tried the grit of the stoutest mind and the grasp of the strongest hand. Dubbed “_La Française_” by men and women jealous of the King and of herself, she had to steer her course amid endless pitfalls placed in her way. Warfare and politics were the two chief contentions of the day. As for the first, she (Margaret) was its mascot, and warriors laid down their arms at her feet; but with respect to the wordy warfare of parties and their intrigues and plots the young Queen danced upon the thinnest ice, and unconsciously she slipped. She gave herself into the hands, quite naturally, of the party which held first to the King and herself, as opposed to that which sought initially self-interest. The Duke of Gloucester was the leader of the loyal section of her lieges, and to him the young Queen turned for light and leading.

Very soon the impress of Margaret’s strong character made itself felt in every quarter. She spared neither the Duke of York himself, nor any other rival to her own Lord and King; but what could a child still in her teens do against the cabals of crafty and influential foes? Henry was as weak as water; he hated political questions, caring very much more, of course, for peaceful intercourse with his fascinating spouse, and for the delights of leisure and learning, than for the turmoil of Parliament and the vexed questions of the day. York held Henry in his hand, but Margaret was a doughty nut to crack, and she kept him in his proper place.

Letters written from Sheen and Windsor to Queen Isabelle by her loving daughter show how happy was her state. Henry’s passionate love she returned as passionately, and their loves made for peace both at home and abroad. Literary pursuits and benevolent aims were in both their minds: the King founded Eton College, and King’s College, Cambridge, in 1446; the Queen, Queen’s College, Cambridge. Together they invited Italian, French, and Flemish craftsmen to settle in England, and teach their ignorant but not unwilling subjects some of the arts of peace. The poor were relieved, the naked clothed, the hungry fed; but when all estates of the realm seemed secure and in prosperity, the dark spectre of sedition rose at the beck and call of the Duke of York. King Henry had to rouse himself and lay low the insurrection of Jack Cade and 30,000 mislead Kentish men. This was the beginning of troubles.

II.

For some little time Margaret had detected signs in her consort’s speech and manner that caused her the gravest solicitude. She had witnessed the mental depression and lassitude of her uncle, the King of France, and she had grieved for her beloved aunt’s (Queen Marie’s) anxieties. The insanity of King Charles VI., too, had been one of the sad family histories of her school days in Anjou. Now she was faced with a trouble far away more terrible than any of these. In 1453 the King’s memory began to fail, he was bereft of feeling, and gradually he lost his power of walking. The malady, indeed, had shown itself during the Christmas revels at Greenwich. The Queen was already broken-hearted by the news she received from France of the critical state of her mother’s health, and when, on March 5, she heard of her death, poor Margaret was indeed disconsolate. In pain she turned to Henry for comfort, but he failed to comprehend her sorrow. All around were men and women intriguing against herself and him; alone she had to bear her trouble, and the trouble was intensified in pathos by the fact that she was at last enceinte. Would her child be stillborn, she asked herself many a time; how could she expect otherwise when so utterly cast down? Then she realized the loneliness of a throne. The menace of the Duke of York was a scourge to wear her down, and his denunciation of her barrenness an unspeakable affront.

Crushed indeed she was, and yet she had to play the man; for she was both King and Queen of England, and while she lived she determined that none should sap her authority. Henry subsided into imbecility, but Margaret’s will matched and vanquished York’s, although he was proclaimed “Protector of the Realm and Church.” The year sped on, but it brought joy to the sad heart of the lonely Queen, and the whole nation shared her happiness. On October 11 she brought forth her first-born child, a son and heir, a fact of the vastest importance for all concerned, friend and foe. York at once denounced the child for a changeling; but the nation would not have it so, and he was christened Edward publicly at Westminster, and created Prince of Wales, so named because his birthday was that of the holy King St. Edward.

Alas! the King could not be roused sufficiently to recognize his son, nor, indeed, his wife, and this was construed by York and his party as proof conclusive against the truth of the Queen’s accouchement. At the same time they threw out insinuations against her character with respect to relations with many prominent men of her entourage.

The chivalrous spirit of the Queen felt York’s false imputations crushingly. Her convalescence was retarded, and when she came to be churched at the Abbey of Westminster, she was almost too prostrate to go through the ceremony. Like the noble woman that she was, she roused herself; and when she beheld the distinguished and numerous suite awaiting her,--the forty most influential peeresses in the land,--she took heart, and was herself once more. She assumed her costly churching robe. It was of white, gold-embroidered silk and was bordered with 500 sable pelts, and it had cost £554 16s. 8d.

The Duke’s despicable conduct was flouted when Christmas next came round, for on the Feast of the Nativity the Queen presented herself holding her babe in her arms before the King. To her unspeakable joy, Henry held out his hands and drew her and the infant Prince to his breast, and out loud thanked God for the recovery of his reason and acknowledged the child as his. York was away on mischief bent, and Margaret did not fail to make use of the opportunity for checkmating his unworthy aspirations. She took the King to the Parliament, then sitting, and at his command and in his presence the decree appointing York Protector of the kingdom was revoked, and Henry, Margaret, and Edward, assumed their orthodox positions. This step was the first move in the great war game which devastated the whole realm, and ended, alas! in the absolute undoing of the King, the Queen, and the Prince. York, hearing what had transpired at Westminster, hurried from the Welsh border with 5,000 armed followers. The King met him at St. Albans, and ordered him to disband his troop and salute the royal banner. The Duke refused to obey only on impossible conditions.

But what of King René and Queen Isabelle? Their hearts were torn asunder, we may be sure, at the contemplation of their Margaret’s peril. They were powerless to assist her save by their whole soul’s sympathy; besides, they were faced by a contrariety of facts. The all too brief “truce of Margaret” was broken in 1449, and René was summoned to support King Charles and fight against the servants of her consort,--her subjects too,--for, spite of being “_La Française_,” she had won all hearts in bonnie England. A beautiful girl and a brave is unmatchable! Fortune of war favoured the French-Anjou colours, and Charles became master of Normandy and all English-held North France. Guienne, too, was yielded to the valiant young Duke of Calabria. Moreover, the war-galleys of “_Le Petit Roy de Bourges_” scoured the Channel, and gained prizes and renown for Charles and René off the English coast.

Somerset’s defeat was a loss of credit, however, to Queen Margaret, and York of course made the most of it. He boasted that, “as Henry was fitter for a cell than a throne, and had transferred his authority to Margaret, the affairs of the kingdom could not be managed by a Frenchwoman, who cared only for her own power and profit.” To placate this arrogance the Queen made a tactless move: she named the Duke Governor of Ireland, thus adding to his prestige and opportunity. Talbot’s death at Albany further weakened the King’s authority and Margaret’s strategy.

Upon the death of Queen Isabelle, so deeply mourned, not alone by her daughter in England, but by all the chivalry of France, René devolved his authority in Bar and Lorraine upon Jean, Duke of Calabria, intending to withdraw gradually from the responsibilities of government. His efforts, however, were discounted by the entreaties of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, and his Florentine allies, that he should again take up arms and appear in the field against King Alfonso of Aragon and the Venetians who were supporting him. René was victorious, but the palm of triumph was withered in his hand by the news that reached him on his way back to France: civil war had broken out in England, and Margaret was in command of the Lancastrians. Margaret, so lovely, so cultivated, and so fearless, was adding lustre to the heroic deeds of the House of Anjou--but what terrible risks she ran! The initial victory at Wakefield was tarnished by the irony of circumstances, and, though decreed by her in the moment of her emphatic triumph, York’s grey head speared upon the walls of York must have shocked her sense of magnanimity.

Margaret led her troops in person,--they worshipped the ground she trod,--but her splendid courage was of no avail at the second battle of St. Albans. Henry was deposed, and York’s eldest son, the Earl of March, was proclaimed King as Edward IV. Margaret never accepted defeat; she quailed not, but off she went with her little son, who was never parted from her side, to Yorkshire and the North.

“Love Lady-Day” was the quaint if somewhat hypocritical name bestowed by general consent upon March 25, 1458. On that auspicious Lady-Day a very notable assemblage gathered together at the Palace of Westminster. The Queen had personally summoned the leaders of the rival factions to meet the King and accompany him and herself in procession to St. Paul’s, to crave from on high the spirit of conciliation. The streets were crowded with loyal and appreciative citizens, whose delight knew no bounds as they witnessed pass before them the King in his crown, his horse’s bridle held by a “White Rose” knight and a “Red.” Then followed the Queen in a litter, escorted by the new Duke of York, Somerset hand in hand with Salisbury, Essex with Warwick, and others in order of precedence. No man was armed, no woman feared, and joy-bells tossed themselves over and over again, swung by stalwart ringers. _Te Deum_ was sung, but as the progress turned westward rumblings of thunder made wise-acres shake their heads,--and in sooth they had good cause, as matters chanced,--at the dire omen.

Warwick was the _bête noire_ of the reconciliation. By instinct and preference a plotter-royal, he incurred the Queen’s suspicion by a system of sea-piracy he established, and because of inconsiderate language about the elder line of Plantagenet. An unfortunate street fracas led to Warwick’s imprisonment. He was too proud to plead guilty, the Queen too jealous to release him. York and Salisbury at once enrolled their retainers, and stood ready to deliver Warwick. The fruits of the reconciliation fell instantly to the ground, and the complement of “Love Lady-Day” was renunciation and conflict _à l’outrance_. Before the fresh outbreak of hostilities, whilst the King retired for rest and quietude to St. Albans Abbey, the Queen, accompanied by the baby Prince, made a progress through the Midlands. The child’s winning ways touched every heart, and when he distributed to struggling hands everywhere the cognizance of his patron saint, St. Edward,--little silver swans,--everybody swore to be his henchman and to stand by Henry and Margaret. Salisbury hung upon the skirts of the Queen’s cortège, and Margaret inquired his business. His curt reply determined her to demand his body, alive or dead. At Bloreheath adherents of both sides met, and then Margaret had her baptism of blood; her own was tinged with warriors’ strains from Charlemagne of old, and in her veins the old lion sprang up phœnix-like. Margaret saw red. She offered two courses only to her rebellious and disaffected subjects, submission or death--no quarter. Alas! her experience was the common one, the faithlessness of friends.

The Battle of Northampton, on July 10, 1460, was lost by the treachery of Lord Grey de Ruthen. The Queen and Prince were posted upon an eminence to view the fight, and her military instinct detected the base defection whereby Warwick was enabled to take the King’s army in the rear. Henry was captured before her eyes, and Margaret, powerless to retrieve the disaster, fled with her boy at once to the North. By a circuitous route they reached the impregnable walls of Harlech Castle. Henry was led in mock triumph to the Tower, whence Warwick had the effrontery to demand the custody of the persons of the Queen and Prince. Margaret expressed her indignation at the insult emphatically, but, waiting not to bandy useless words, she hurried off to Scotland to seek sympathy and assistance. Meanwhile the Duke of York formally claimed the crown. Margaret’s response was impressive. Without difficulty she roused Scottish enthusiasm,--generally so slow to move,--and, sweeping across the border, she gathered in her train an army of 60,000 men, and appeared before the gates of York. There she called a plenary council of lords, to whom she expressed her determination “to rest not till I have entered London and set free the King.”

York, taken by surprise, hastened to meet the valiant Queen, and found her encamped at Wakefield. Warned of his approach, she sent heralds to his quarters, who in her name defied the Duke “to meet her in honest, open fight.” He held back, and then she poured the vials of her scorn upon his head: “Doth want of courage,” she exclaimed, “allow thee to be browbeaten by a woman--fie on thee, thou traitor!” The battle was joined on December 30, and gained in less than half an hour. A troop of horse, headed by young Lord Clifford,--and followed immediately by the Queen, mounted and armed,--made an impetuous dash to where the Duke’s standard hung heavy in the still, damp air. It they captured, and forthwith threw it over Margaret’s knees, and with his sword Clifford struck the rebel leader down from his horse, and slew him as he lay at Margaret’s feet. In a trice he had severed the head of her mortal enemy, and upon his knee he offered the ghastly trophy to his Queen. “Madam,” he said, “the war is over; here is the King’s ransom!” The Queen turned sick at the terrible sight, and hysterically sobbed and laughed alternately, and she screamed aloud when soldiers stuffed the blood-dripping head into a common chaff-sack. Lord Clifford she knighted on the spot, using his own gory sword; then she ordered York’s head to be carried off to York, and placed on the city’s southern gateway.

Salisbury was also _hors de combat_, wounded and a prisoner, and by the Queen’s orders he was beheaded on the field of battle,--for he would not yield his sword and word,--and his head was placed by the side of his leader’s. In a moment, too, of justifiable vengeance, the Queen directed that space should be left on that carrion portal for two other traitors’ heads--Warwick’s and March’s. “There,” she said, “they all four shall dangle till the rain and the sun and the birds have consumed them--warnings to all and sundry who shall hereafter raise voice and hand against their liege.”

Margaret pushed south, and at St. Albans, on February 17, met Warwick, with the King in his camp. The issue was soon decided; 2,000 Yorkists were slain, and Henry and Margaret were united once more. Lord Montague discovered him alone seated under a tree. Clifford galloped off to the Queen to tell her the good news, and, bereft of kirtle and veil and every sign of royalty, she rushed as she was to where the King was awaiting her. He bade her kneel before he embraced her, and gave her then and there the knightly accolade, as well as to his son, who had run as hard as he could after his mother, and he also knighted sixty worthy, loyal gentlemen. All entered the abbey church for _Te Deum_ and Benediction, and then the royal pair sought the monastery for rest and food. Leaving Henry at his devotions, and the Prince to cheer him, Margaret again mounted her charger and marched straight on London, where York’s eldest son, Edward, Earl of March, a lad of eighteen, had been proclaimed King as Edward IV. Perhaps over-confident, and at all events uncompromising in her intention to punish the disloyal and rebel citizens, she failed to post her army advantageously, although she had 60,000 men against Warwick’s 40,000. At Towton the fates were once more against her, and she, with the King and the Prince, fled for their lives to Newcastle, and over the border to the friendly Court of the Queen Regent, Margaret. Henry was established in royal state at Kirkcudbright, and the Queen and Prince at Dunfermline, and there the little fellow, just eight years of age, was betrothed to the young King’s sister, Margaret.

Margaret was really happy in her new home, and, resourceful as she was and never cast down, she turned her attention to peaceful pursuits, and in particular interested herself in the local industry of wool-weaving. She had seen her father’s and her mother’s interest, in her happy days in Lorraine and Anjou, in the craftsmen and craftswomen about them, and her own skilful fingers had busied themselves in homely, peaceful avocations. Margaret endeared herself to her Fifeshire friends, as she usually did to all who were fortunate enough to be thrown into contact with her, and they sang of her:

“God bless Margaret of Anjou, For she taught Dunfermline how to sew.”

It was said, too, of Margaret, that “if she had not been destined to play the rôle of Bellona, she would have glorified that of Minerva.” The Earl of March,--to whom she never allowed the style of Edward IV.,--was wont to repeat his quaint joke: “Margaret is more to be feared when a fugitive than all the leaders of Lancaster put together!”

On April 16, 1462, Queen Margaret bade adieu to her consort at Kirkcudbright, and with her son and suite, in four well-found Scottish galleys, set sail for France. She landed at Ecluse in Brittany, after more perils on the sea, and was cordially welcomed by Duke Francis, who gave her 12,000 _livres_. Thence she made straight to Chinon,--of happy memories,--to interview King Louis, who had just been crowned at Reims, upon the death of his father, Charles VII. There she was folded in the loving arms of her dear aunt, Queen Marie; and what a meeting that was for both royal ladies! They had not seen each other since that auspicious wedding-day sixteen years before. Then they were both in the heyday of prosperity; now both were crushed by Providence--Marie flouted by her ill-conditioned, jealous daughter-in-law, Charlotte de Savoy, now Queen-consort of France, and Margaret a fugitive!

Louis played a double game--a cruel one indeed, and insincere so far as Margaret was concerned. He spoke to her fairly, but his mind was with the usurping King of England. Under one pretext or another he delayed his reply to her plea for assistance, but at length, in desperation, Margaret pledged Jersey with him for 2,000 French bowmen. King René was in Provence, but, taking a hint from Louis that his presence would be undesirable just then in Anjou, he sent for his daughter to join him at Aix. This was impossible; for Margaret time was all too valuable, and she set sail for Scotland on October 10. With her went a few single-hearted knights, but of all the hosts of admirers and loyal followers of sixteen years before, only one of mark wore his badge of chivalry consistently--the gallant and accomplished Pierre de Brézé, a _preux chevalier_ indeed, the forerunner of Bayart, and like him “_sans peur et sans reproche_.”

Again the elements were not only unpropitious, but malevolent. Escaping the vigilance of Edward’s cruisers, and the rebel guns of Tynemouth, basely trained upon their Queen, her ships were wrecked on Holy Island. There 500 of her troops were massacred, and Margaret and de Brézé, and a very meagre following, put to sea in a fisherman’s open boat which landed them on Bamborough sands. The banner of Henry of Lancaster, once more raised aloft by Margaret, magnet-like drew all the northern counties, and in spite of Somerset’s desertion the Queen soon found herself at the head of a formidable army, with the King beside her and the Prince. Once more at Hexham fickle fortune failed the intrepid Queen. Henry was again a captive, but Margaret and Edward made good their escape over the Scottish border.

How often, when human affairs appear most desperate, and all hope and effort are thrown away, help comes from some unexpected quarter! So it was in Queen Margaret’s experience. There is a romantic tale with respect to her flight from Hexham’s stricken field--the story of the robber. Whether one or more outlaws waylaid and robbed the fugitives it matters not, but, stripped of everything but the clothes they wore, Queen and Prince were in dismal straits. Wonder of wonders! a messenger followed Margaret from no less a person than the Duke of Burgundy, the inveterate enemy of her house, the friend and ally of the English in France. The message was in effect an invitation to the Queen and Prince to Flanders--the splendid appanage of ducal Burgundy. Margaret’s implacable foes,--the winds and seas,--were waiting for their prey, and nearly secured their quarry as she tossed to and fro across the wild North Sea on her way to meet Philippe. Landing on the Flemish coast on July 31,--when storm and tempest should never have appeared,--with utmost difficulty, the Queen presented a sorry figure. No badge or symbol of royalty marked her worn-out figure; she was clad meanly in a coarse short worsted skirt--_robette_--without chemise or shawl, her stockings low down on her heels, her hair dishevelled and unveiled. Who could have recognized in that chastened traveller “the loveliest woman in Christendom”?

True to his loyal devotion, Sieur Pierre de Brézé was with his Queen poor as herself, he had, he said, “spent 50,000 crowns for nothing”--and a faithful valet, Louis Carbonelle, and no more than seven women-dresses. At once the Duke was apprised of Margaret’s coming; but, being on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Boulogne, he sent his apologies by Philippe Pot, Seigneur de la Roche and a Knight of the Golden Fleece, bidding the Queen welcome, and saying that he would present his homage to her shortly if she would proceed direct to Bruges.

That progress was a nightmare, an “Inferno,” a masquerade--what you will: the Queen of England clad in rags, her hair untied, seated in a common country bullock-cart, drawn by a pair of sorry steeds, mocked all the way along as “_Une Merrie Mol!_” “_Une Naufragée!_” “_Une Sorcière de Vent!_” The Comte de Charolois, heir to the duchy, met her Majesty at the _digue_, saluted her with all reverence, and conducted her to the Castle of St. Pol. On the morrow the Duke of Burgundy arrived, and at once went to the Queen’s lodgings to pay his homage. Right in the middle of the street, where Margaret stood to greet him, with a courtly bow he swept the ground with the drooping plume of his _berretta_, whilst the Queen curtsied in her abbreviated gown twice majestically. Never was there a finer piece of royal burlesque enacted!

Margaret caught the Duke by the arm as he was about to give the kiss of etiquette. “Thanks, my cousin,” she said; “now I am, perhaps, in no fit mind for compliments. I seek your aid for Henry and our son, and I beseech you, by the love of Our Lady, not to credit the abominable tales which have been circulated touching me.” The Duke did not commit himself, but generously gave his “sweet cousin” 2,000 golden crowns,--wherewith “to fit your Majesty with proper raiment,” he said,--and a fine diamond to wear for him. The next day the Duchess of Bourbon, Philippe’s sister, visited Queen Margaret, and in her she found a sincere and sympathizing confidante. She set before the Duchess all the sad facts of her impoverished condition, and told her all about the hardships she and her spouse and son had met with in England. “We were reduced,” she said, “on one occasion to one herring among three, and not more bread than would suffice for five days’ nourishment.” She went on to say that once at Mass, at Dunfermline, she had no coin for the offertory, and she asked an archer of the King of Scotland, kneeling near her, for a farthing, which he most reluctantly gave her.

“Alas!” replied the weeping Duchess, “no Queen save your Majesty has been so hardly dealt with by Providence; but now we must offer you, sweet cousin, some consolation for your sufferings.” One more affecting speech of the heroic Queen must be recorded. “When on the day of my espousal,” she said, “I gathered the rose of England, I was quite well aware that I should have to wear it whole with all its thorns!”

The Duchess, true to her word, organized splendid fêtes at the Castle of St. Pol in honour of the royal refugees, and Margaret, now attired as became her lofty station, put on one side her cruel anxieties, and yielded herself to the pleasures and humours of the festivities. They put her in mind of the gay tournaments in her happy home--the Court of her good father, King René.

Henry was all the while a prisoner in the Tower, and Margaret’s tender heart bled on his account. She for the moment was without resources, and she had to bide her time. She knew that that time would come, and never for a moment did she lend herself to unprofitable despair. The Duke stood by her, a friend in need, and bestowed both money and an escort upon his royal visitor. In the spring of 1463 she and the Prince were welcomed in Bar-le-Duc by King René and his Court, though it cost Margaret a pang to see her one-time Maid of Honour, Jehanne de Laval, in her dear mother’s place.

Six months passed all too swiftly under the hospitable roofs of her brother Jean, Duke of Calabria, and now actual Duke of Lorraine as well, and of her sister Yolande, Countess of Vaudémont. Then widowed Queen Marie sent an urgent summons for her favourite niece to pay her a visit at Amboise in Touraine, and there most happily Margaret forgot her troubles, and looked more hopefully than ever to the future.

King René’s affairs were in hopeless confusion, and his interests and resources were drained by his son’s campaign in Italy. He could offer nothing but a loving father’s whole-hearted love and protection to his unfortunate daughter and his little grandson, the pride and joy of his life. He breathed out his deep feelings in two elegant canticles eloquent of Margaret’s woes. His example set all the poets singing sweetly of the Lancastrian Queen; her beauty and her accomplishments, her troubles and her fortitude, appealed to them mightily. They sought, too, to cheer the riven soul of their liege lord and poet leader:

“Rouse thee, King René! rouse thee, good René! Let not sorrow all thy spirits beguile. Thy dear daughter, brave spouse of King Henry, Tho’ sadly she wept still she coaxes a smile.”

All that René was able to do for his royal daughter was to establish her and her son at his castle of Kuerere, near St. Mihil’s by Verdun in Lorraine, with 2,000 _livres_ to carry on the education of the Prince. Sir John Fortescue, a soldier of fortune, was appointed his tutor. He was a devoted adherent of the Red Rose. “We are,” he wrote, “reduced to great poverty, and the Queen with difficulty sustaineth us in meat and drink.”

Louis XI., who had refused to have anything to do with his unfortunate cousin, Queen Margaret, at last agreed to meet her at Tours in December, 1469, and with her he invited King René; Jean, Duke of Calabria and Lorraine; and her sister Yolande, with her husband, Ferri, Count of Vaudémont, “to consider,” as he put it, “what may or may not be done.” Louis treated Margaret with scant ceremony. Whilst discussions were going on, startling news came from England which very much altered the situation. The North and Midlands had again risen against Edward, and Warwick had gone over to the Lancastrians. Edward was a prisoner at Middleham Castle, and Warwick was virtually King of England! The diversion was, however, of short duration, for in a few weeks Edward managed to escape. And now it was Warwick’s turn to fly. He sought the French Court, and confided in Louis, who, sinister and scheming as he was always, saw a way to help Margaret and still be on the winning side. The King proposed an interview between the Queen and the Earl, with a view to a reconciliation. Margaret rejected indignantly the proposal. “The Earl of Warwick,” she exclaimed, “has pierced my heart with wounds that can never be healed. They will bleed till the Day of Judgment. He hath done things which I can never forgive.”

The King was, however, determined that his idea of a _rapprochement_ between the Lancastrians and the wing of the Yorkists who looked to Warwick for light and leading should be realized, and he urged his view so emphatically upon Margaret that at last she agreed to meet Warwick, but upon one condition: that “he shall unsay before your Majesty and the King of Sicily, my father, all that he has foully uttered about me and the Prince, and shall swear to repeat the same at Paul’s Cross in London later.”

Warwick, to the amazement of Louis, agreed to this condition, and forthwith presented himself most humbly to the Queen upon his knees. Swordless, gloveless, and uncovered, he sought pardon for his evil conduct, and prayed her to accept him as her true henchman and devoted lieutenant. Margaret seemed stunned by this extraordinary _volte-face_, and kept the Earl upon his knees quite a long time before she vouchsafed a reply. At last she extended her hand for him to kiss, and he, further, servilely kissed the fur hem of her robe. Then he laid his plans before the august company for releasing the King and placing him once more upon his throne. He next called on King Louis and King René to stand surety for the performance of his purpose. He said he could command immediately 50,000 men to fight under his orders, and he craved the presence of the Queen in the saddle by his side.

With Warwick was the Earl of Oxford and other leaders of his party, who all knelt in homage to the Queen and craved her clemency. To Oxford she at once extended her hand. “Your pardon, my lord,” she said, “is right easy. What wrongs you have done me are cancelled by what you have borne for King Henry.” The conference at Tours was adjourned, and resumed at the Castle of Angers; and then Louis had another startling proposition to lay before Queen Margaret: no less than the betrothal of Prince Edward,--now a well-grown and handsome lad of seventeen,--to the Earl of Warwick’s daughter Anne! Margaret flared up at once. “Impossible!” she said. “What! will he indeed give his daughter to my royal son, whom he has so often branded as the offspring of adultery or fraud! By God’s name, that can never be!”

For a whole fortnight Margaret stood her ground. She could not agree to this extraordinary proposal; but then the peaceful, fatherly insistence of René caused her to relent, but not before she roundly rated her good sire for his pusillanimity and too ready credence. Meanwhile the Countess of Warwick and her daughter had arrived at Amboise, and had been most ostentatiously received by King Louis. Then happened, by happy coincidence, an event vastly important to the King of France--the birth of an heir. Queen Charlotte was delivered of a son, the future Charles VIII., on June 30. Nothing would content the King but Prince Edward and Anne Neville must be among the child’s sponsors. At the same time, to influence Queen Margaret, Warwick, at Louis’s suggestion, made a solemn asseveration in the cathedral church of Angers: “Upon this fragment of the True Cross I promise to be true to King Henry VI. of England; to Queen Margaret, his spouse; and to the Prince of Wales, his true and only son; and to go back at once to England, raise 50,000 men, and restore the King to his honours.” Louis gave him 46,000 gold crowns and 2,000 French archers, and at the same time asked Queen Margaret to accept the charge of his young daughter Anne whilst he was away.

Margaret could not stand out any longer, and so, immediately after the baptismal ceremony,--where she herself held her little royal nephew at the font,--Edward, Prince of Wales, and Anne Neville were betrothed with gorgeous ceremonial in the Chapel of St. Florentin, within the Castle of Amboise, in the presence of nearly all the Sovereigns of France and their Courts.

“The Prince,” so said the chroniclers, “is one of the handsomest and most accomplished Princes in Europe, tall, fair like his mother, and with her soft voice and courteous carriage, was well pleased with his pretty and sprightly fiancée.” People sought to belittle the match, and called it a _mésalliance_; but the bride’s great-grandmother was Joanna Beaufort, daughter of Prince John of Ghent, Edward III.’s third son. She married the Earl of Westmoreland. In Queen Margaret’s estimation, what certainly did weigh very considerably was the fact that her daughter-in-law-to-be was one of the wealthiest heiresses in England. The august company went on to Angers after the double ceremony, at the desire of Queen Margaret, who insisted that a Prince of Wales could only be married in his ancestral dominions. She cited the intention of King René to leave to her and her heirs the duchy of Anjou, and so she claimed it as already English territory. Louis acceded to her whim. He could afford to wait and watch the course of events. The marriage of Prince Edward and the Lady Anne was consequently solemnized, on August 15, in the Cathedral of St. Maurice, which had witnessed so many royal functions.

The Earl of Warwick, accompanied by the Duke of Clarence, grandson of King Henry IV., departed immediately for England, to make good his brave words and prove his loyalty. His proclamation in favour of Henry, Margaret, and Edward, produced an immense sensation, and in a couple of days he found himself in command of 70,000 men, all crying, “A Henry! A Henry!” Edward IV. immediately left the capital and sought the friendly shores of Holland, and Warwick was, without a blow being struck, master of the kingdom. His first step was to send the Bishop of Winchester to the Tower, to clothe King Henry in regal robes, and conduct him with the Sovereign’s escort to the Palace of Westminster. On October 13 the King went to St. Paul’s, wearing once more his crown. Louis ordered _Te Deum_ to be sung in every church in France, and went in person to the Castle of Saumur to salute Queen Margaret. Early in November the Queen, with the Prince and Princess of Wales and a very distinguished following, set out for Paris, on their way to London. Every town through which the royal cortège passed was gaily decorated, and the hearty plaudits of the thronging inhabitants were mingled with the joy peals of all the bells.

Harfleur once more was fixed upon as the port of passage, and once more the Channel churned and a tempest fell upon the royal flotilla. Nobody has been able to explain why Margaret of England was so persistently persecuted by the divinities of the weather. Twice they put back to port, and then, after tossing about for sixteen whole days and nights, they made Weymouth,--a passage ordinarily of no more than as many hours,--and landed on April 13. That day was indeed ill-omened for the cause Queen Margaret had at heart, and for which she had suffered such appalling vicissitudes. The Battle of Barnet was fought and lost; Warwick was killed, and King Henry was again a prisoner. Verily, Queen Margaret’s star was a blaze of disasters!

The terrible news staggered the courageous Queen; she swooned, but soon recovered her usual equanimity, although out of the bitterness of her soul she sobbed: “Better die right out, methinks, than exist so insecurely!” She appeared to have no plan of action, for such a disaster seemed to be impossible; so, to gain time for thought and effort, she moved herself and those she loved into the safe sanctuary of Beaulieu Abbey. There Somerset and many other notable fugitives forgathered. To them she counselled retreat--“Till Providence,” she said, “ordereth better luck.” The Prince now for the first time asserted himself, and, with his mother’s daring, gave an emphatic “No.” At Bath a goodly array of soldiers rallied to the royal standard, and Margaret determined to cross the Severn and join her forces to Jasper Tudor’s army of sturdy loyal Welshmen. The Duke of Gloucester opposed her advance, and so she turned aside to Tewkesbury, and there encamped.

The morrow (May 4, 1471) was to be the darkest in all the chequered career of Margaret of Anjou and England. Sweet Pentecost though it was, the spirit of comfort belied, failed the fated Queen once more. With early dawn fell aslant the springtide sunbeams a rain of feathered hail. Battle was joined, each man at his post--save one, the perjured Lord Wenlock. His command, in the centre of Queen Margaret’s forces, lacked its leader, and Somerset rode off to find him. At a low brothel he discovered the miscreant drinking with and fondling loose wenches. “Traitor!” cried the Duke; “die, thou scoundrel!” And he clove his head in two. This defection caused irretrievable disaster; still, the Prince of Wales did prodigies of valour, and so did many more; but he was felled from his horse, and the “Hope of England” was lead captive to victorious Edward’s tent. Received with every mark of discourtesy, the heart of the chivalrous young Prince must have quailed as he stood before the arch-enemy of his house, but he had very little time for reflection.

“How durst thou, changeling, presumptuously enter my dominions with banners displayed against me?” demanded Edward.

“To recover my father’s crown, the heritage of my ancestors,” bravely replied the Prince.

“Speakest thou thus to me, thou upstart! See, I smite thee on thy bastard mouth!” roughly exclaimed the conqueror, and with that he demeaned himself and the crown he fought for by cowardly and savagely striking with his mailed fist the unsuspecting and unarmed Prince. This treacherous blow was the signal to the titled scoundrels standing by for a murderous attack upon the Prince of Wales. He fell crying fearlessly: “A Henry! A Henry!” pierced by many daggers. It was a dark deed and dastardly; its stain no course of years will ever cleanse, and Edward IV. is for all time “Bloody Edward.”

Queen Margaret, seeing the hopelessness of the conflict, and fearing the worst had happened to the Prince,--for he never came to cheer her,--took the Princess and fled to a convent hard by the battlefield, and there lay concealed. Edward, yielding to the base instincts of a cruel nature, very soon got news of Margaret’s hiding-place, and with a demoniacal scowl, “Ah, ah!” he cried out, “we’ve settled the cub; now for the she-wolf!”

The Queen was dragged from her hiding-place, and borne to Edward’s quarters, where, like the brute he was, he reviled and insulted her.

“Slay me, thou bloodthirsty wretch, if thou wilt! I care not for death at thy desecrating hands! May God strike thee, as He will!” she exclaimed.

Margaret was sent to the Tower, but not to her husband; they were kept apart, and the Princess of Wales was delivered over to the care of her uncle, the Archbishop of York. But even so Edward’s malice was not exhausted. The Queen was conducted without honour, or even decency, in the suite of Edward on his return to the capital. At Coventry,--of all places for further outrage, a place so greatly agreeable to Henry and herself,--ill-fated Margaret was subjected to personal insults from her vanquisher. In reply she reviled him, and thrust him with abhorrence from her. In revenge he ordered her to be fastened upon a common sumpter horse, and he ordered a placard to be placed on her breast, “This is Queen Margaret, good lieges,” and her hands were tied behind her back. Thus was the most valiant, most unselfish, and most loyal Queen that England ever had led to grace the mock triumph of a royal murderer. She was thrust into the foulest dungeon of the grim Tower, and there remained, bereft of food, of service, and wellnigh of reason, too, for seven dreary, weary months.

The day after her incarceration King Henry’s dead body was discovered in his cell. Gloucester, it was said, had killed him; but Edward was, if not the actual murderer, privy to the deed. Queen Margaret, hearing in her dark, foul den the heavy tramp of men-at-arms, scrambled up to the bars of her little window, and beheld,--what probably Edward meant she should,--the corpse of her slaughtered husband borne past for burial. No ceremony of any kind accompanied that mournful passing. At St. Paul’s, Henry’s body was exposed in a chapel of the crypt, and then it found merciful sepulture in the God’s-acre at Chertsey Abbey.

That her beloved son,--her one and only hope,--was dead as well, heart-broken Margaret gathered amid ribald blasphemies of the intoxicated soldiery as she was borne to London in that “Triumph.” Now was she bereft indeed, and nothing seemed so desirable as death; indeed, she resigned herself, and prepared herself for execution at any moment, at any savage hint of her consort’s supplanter on England’s throne--accursed Edward! It was, however, not to be supposed that King Louis of France or King René of Sicily-Anjou should silently condone the unhalting cruelty of a bloodthirsty monarch, especially when the person and the honour of a French Princess were at stake.

III.

Efforts were made, more or less feeble, for the delivery of the incarcerated Queen by Louis,--fearful of offence to the Yorkist King,--and by René, who had no resources with which to back up his appeal. Anyhow, Margaret was, at the Christmas following the fatal battle, released from durance vile, and consigned to the care of the Duchess-Dowager of Somerset,--one of her earliest friends,--and went to live under her wing at Wallingford. Edward made her the beggarly grant of 5 marks weekly for the support of herself and two maid-servants! There Margaret remained for five years, each one more intolerable than its predecessor.

At the Peace of Picquigny, August 29, 1475, between Louis and Edward, the latter agreed to accept a ransom of 50,000 gold crowns for the widowed Queen. This compact was not an act of grace on the part of Louis so much as a _quid pro quo_. He insisted upon René ceding Provence to the crown of France, upon his death, by way of payment of the ransom. Still, in this matter Edward was as good as his bond, and directly the first instalment of the amount was paid in London to John Howard, Edward’s Treasurer, Margaret was conducted to Sandwich, not without indignity, and placed upon a common fishing-boat. Landing at Dieppe, January 14, 1476, she was taken on to Rouen, where she received the following affecting letter from her sorrowing father, King René:

“_Ma fille, que Dieu vous assiste dans vos conseils, car c’est rarement des hommes qu’il faut en attendre dans les revers de fortune. Lorsque vous désirerez moins ressentir vos peines, pensez aux miennes; elles sont grandes, ma fille, et pourtant je vous console._”[A]

[A]“My child, may God assist thee in thy counsels, for rarely do men render help in times of fortune’s reverses. When you desire to resent your trials the least, think of mine; they are great, my child, and therefore I wish to console you.”

True enough, the troubles and reverses of King René were more than fall to the lot of most men of high culture and degree; but what of Queen Margaret’s shipwreck? For nearly thirty years she had endured experiences which had tried no other Queen half so hardly; and all the while she had set a unique example of devotion, loyalty, courage, and endurance, unexampled in history. There never was a truer wife, a more self-sacrificing mother, a more intrepid and a nobler Queen, than Margaret of Anjou.

From Rouen the Queen sent a message to King Louis, desiring to see him; but he, knowing well her desperate case, and seeing no likelihood of profit accruing to himself, coward-like, evaded an interview. His miserable aunt might forage for herself, for all he cared, and go where she listed, but not to Paris nor Amboise. With bent head and slow feet, the great heroine of the Wars of the Roses, broken like a pitcher at a fountain, took her lonely way no more in gallant cavalcade, but almost in funereal cortège, to Anjou and Angers--the cradle of her race.

At Reculée father and daughter once more embraced each other. Alas, what a sorrowful meeting that was, and how mixed their feelings! Margaret’s filial duty conquered the reproaches she had prepared, and René’s tears and silence spoke more loudly than words of regret could do. Providence had been cruel to them both. René loved Reculée for its peace and solitude, and there Margaret should repose awhile and recover mind and body. No prettier resort was there in all Anjou than the Maison de Reculée--“Reculée” René named it, a place of “recoil” from the buffetings of fate. He had purchased the estate, in 1465, from one Colin, an Angers butcher, for 300 _écus d’or_, and had greatly enjoyed laying out the estate and erecting a bijou residence. His paintings and his sculptures, his books, his music scores, his miniatures, and all his artistic hobbies, he lavished there for himself and fair Queen Jehanne. They often dropped down the Maine in a pleasure barge, and landed in the sedges, full of warblers and wild life. Reculée was but a league or two from Angers. Hard by the _manoir_ was the sheltered and picturesque hermitage of La Baumette,--a shrine of St. Baume, patroness of Provence,--and hither René and Margaret resorted daily for prayer and meditation.

Margaret’s home-coming was sad enough, but her demeanour was rather that of defiance than of patience. Her pride had been laid low by her sufferings and ill-treatment, but not slain; and when she heard of the treachery and chicanery of the King of France in entering Angers in force, and proclaiming himself Sovereign of Anjou, her scorn knew no bounds, and she chided her father for his pusillanimity, and reproached him for his _dilettante_ life. His sedentary pleasures and his artistic tastes bored her cruelly; she despised his peaceful handiwork, and craved his strong arm once more in the fight. If England was lost to her, Anjou and Provence should not be; this was her grim determination, and she roused herself for action and foray. Like a lioness at bay, she fought out to a finish strenuously her troubled life, away from stricken fields and gruesome dungeons. René felt his daughter’s strictures more acutely than he said; indeed, they fell like blows of sharp poniards upon his wounded heart. The deaths of all his near relatives, sons and daughters, and his son-in-law, Ferri de Vaudémont, saddening as they were, were as nothing to the vituperations of Margaret--now almost a frenzied recluse. King René sank at last, wearied, heart-broken, yet trustful in his God, into his mortal resting-place, and Queen Margaret retired to the Castle of Dampière, near Saumur, the modest _manoir_ of a devoted servant of her father’s house,--the Sieur François de la Vignolles, of Moraens,--to end her dire days of woe.

Her father left her what he could, impoverished as he was: 1,000 gold crowns and the Castle of Queniez--an inconsiderable estate between Angers and Saumur. René wrote to Louis a few months before his death, commending Margaret to his care and charity, and this is how the King of France executed the trust, so characteristic of his greed and cunning. He negotiated with Margaret the sale of her reversionary rights in Lorraine, Anjou, Maine, Provence, and Barrois, for an annual income of 600 _livres_. The deed was executed at Reculée, November 19, 1480, but Louis never paid the annuity! One purpose Margaret had in view in this arrangement was the recovery of the bodies of her husband and son, that she might give them decent burial. Edward IV. would not allow this seemly duty, and the bones of the illustrious dead were left dishonoured and unnoted.

Margaret’s nature would not allow of comfort. She was devoured with regret and consumed by revenge; she spent the last two years of her stormy life in fretting and fuming over the disasters of her family. Her whole appearance and her manner changed. No longer lovely, as when she stepped on England’s inhospitable shore, she became shrunk, aged, and pallid. The ravenings of her spirit had indeed transformed her into the “grim grey wolf of Anjou.” She became leprous and hideous--“the most hideous Princess in Europe,” one might write. Gently but firmly she had to be restrained, lest she should do herself some harm and injure others. Alas! Margaret of Anjou came to her death, not in the halo of sanctity, but in the mist of mental obscurity, and thus she died alone--perhaps unlamented, and certainly misjudged by posterity. Near her end languor and paralysis seized her, and she passed away unconsciously on August 25, 1482.

Above the chief portal of his castle De la Vignolles put up this epitaph:

“In the year 1480 Margaret of Anjou and Queen of England, daughter of René, King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, forced to abandon her kingdom after having courageously borne herself in a great number of encounters and in twelve pitched battles, deprived of the rights of her family, spoiled of all her possessions, without means of support and without help, found a resting-place in this _manoir_, the home of François de la Vignolles, an old and faithful servant of her father. She died here August 25, 1482, aged no more than fifty-three years. Upon whose soul may Christ Jesus have pity.”

All that remained of this remarkable woman was interred without ceremony in the Cathedral of Angers. She was laid, it was said, by her father’s side, but no inscription, no mark of any kind, records the fact. No one knows exactly where to bow the head in reverence and bend the knee in homage to the memory of Great Queen Margaret. In a very few words, however, are summed up in the “Paston Letters,” No. 275, the character of Margaret d’Anjou: “The Queen is a grete and stronge laborid woman, for she spareth noo peyne to save hir things.”