The Wars of the Roses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Having returned to Bruges, and been joined by the Prince of Wales, Margaret paid a visit to the Count of Charolois. Never were royal exiles more royally treated. The count exhibited a degree of delicacy and generosity worthy of an earlier era; and, indeed, was so deferential, that the Prince of Wales, who had known little of royalty but its perils and misfortunes, could not refrain from expressing his surprise.

"These honors," said the boy, "are not due from you to us; neither in your father's dominions should precedence be given to persons so destitute as we are."

"Unfortunate though you be," answered the count, "you are the son of the King of England, while I am only the son of a ducal sovereign; and that is not so high a rank."

Leaving Bruges with her son, Margaret was escorted to Barr with all the honor due to the royal rank. At Barr, the exiled queen was met and welcomed by her father, King René, who gave her an old castle in Verdun as a residence till better days should come. Thither Margaret went to establish her little court; and thither, to be educated in the accomplishments in fashion at the period, she carried the young prince around whom all her hopes now clustered.

Two hundred Lancastrians of name and reputation shared the exile of Margaret of Anjou. Among these were Lord Kendal, a Gascon; the Bishop of St. Asaph, the young Lord De Roos and his kinsman, Sir Henry; John Courtenay, younger brother of Devon's Earl; Edmund Beaufort, the new Duke of Somerset, and his brother John, whom the Lancastrians called Marquis of Dorset; Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter – always, notwithstanding his relationship to Edward, faithful to the Red Rose; Jasper Tudor, who clung to Lancaster as if with a prophetic notion that with the fortunes of the house were associated those of his own family; John Morton, Parson of Blokesworth, whose talents subsequently made him a cardinal and an archbishop; and Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice of England, one of the most upright judges who ever wore the ermine. Such men, when the fortunes of the house of Lancaster were at their worst, were prepared to suffer poverty and want in Henry's cause.

The banished queen could ill brook the obscurity of Verdun. It soon appeared that, notwithstanding so many disheartening reverses, Margaret retained her courage unimpaired; and that want, disappointment, mortification, had been unable to break her spirit or conquer her ambition. Hardly had the court of the exiles been formed at Verdun, when the queen renewed her efforts to regain the crown which she had already found so thorny.

At that time Alphonso the Fifth reigned in Portugal; and Portugal was rich, owing to the quantity of gold yearly brought from Guinea. Moreover, King Alphonso was a remarkable man. In his fiery nature were blended all the elements of love, chivalry, and religion; and though living in the fifteenth century he resembled a paladin of the age of Roland and Oliver. Through his grandmother, Philippa of Lancaster, Alphonso inherited the blood of John of Gaunt; and it was supposed that he would naturally feel much of that sympathy for the house of Lancaster which had been ever expressed by the Count of Charolois.

Accordingly, Margaret turned her eyes toward Portugal for aid, and employed John Butler, Earl of Ormond, to enlist Alphonso in her cause. Ormond, who, upon the execution of his brother, the Earl of Wiltshire, after Towton, had become the chief of the Butlers, was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of his age, and a master of the various languages then spoken in Europe. No fitter embassador could have been found; but he was not successful. In fact, although Alphonso was all his life engaged in chimerical enterprises, he could hardly have indulged in the delusion of being able to wrest a crown from Edward Plantagenet and Richard Neville. Not even that knight-errant would risk reputation against such odds. At all events the negotiation appears to have come to naught; and Ormond, doubtless, convinced that the fortunes of Lancaster were hopeless, returned to England, and made his submission. Edward restored the accomplished nobleman to the honors and estates of the Butlers, with a complimentary remark. "If good-breeding and liberal qualities," said the king, "were lost in all the world, they would still be found in the Earl of Ormond."

About the time when Ormond's mission failed, Margaret received intelligence that her husband had fallen into the hands of her enemies. Finding, perhaps, that Scottish hospitality was hard to bear, Henry, about a year after Hexham, removed to the north of England, and in July, 1465, while sitting at dinner in Waddington Hall, he was seized by Sir John Harrington, and sent prisoner to London. At Islington the captive king was met by Warwick, who lodged him securely in the Tower; and Henry, treated with humanity, forgot, in the practice of a monkish devotion, the crown he had lost and the world he had left.

The captivity of their king was not the only misfortune which, at this period, befell the Lancastrians. In 1467, Harleck Castle, their last strong-hold, was under the necessity of yielding. Davydd ap Jefan ap Einion held out to the last; but when the garrison was on the point of starvation, the brave Welsh captain listened to the dictates of humanity, and surrendered with honor.

Even after the fall of Harleck, Margaret's high spirit sustained her hopes. In 1467, she is understood to have come to London, disguised as a priest, to rouse her partisans to action, and even to have had an interview with her husband in the Tower. Next year she sent Jasper Tudor to Wales; and he laid siege to Denbigh. King Edward himself was in the castle, and the utmost peril of being taken prisoner. He contrived to escape, however; and the fortress surrendered. But a Yorkist named William Herbert went with an army, and inflicted such a defeat on Jasper that he was fain to escape to the Continent. Nevertheless, in October, Margaret lay at Harfleur threatening an invasion. Edward, however, sent his brother-in-law, Anthony Woodville, who now, in right of his wife, figured as Lord Scales, to attack the fleet of his old patroness; and the exiled queen, seeing no chance of success, abandoned her expedition in despair.

But even in despair Margaret could show herself heroic and sublime. Thus, when some of her Continental kinsfolk were, in a vulgar spirit, lamenting her unfortunate marriage, and describing her union with the unhappy Henry as the cause of all her misfortune, she raised her head with regal pride, and contemptuously rebuked their foolish talk. "On the day of my betrothal," exclaimed she, with poetic eloquence, "when I accepted the Rose of England, I knew that I must wear the rose entire and with all its thorns."

In the midst of adversity the exiled queen had one consolation. Edward, Prince of Wales, was a son of whom any mother might have been proud, and day by day he grew more accomplished in the warlike exercises of the age. Nor, though in almost hopeless adversity, did the prince lack instruction in weightier matters; for Fortescue undertook the task of educating the banished heir of Lancaster, endeavored so to form the mind of the royal boy as to enable him to enact in after years the part of a patriot-king, and compiled for his pupil the "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ;" a work explaining the laws of England, and suggesting the improvements that might with advantage be introduced.

Five years of exile passed over; and during that time every attempt of the Lancastrians to better their position proved disastrous. It was when matters were at the worst – when the Red Rose had disappeared, and the Red Rose-tree had withered from England – that circumstances occurred which inspired the despairing adherents of the captive king with high hopes, diverted the thoughts of the exiled queen from reminiscences of the past to speculations on the future, and opened up to her son the prospect of a throne, only to conduct him to an untimely grave.

CHAPTER XX

WARWICK AND THE WOODVILLES

At a court, over which Elizabeth Woodville exercised all the influence derived from her rank as a queen and her fascination as a woman, the Earl of Warwick was somewhat out of place. By Woodvilles, Herberts, and Howards, he was regarded with awe and envy as the haughtiest representative of England's patricians. Especially to the queen and her kinsmen his presence was irksome; and, knowing that any attempt to make "The Stout Earl" a courtier after the Woodville pattern was hopeless as to convert a bird of prey into a barn-door fowl, they were at no pains to conceal the pleasure they felt in mortifying his pride and destroying his influence. One possibility does not seem to have struck them. The Woodvilles themselves, to receive benefits, had been suddenly converted from the Red Rose to the White; Warwick, to avenge the nation's injuries and his own, might as suddenly be converted from the White Rose to the Red.

Notwithstanding the exile of Lancastrians and the discontent of Yorkists, no court in Christendom was more brilliant than that of King Edward. Indeed, foreign embassadors confessed, with mingled envy and admiration, that their eyes were dazzled by the surpassing loveliness of the damsels who appeared at state balls in the Palace of Westminster; and among these fair beings, perhaps, none was more interesting than the king's sister, Margaret, youngest daughter of Richard Plantagenet and Cicely Neville.

Two daughters of the Duke of York were already wives. Both had been married to English dukes – one to Exeter, another to Suffolk; and it was known that Edward, having, by his union with Elizabeth Woodville, lost the opportunity of allying himself with the Continental dynasties, contemplated for his remaining sister a marriage with some foreign prince capable of aiding him in case of a change of fortune.

Suitors were not, of course, wanting when so fair a princess as Margaret Plantagenet was to be won; and it happened that while Warwick was at feud with the Woodvilles – while the populace were clamoring against the new men with whom the king's court swarmed – her hand was contended for by Louis of France, for a prince of the blood royal, and by Louis of Bruges for the Count of Charolois, who, since his interview with Margaret of Anjou, had taken up arms against Louis and defeated him in the battle of Montlhéry. The choice was a matter of some difficulty; for the Woodvilles and Warwick took different sides of the question. The queen's kindred favored the suit of the Count of Charolois; while "The Stout Earl," between whom and the Burgundian no amity existed, declared decidedly for an alliance with France. Edward was in some perplexity, but at length he yielded to the earl's arguments; and, in 1467, the frank, unsuspecting king-maker departed to negotiate a marriage with that celebrated master of kingcraft, whose maxim was, that he who knew not how to dissemble knew not how to reign.

When Louis heard of Warwick's embassy he could not help thinking the occasion favorable for the exercise of his craft. He resolved to give the earl such a reception as might stir the jealousy of Edward, and acted in such a manner as to create in the breast of the English king suspicions of the powerful noble who had placed him on a throne. Having landed at Harfleur, Warwick was, on the 7th of June, conveyed in a barge to the village of La Bouille, on the Seine. On arriving at La Bouille, he found a magnificent banquet prepared for him, and the king ready to act as host. After having been sumptuously feasted, Warwick embarked in his boat for Rouen, whither the king and his attendants went by land; and the inhabitants of the town met the earl at the gate of the Quay St. Eloy, where the king had ordered a most honorable reception. Banners, crosses, and holy water were then presented to Warwick by priests in their copes; and he was conducted in procession to the cathedral, where he made his oblation, and thence to lodgings prepared for him at the monastery of the Jacobins.

Having thus received Warwick with the honors usually paid to royalty, Louis entertained the great earl in a style corresponding with the reception; and even ordered the queen and princesses to come to Rouen to testify their respect. The crafty king, meantime, did not refrain from those mischievous tricks at which he was such an adept. While Warwick staid at Rouen Louis lodged in the next house, and visited the earl at all hours, passing through a private door with such an air of mystery, as might, when reported to Edward, raise suspicions that some conspiracy had been hatching.

After the conference at Rouen had lasted for twelve days, Louis departed for Chartres, and Warwick set sail for England. The earl had been quite successful in the object of his mission; and he was accompanied home by the Archbishop of Narbonne, charged by Louis to put the finishing stroke to the treaty which was to detach the French king forever from the Lancastrian alliance.

Meanwhile, the Woodvilles had not been idle. Far from submitting patiently to the earl's triumph, they had labored resolutely to mortify his pride and frustrate his mission. The business was artfully managed. Anthony Woodville, in the name of the ladies of England, revived an old challenge to Anthony, Count de la Roche, an illegitimate son of the Duke of Burgundy; and the count, commonly called "The Bastard of Burgundy," having accepted the challenge, with the usual forms, intimated his intention to come to England without delay.

The news crept abroad that a great passage of arms was to take place; and the highest expectations were excited by the prospect. The king himself entered into the spirit of the business, consented to act as umpire, and made such arrangements as, it was conceived, would render the tournament memorable. Several months were spent in adjusting the preliminaries; and the noblest knights of France and Scotland were invited to honor the tournament with their presence.

At length the Bastard of Burgundy arrived in London with a splendid retinue; and lists were erected in Smithfield, with pavilions for the combatants, and galleries around for the ladies of Edward's court and other noble personages who had been invited to witness the pageant. On the 11th of June, all the ceremonies prescribed by the laws of chivalry having been performed, the combatants prepared for the encounter, and advanced on horseback from their pavilions into the middle of the inclosed space. After having answered the usual questions, they took their places in the lists, and, at the sound of trumpet, spurred their steeds and charged each other with sharp spears. Both champions, however, bore themselves fairly in the encounter, and parted with equal honor.

On the second day of the Smithfield tournament, the result was somewhat less gratifying to the Burgundian. On this occasion the champions again fought on horseback; and, as it happened, the steed of Anthony Woodville had a long and sharp pike of steel on his chaffron. This weapon was destined to have great influence on the fortunes of the day; for, while the combatants were engaged hand to hand, the pike's point entered the nostrils of the Bastard's steed, and the animal, infuriated by the pain, reared and plunged till he fell on his side. The Bastard was, of course, borne to the ground; and Anthony Woodville, riding round about with his drawn sword, asked his opponent to yield. At this point, the marshals, by the king's command, interfered, and extricated the Burgundian from his fallen steed. "I could not hold me by the clouds," exclaimed the brave Bastard; "but, though my horse fail me, I will not fail my encounter." The king, however, decided against the combat being then renewed.

Another day arrived, and the champions, armed with battle-axes, appeared on foot within the lists. This day proved as unfortunate for the Bastard as the former had been. Both knights, indeed, bore themselves valiantly; but, at a critical moment, the point of Woodville's axe penetrated the sight-hole of his antagonist's helmet, and, availing himself of this advantage, Anthony was on the point of so twisting his weapon as to bring the Burgundian to his knee. At that instant, however, the king cast down his warder, and the marshals hastened to sever the combatants. The Bastard, having no relish for being thus worsted, declared himself far from content, and demanded of the king, in the name of justice, that he should be allowed to perform his enterprise. Edward thereupon appealed to the marshals; and they, having considered the matter, decided that by the laws of the tournament the Burgundian was entitled to have his demand granted; but that, in such a case, he must be delivered to his adversary in precisely the same predicament as when the king interfered – in fact, with the point of Anthony Woodville's weapon thrust into the crevice of his visor: "which," says Dugdale, "when the Bastard understood, he relinquished his farther challenge."

The tournament at Smithfield, unlike "the gentle passage at Ashby," terminated without bloodshed. Indeed, neither Anthony Woodville nor his antagonist felt any ambition to die in their harness in the lists; and the Bastard, in visiting England, had a much more practical object in view than to afford amusement to gossiping citizens. He was, in fact, commissioned by the Count of Charolois to press the English king on the subject of a match with Margaret of York; and he played his part so well as to elicit from Edward, notwithstanding Warwick's embassy, a promise that the hand of the princess should be given to the heir of Burgundy. When Warwick returned from France and found what had been done in his absence, he considered that he had been dishonored. Such usage would, at any time, have grated hard on the earl's heart; and the idea of the Woodvilles having been the authors of this wrong made his blood boil with indignation. He forthwith retired to Middleham, in a humor the reverse of serene, and there brooded over his wrongs in a mood the reverse of philosophic.