Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/557

Rh of her jewels, and treated her with the utmost indignity. She made her escape, however, while they were quarrelling about the booty; and wandered some time with her son in the most unfrequented thickets, spent with hunger and fatigue, and ready to sink beneath the load of terror and affliction. In this wretched condition she was met by a robber, with his sword naked in his hand; and, seeing no means of escape, suddenly embraced the bold resolution of trusting entirely to his faith and generosity. "Approach, my friend!"—cried she, presenting to him the young prince!—"to you I commit the safety of your king's son." Struck with the singularity of the events and charmed with the confidence reposed in him, the robber became her protector. By his favour she dwelt concealed in the forest, till she found an opportunity to make her escape into Flanders, whence she passed to her father in France, and lied several years in privacy and retirement. Henry was less fortunate. He lay concealed during twelve months in Lancashire; but was at last detected, delivered up to Edward, and thrown into the Tower, 1465.

In 1470, however, Warwick had been sent to France to negociate a marriage between Edward IV, and Bona of Savoy; but Edward had, in his absence, given his people an English queen. This the earl resented; and though Edward knew he had been ill used, he was too proud to make an apology; and Warwick, in revenge, drew over the duke of Clarence to his party, by marrying him to his eldest daughter, coheiress of his immense fortune, besides many other discontented lords. Finding his own name insufficient, and being chased to France, Warwick entered into a league