Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/626

612 the end, only produced more discord. Whatever Edward dictated was accepted as law and constitution. Of course, Henry IV. was declared to have been an arrant usurper; and his posterity were held incapable, not only of wearing the crown, but of enjoying any estate or dignity in any portion of the British dominions for ever. Henry VI., Margaret, Edward, called Prince of Wales, the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, the Earls of Northumberland, Devonshire, and Pembroke, and a vast number of lords, knights, and gentlemen, were attainted. Edward IV. was declared to be the only rightful king; and all those of the York party who had been declared traitors by the Lancaster party, and expelled from honours and estates, were restored. Edward did not omit to reward his friends out of the forfeited domains of their enemies, and he conferred additional honours on some of them. His eldest brother George was created Duke of Clarence, his youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester; the Lord Falconbridge, who had rendered such service at Ferrybridge, was made Earl of Kent; Lord Bouchier, Earl of Essex; and Sir John Neville, brother of Warwick, was made Lord Montacute.

Having thus established his own dignity, and conferred these favours on his friends, Edward returned his best thanks to this obliging Parliament, and dismissed it on the 21st of December.

The opening year of 1462 he inaugurated with fresh streams of blood. He brought John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and his son, Aubrey de Vere, to the block, for being found guilty of corresponding with Margaret. Sir William Tyrrel, Sir Thomas Tudenham, and John Montgomery were also executed for the same offence. All these distinguished personages were dispatched on Tower Hill in February, under sentence pronounced in no civil court, but merely of a court-martial—a proof to what an extent the public was awed by the daring military character of the new king.

Meantime, nothing daunted, Margaret was exerting her ingenuity to rouse a party in Scotland. She pleaded to deaf ears. Her traitorous surrender of Berwick brought her no real assistance; and she now sent over Somerset to endeavour to obtain succour from France. All these efforts were equally vain. Charles VII. died in 1460, and his successor, Louis XI.—one of the most selfish and cold-blooded men that ever sat on a throne—was immovable. Somerset, her ambassador, returned completely unsuccessful. He and his attendants had, indeed, been arrested by Louis when they attempted to escape in the guise of merchants, for fear of the despicable king giving them up to Edward to propitiate his favour. It was only through the earnest intercession of the Count of Charolais, the son of the Duke of Burgundy, that they were liberated. Louis XI. was cousin-german to both Margaret and Henry VI.; but such relationships weigh nothing with selfish men, in comparison to their own immediate interests. While this unwelcome news was arriving, Margaret was rendered the more uneasy and unsafe by the appearance of Warwick at the court of Scotland, proposing a marriage betwixt the Scottish queen and the victorious Edward of England. Under these circumstances, neither Margaret nor Henry were safe. She resolved, therefore, to make one more effort with Louis of France and a personal one. By means of a French merchant, who owed her some kindness for past benefit, she managed to get over to France, where she threw herself at the feet of Louis, who was at Chinon, in Normandy. She was only able to reach his court by the assistance of the Duke of Brittany, who gave her 12,000 crowns.

But she might as well have thrown herself at the feet of any stone statue in the church of Chinon. Louis had not a feeling in him but of self. To all her pleadings of the claims of kindred blood, of the glory of restoring a fallen friend to a throne like that of England, of benefits which might be reciprocated when that was done, he was deaf as the adder. It was only when Margaret had recourse to the same temptation as she had thrown to so little purpose in the way of the Scotch, and talked of surrendering Calais, that the despicable monarch opened his ears. Then, indeed, he was all attention, and unbent into a smile and a word of condolence. He then sent off post haste to his most cunning minister, who was absent, commanding him to hasten to him, for there was a good game to be played, and good winnings to be had. Then he paid great public court to the woman who had followed him from place to place, praying to him on her knees, but without receiving an answer, and invited her to unite with him as sponsors to the infant son of the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII. of France.

Margaret agreed to surrender the rights of the crown in Calais, and that Henry should do the same. And what was to be the price of this sacrifice?—this sacrifice of this proud stronghold of England, this sacrifice of her own honour, and this last remaining fragment of her good fame in Britain? The paltry sum of 20,000 livres! That was all that she could squeeze from the miserable French king for this intensely desired object. True, he had it still to win, for it was not in the possession of Margaret or her husband; but this acknowledged purchase from the Lancastrian king would give him great weight in any attempts to compel the surrender, and if Henry did again regain his throne, it must be made over to him at once. The facility with which Margaret thus gave away the most important possessions of England, showed that she had no real patriotic feeling towards her adopted country. It was not the country for which she struggled, but for her own mere family interests; those saved, she cared not at what cost to the people of England. This the nation saw, and, after this time, her name became odious to all but the partisans of her own faction in this country.

With her 20,000 livres Margaret was enabled to engage the services of Pierre de Brezé, the seneschal of Normandy. He had been an old admirer of Margaret's, and now offered to follow her with 2,000 men. With this force, after an absence of five months, she set sail for England, and attempted to land at Tynemouth, in October, 1462, but was repelled by the garrison. The fleet was now attacked by a terrible storm; the very elements seemed to fight against her. Many of her ships ran ashore near Bamborough. Yet, spite of all her difficulties, Margaret effected a landing, and gained possession of the castles of Bamborough, Dunstanburgh, and Alnwick. She sent for Henry from his safe hiding-place at Harlech Castle in Merionethshire, where she had left him while she went to France, and was gathering