Page:The Queens of England.djvu/237

 MARGARET OF ANJOU. 201 public demand which they would acknowledge as their king, Henry or young Edward? with every demonstration of uni- versal consent, proclaimed the representative of the house of York by the title of Edward the Fourth. The newly-made sovereign was soon called upon to maintain his assumed prerogative against a foe whom experience had i_.ready proved unlikely to relinquish her rights without a struggle, but who, like Antaeus, seemed to gather fresh vigor from each successive prostration. Scarcely had a week elapsed before he heard that the indefatigable queen, at the head of sixty thousand men, was anxiously awaiting him near the scene of her former success in Yorkshire ; but the White Rose was now the object of Fortune's fickle favors, and Nature herself seemed to conspire to complete the ruin of the unhappy Henry, by annihilating the last hope of his energetic consort. A storm of sleet driving full in the faces of the Lancastrians, decided the contest at Towton. In vain were their arrows spent upon the ground lately occupied by their opponents, who, under cover of the snow, had retreated from beyond their range. Incapable of further attack, by the exhaustion of their weapons, these last were returned upon them, and they were literally cut to pieces, "many being slain with their own shafts, picked from the field." Upon receiving the account of this signal defeat, Henry and Margaret, possessed now of no refuge in the country, of which they were become but nominally the sovereigns, hurried with the Duke of Exeter of Scotland, where they were permitted for a short time to repose, the English reigning monarch contenting himself with passing a bill of attainder upon each several member of the exiled royal family. This was also extended to many of the noblest of their adherents, and the dethroned princes had soon to expend bitter and unavailing regrets upon the fate of those tried friends in their adversity, whose devotion to the interests of their fallen house was terribly to be expiated on the scaffold. If forbearance towards her captive adversaries be a quality of heroism which Margaret needed, her pre-eminent magnan- imity in misfortune justly entitles her to the appellation of a great queen ; and it is difficult to express adequately our admi- ration of the fortitude and perseverance with which, at this dark period of her history, she endeavored to obtain aid from Scotland, with every counter-influence employed against her. Not only had she to buy the assistance she required by the