Page:The Queens of England.djvu/242

 206 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. Gloucester having refused to open its gates upon her ap- proach. Occupying a position most advantageous to her en- emy, inferior in strength, and subject to the treachery or cowardice of one of her generals ; with an army commanded by the prince her son, whose courage was neutralized by inex- perience, Margaret witnessed on this her last battlefield the total dispersion of her faithful but diminished adherents, and, together with her son, was dragged to the tent of her ungener- ous and exasperated foe. Shakespeare has vividly portrayed the harrowing circum- stances of this young prince's death, killed in cold blood before the eyes of his agonized mother, who survived to endure the miseries of imprisonment, after tasting, what to her spirit must have been worse than death, the disgrace of a public entry into London in the train of her conqueror, her wretchedness arriving at its climax in the dark and mysterious tragedy of her husband's murder. This murder was perpetrated the very night that Margaret herself was consigned to the Tower There for five years Henry had been imprisoned. But it was now necessary to the usurper that the public should be con- vinced that the deposed monarch no longer existed. There- fore, according to Leland, that night, between eleven and twelve o'clock, Gloucester, afterwards Richard the Third, and divers of his men, assassinated the helpless and meek-spirited king. The next day his bloody corpse was exposed to public view in St. Paul's. It was then conveyed silently up the Thames by boat to Chertsey Abbey, where it was interred. It was scarcely to be wondered at, that, though no longer formidable to the reigning family, Margaret should have been subjected to a rigorous confinement; but by degrees this was considerably relaxed and at the conclusion of the year 1475, the first instalment of her ransom being paid, she departed from her prison in Wallingford Castle, where she had been under the care of the Duchess of Suffolk, granddaughter of Chaucer, the poet, and sailed for France. It is a matter of question how much of credit for her delivery belongs to her father's affection, or to the liberality of her selfish cousin Louis, who has been generally supposed to have effected it. King Edward was at this time negotiating a marriage between Elizabeth of York (formerly offered to Prince Edward of Lancaster) and the dauphin,' when the ransom of Margaret was arranged. The King of Sicily entered into engagements