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.
The king did not allow the king-maker's anger to die for want of fuel. On the contrary, having given Warwick serious cause of offense, he added insult to injury by pretending that the earl had been gained over by Louis to the Lancastrian cause, and that the state was in no small danger from his treasonable attempts. At the same time, he abruptly deprived George Neville, Archbishop of York,8 of the office of chancellor – thus indicating still farther distrust of the great family to whose efforts he owed his crown.
While rumors as to Warwick's new-born sympathies with the house of Lancaster were afloat, the Castle of Harleck fell into the king's hands. Within the fortress was taken an agent of Margaret; and he, on being put to the rack, declared that Warwick, during his mission to France, had, at Rouen, spoken with favor of the exiled queen, during a confidential conversation with Louis. Warwick treated the accusation with contempt, and declined to leave his castle to be confronted with the accuser.
This unfortunate incident was little calculated to smooth the way for a reconciliation. Nevertheless, the Archbishop of York, who had a keen eye for his own interest, undertook to mediate between his brother and the king. The churchman was successful in his efforts; and in July, 1468, when Margaret Plantagenet departed from England for her new home, Warwick rode before her, through the city of London, as if to indicate by his presence that he had withdrawn his objections to her marriage with the Count of Charolois, who, in the previous year, on the death of his father, had succeeded to the ducal sovereignty of Burgundy.
The chroniclers might with propriety have described this as a second "dissimulated love-day." No true reconcilement could take place between the king and the king-maker. Warwick considered Edward the most ungrateful of mankind; and the king thought of the earl, as the Regent-Duke of Albany said of the third Lord Home, that "he was too great to be a subject." The king regarded Warwick's patriotic counsel with aversion: the earl's discontent could be read by the multitude in his frank face. Each, naturally, began to calculate his strength.
Edward had one source of consolation. In giving his sister to Burgundy he had gained a potent ally on the Continent; and he rejoiced to think that, in the event of a change of fortune, a relative so near would assuredly befriend him. Edward, like other men, deceived himself on such subjects. He little imagined how soon he would have to ask his brother-in-law's protection, and how he should find that Burgundy, while taking a wife from the house of York, had not quite laid his prejudices in favor of the house of Lancaster.
Warwick, on his part, felt aught rather than satisfied. Notwithstanding his appearance at court, he was brooding over the injury that he had received. Convinced of the expediency of making friends, he addressed himself to the king's brothers – George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Of Gloucester the earl could make nothing. The wily boy played with his dagger as he was wont, and maintained such a reserve that it would have been imprudent to trust him. With Clarence the earl had more success. Indeed, the duke complained of the king's unkindness; and particularly that though Edward had given rich heiresses to Dorset and Woodville, he had found no match for his own brother. Having both something of which to complain, the earl and the duke formed an alliance offensive and defensive; and a project was formed for binding them to each other by a tie which the Nevilles deemed could hardly be broken.
Warwick had not been blessed with a son to inherit his vast estates, his great name, and his popularity, which was quite undiminished. He, however, had two daughters – Isabel and Anne – whose birth and lineage were such as to put them on a level with any prince in Europe. It appears that Isabel had inspired Clarence with an ardent attachment; but the king and "the queen's kindred" were averse to a match. Warwick now declared that the marriage should take place in spite of their hostility; and Clarence agreed, for Isabel's sake, to defy both Edward and the Woodvilles.
Having taken their resolution, the duke and the earl, in the summer of 1469, sailed for Calais, of which Warwick was still governor. Preparations were made for uniting Clarence and Isabel; and in the month of July, "in the Chapel of Our Lady," the ill-starred marriage was solemnized with a pomp befitting the rank of a Plantagenet bridegroom and a Neville bride.
King Edward no sooner heard of this marriage than he expressed strong displeasure. Unkind words passed in consequence; and, from that date, no affection existed between the king and the king-maker. About the same time there appeared in the heavens a comet, such as had been seen on the eve of great national changes – as before Hastings, which gave England to the Norman yoke, and Evesham, which freed Englishmen from the domination of a foreign baronage and an alien church. The superstitious were immediately struck with the "blazing star," and expressed their belief that it heralded a political revolution. Others did not look at the sky for signs of a coming struggle. Indeed, those who were capable of comprehending the events passing before them could entertain little doubt that England had not yet seen the last of the Wars of the Roses.