Margaret of Anjou Part 17

[Sidenote: Her care of Henry.]

But she was not required to remain long in this humiliating position.

She procured the best possible medical advice and attendance for her husband, and devoted herself to him with the utmost a.s.siduity, and, at length, she had the satisfaction of seeing that he was beginning to amend. The improvement commenced in November, about eight or ten months after he first fell into the state of unconsciousness. When at length he came to himself, it seemed to him, he said, as if he was awaking from a long dream.

[Sidenote: Recovery.]

Margaret was overjoyed to see these signs of returning intelligence.

She longed for the time to come when she could show the king her boy.

He had thus far never seen the child.

[Sidenote: The prince shown to him.]

[Sidenote: Marks of returning consciousness.]

We obtain a pretty clear idea of the state of imbecility or unconsciousness in which he had been lying from the account of what he did and said at the interview when the little prince was first brought into his presence. It is as follows:

"On Monday, at noon, the queen came to him and brought my lord prince with her, and then he asked 'what the prince's name was,'

and the queen told him 'Edward,' and then he held up his hands, and thanked G.o.d thereof.

"And he said he never knew him till that time, nor wist what was said to him, nor wist where he had been, while he had been sick, till now; and he asked who were the G.o.dfathers, and the queen told him, and he was well content.

"And she told him the cardinal was dead,[12] and he said he never knew of it till this time; then he said one of the wisest lords in this land was dead.

"And my Lord of Winchester and my Lord of St. John of Jerusalem were with him the morrow after Twelfth day, and he did speak to them as well as ever he did, and when they came out they wept for joy. And he saith he is in charity with all the world, and so he would all the lords were. And now he saith matins of our Lady and even-song, and heareth his ma.s.s devoutly."

[Footnote 12: The Archbishop of Canterbury, the circ.u.mstance of whose death has already been referred to.]

[Sidenote: The king reinstated.]

The very first moment that the king was able to bear it, Margaret caused him to be conveyed into the House of Lords, there to resume the exercise of his royal powers by taking his place upon the throne and performing some act of sovereignty. The regency was, of course, now at an end, and the Duke of York, leaving London, went off into the country in high dudgeon.

The queen, of course, now came into power again. The first thing that she did was to release Somerset from his confinement, and reinstate him as prime minister of the crown.

CHAPTER XIV.

ANXIETY AND TROUBLE.

[Sidenote: A great deal of trouble.]

[Sidenote: Angry disputes.]

[Sidenote: Insubordination.]

For about six years after this time, that is, from the birth of Prince Edward till he was six years old, and while Margaret was advancing from her twenty-fourth to her thirtieth year, her life was one of continual anxiety, contention, and alarm. The Duke of York and his party made continual difficulty, and the quarrel between him, and the Earl of Warwick, and the other n.o.bles who espoused his cause, on one side, and the queen, supported by the Duke of Somerset and other great Lancastrian partisans on the other, kept the kingdom in a constant ferment. Sometimes the force of the quarrel spent itself in intrigues, manoeuvres, and plottings, or in fierce and angry debates in Parliament, or in bitter animosities and contentions in private and social life. At other times it would break out into open war, and again and again was Margaret compelled to leave her child in the hands of nurses and guardians, while she went with her poor helpless husband to follow the camp, in order to meet and overcome the military a.s.semblages which the Duke of York was continually bringing together at his castles in the country or in the open fields.

The king's health during all this period was so frail, and his mind, especially at certain times, was so feeble, that he was almost as helpless as a child. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in the family, which made his case still more discouraging.

[Sidenote: Modes of amusing the king.]

[Sidenote: The singing boys.]

Queen Margaret took the greatest pains to amuse him, and to provide employments for him that would occupy his thoughts in a gentle and soothing manner. When traveling about the country, she employed minstrels to sing and play to him; and, in order to have a constant supply of these performers provided, and to have them well trained to their art, she sent instructions to the sheriffs of the counties in all parts of the kingdom, requiring them to seek for all the beautiful boys that had good voices, and to have them instructed in the art of music, so that they might be ready, when called upon, to perform before the king. In the mean time they were to be paid good wages, and to be considered already, while receiving their instruction, as acting under the charge and in the service of the queen.

[Sidenote: Pretended pilgrimages.]

[Sidenote: The king comforted.]

Margaret and the other friends of the king used to contrive various other ways of amusing and comforting his mind, some of which were not very honest. One was, for example, to have different n.o.bles and gentlemen come to him and ask his permission that they should leave the kingdom to go and make pilgrimages to various foreign shrines, in order to fulfill vows and offer oblations and prayers for the restoration of his majesty's health. The king was of a very devout frame of mind, and his thoughts were accustomed to dwell a great deal on religious subjects, and especially on the performance of the rites and ceremonies customary in those days, and it seemed to comfort him very much to imagine that his friends were going to make such long pilgrimages to pray for him.

So the n.o.bles and other great personages would ask his consent that they might go, and would take solemn leave of him as if they were really going, and then would keep out of sight a little while, until the poor patient had forgotten their request.

[Sidenote: One real pilgrimage.]

It is said, however, that one n.o.bleman, the Duke of Norfolk, who was so kind-hearted a man that he went by the name of the Good Duke, actually made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on this errand, and there offered up prayers and supplications at the famous chapel of the Holy Sepulchre for the restoration of his sovereign's health.

[Sidenote: The philosopher's stone.]

[Sidenote: Promised treasures.]

They used also to amuse and cheer the king's mind by telling him, from time to time, that he was going to be supplied with inexhaustible treasures of wealth by the discovery of the philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone was an imaginary substance which the alchemists of those days were all the time attempting to discover, by means of which lead and iron, and all other metals, could be turned to gold. There were royal laboratories, and alchemists continually at work in them making experiments, and the queen used to give the king wonderful accounts of the progress which they were making, and tell him that the discovery was nearly completed, and that very soon he would have in his exchequer just as much money as his heart could desire. The poor king fully believed all these stories, and was extremely pleased and gratified to hear them.

[Sidenote: Intervals of good health.]

There were times during this interval when the king was tolerably well, his malady being somewhat periodical in its character. This was the case particularly on one occasion, soon after his first recovery from the state of total insensibility which has been referred to. The Duke of York, as has already been said, was put very much out of humor by the king's recovery on this occasion, and by his own consequent deposition from the office of regent, and still more so when he found that the first act which the queen performed on her recovery of power was to release his hated enemy, Somerset, from the prison where he, the Duke of York, had confined him, and make him prime minister again.

He very soon determined that he would not submit to this indignity. He a.s.sembled an army on the frontiers of Wales, where some of his chief strong-holds were situated, and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of hostility so defiant that the queen's government determined to take the field to oppose him.

[Sidenote: Restoration of Somerset.]

[Sidenote: Armies marshaled.]

So they raised an army, and the Duke of Somerset, with the queen, taking the king with them, set out from London and marched toward the northwest. They stopped first at the town of St. Alban's.[13] When they were about to resume their march from St. Alban's, they saw that the hills before them were covered with bands of armed men, the forces of the Duke of York, which he was leading on toward the capital.

Somerset's forces immediately returned to the town. Margaret, who was for a time greatly distressed and perplexed to decide between her duty toward her husband and toward her child, finally concluded to retire to Greenwich with the little prince, and await there the result of the battle, leaving the Duke of Somerset to do the best he could with the king.

[Footnote 13: See map.]

[Sidenote: St. Alban's.]

[Sidenote: The parley.]

Very soon a herald came from the Duke of York to the gates of St.

Alban's, and demanded a parley. He said that the duke had not taken arms against the king, but only against Somerset. He professed great loyalty and affection for Henry himself, and only wished to save him from the dangerous counsels of a corrupt and traitorous minister, and he said that if the king would deliver up Somerset to him, he would at once disband his armies, and the difficulty would be all at an end.

[Sidenote: Reply.]

The reply sent to this was that the king declared that he would lose both his crown and his life before he would deliver up either the Duke of Somerset or even the meanest soldier in his army to such a demand.