For some little time Margaret had detected signs in her consort’s speech and manner that caused her the gravest solicitude. She had witnessed the mental depression and lassitude of her uncle, the King of France, and she had grieved for her beloved aunt’s (Queen Marie’s) anxieties. The insanity of King Charles VI., too, had been one of the sad family histories of her school days in Anjou. Now she was faced with a trouble far away more terrible than any of these. In 1453 the King’s memory began to fail, he was bereft of feeling, and gradually he lost his power of walking. The malady, indeed, had shown itself during the Christmas revels at Greenwich. The Queen was already broken-hearted by the news she received from France of the critical state of her mother’s health, and when, on March 5, she heard of her death, poor Margaret was indeed disconsolate. In pain she turned to Henry for comfort, but he failed to comprehend her sorrow. All around were men and women intriguing against herself and him; alone she had to bear her trouble, and the trouble was intensified in pathos by the fact that she was at last enceinte. Would her child be stillborn, she asked herself many a time; how could she expect otherwise when so utterly cast down? Then she realized the loneliness of a throne. The menace of the Duke of York was a scourge to wear her down, and his denunciation of her barrenness an unspeakable affront.
Crushed indeed she was, and yet she had to play the man; for she was both King and Queen of England, and while she lived she determined that none should sap her authority. Henry subsided into imbecility, but Margaret’s will matched and vanquished York’s, although he was proclaimed “Protector of the Realm and Church.” The year sped on, but it brought joy to the sad heart of the lonely Queen, and the whole nation shared her happiness. On October 11 she brought forth her first-born child, a son and heir, a fact of the vastest importance for all concerned, friend and foe. York at once denounced the child for a changeling; but the nation would not have it so, and he was christened Edward publicly at Westminster, and created Prince of Wales, so named because his birthday was that of the holy King St. Edward.
Alas! the King could not be roused sufficiently to recognize his son, nor, indeed, his wife, and this was construed by York and his party as proof conclusive against the truth of the Queen’s accouchement. At the same time they threw out insinuations against her character with respect to relations with many prominent men of her entourage.
The chivalrous spirit of the Queen felt York’s false imputations crushingly. Her convalescence was retarded, and when she came to be churched at the Abbey of Westminster, she was almost too prostrate to go through the ceremony. Like the noble woman that she was, she roused herself; and when she beheld the distinguished and numerous suite awaiting her,—the forty most influential peeresses in the land,—she took heart, and was herself once more. She assumed her costly churching robe. It was of white, gold-embroidered silk and was bordered with 500 sable pelts, and it had cost £554 16s. 8d.
The Duke’s despicable conduct was flouted when Christmas next came round, for on the Feast of the Nativity the Queen presented herself holding her babe in her arms before the King. To her unspeakable joy, Henry held out his hands and drew her and the infant Prince to his breast, and out loud thanked God for the recovery of his reason and acknowledged the child as his. York was away on mischief bent, and Margaret did not fail to make use of the opportunity for checkmating his unworthy aspirations. She took the King to the Parliament, then sitting, and at his command and in his presence the decree appointing York Protector of the kingdom was revoked, and Henry, Margaret, and Edward, assumed their orthodox positions. This step was the first move in the great war game which devastated the whole realm, and ended, alas! in the absolute undoing of the King, the Queen, and the Prince. York, hearing what had transpired at Westminster, hurried from the Welsh border with 5,000 armed followers. The King met him at St. Albans, and ordered him to disband his troop and salute the royal banner. The Duke refused to obey only on impossible conditions.
But what of King René and Queen Isabelle? Their hearts were torn asunder, we may be sure, at the contemplation of their Margaret’s peril. They were powerless to assist her save by their whole soul’s sympathy; besides, they were faced by a contrariety of facts. The all too brief “truce of Margaret” was broken in 1449, and René was summoned to support King Charles and fight against the servants of her consort,—her subjects too,—for, spite of being “La Française,” she had won all hearts in bonnie England. A beautiful girl and a brave is unmatchable! Fortune of war favoured the French-Anjou colours, and Charles became master of Normandy and all English-held North France. Guienne, too, was yielded to the valiant young Duke of Calabria. Moreover, the war-galleys of “Le Petit Roy de Bourges” scoured the Channel, and gained prizes and renown for Charles and René off the English coast.
Somerset’s defeat was a loss of credit, however, to Queen Margaret, and York of course made the most of it. He boasted that, “as Henry was fitter for a cell than a throne, and had transferred his authority to Margaret, the affairs of the kingdom could not be managed by a Frenchwoman, who cared only for her own power and profit.” To placate this arrogance the Queen made a tactless move: she named the Duke Governor of Ireland, thus adding to his prestige and opportunity. Talbot’s death at Albany further weakened the King’s authority and Margaret’s strategy.
Upon the death of Queen Isabelle, so deeply mourned, not alone by her daughter in England, but by all the chivalry of France, René devolved his authority in Bar and Lorraine upon Jean, Duke of Calabria, intending to withdraw gradually from the responsibilities of government. His efforts, however, were discounted by the entreaties of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, and his Florentine allies, that he should again take up arms and appear in the field against King Alfonso of Aragon and the Venetians who were supporting him. René was victorious, but the palm of triumph was withered in his hand by the news that reached him on his way back to France: civil war had broken out in England, and Margaret was in command of the Lancastrians. Margaret, so lovely, so cultivated, and so fearless, was adding lustre to the heroic deeds of the House of Anjou—but what terrible risks she ran! The initial victory at Wakefield was tarnished by the irony of circumstances, and, though decreed by her in the moment of her emphatic triumph, York’s grey head speared upon the walls of York must have shocked her sense of magnanimity.
