In those days the Grecian isles were a constant subject of contention between Venice and the Turks. The latter, growing stronger every day, soon made their name the terror of southern Europe. A few years after the fall of Constantinople (captured by Mohammed II. in 1453), the Ottomans besieged Coccino, capital of the isle of Lemnos, in the Ægean Sea. The city was defended with the most obstinate bravery by the inhabitants, men and women. Amongst the bravest of the women was Marulla, a beautiful, noble-looking creature, barely in her twentieth year. Her father, Demetrius, slew such numbers of the Turks that the gateway was half-blocked up with turbaned corpses. At last, pierced with myriad wounds, he fell on the bodies of his foes. Marulla, flying to her father's rescue, was wounded by the same blow which proved fatal to him; but so far from giving way to useless lamentations, she seized his sword, sprang from the walls, and fiercely attacked the Turks. Her fellow-citizens, inspired by her fire, drove the Turks away with terrific slaughter, and compelled them to take refuge in their ships.
When the Venetian admiral arrived next day with the fleet, in place of a beleagured town he beheld the citizens in their holiday attire, headed by the magistrates in their robes of state, marching in procession to meet him, conducting the heroine Marulla, their deliverer.
To reward her bravery, the Venetian commander ordered each of his soldiers to give her a present, and he promised that she should be adopted by the Republic. He offered her the hand of any one of his captains that she might prefer. But Marulla replied that "it was not by chance that she should choose a husband; for the virtues of a camp would not make a good master of a family; and the hazard would be too great."
When the Venetian senate received the news of Marulla's bravery, they decreed that various privileges and exemptions from taxes should be settled upon her and her children for evermore.
Henry VI., after losing the crown of France through a female warrior, very nearly saved the crown of England through another; and, what is more remarkable, both were Frenchwomen. But the high-spirited, fierce Margaret of Anjou, though fully as brave, was very different from the peaceful, the angelic Maid of Orleans. However, had the king possessed half the spirit of his wife, the Wars of the Roses might have terminated very differently. When the feeble, almost imbecile king, wishing for peace at any price, publicly acknowledged the Duke of York as heir-apparent to the throne, Margaret refused her consent, and the war was renewed. Henry was made prisoner in the battle of Northampton; but the queen assembled a formidable army at York, where she awaited her rival.
On the last day of the year 1460, the battle of Wakefield was fought. Within half-an-hour of the onset, nearly three thousand Yorkists lay dead on the field. This battle, in which Margaret is said to have taken an active part, terminated in a complete victory for the House of Lancaster. The Duke of York, covered with wounds, fell into the hands of the victors. His dying moments were embittered by the taunts of his captors; and afterwards, it is said, his head was cut off by order of the queen, crowned with a paper crown, and placed on one of the gates of York.
The next year, 1461, Margaret defeated the Earl of Warwick in the second battle of St. Alban's, and recovered the king, who was now merely a passive agent in the hands of friends or foes. She advanced to London; but Edward, Earl of March, son of the Duke of York, having gained a victory at Hereford almost the same day as the battle of St. Alban's, obliged her to retreat towards the north. He then entered London, where a few days later, March 4th, 1461, he was proclaimed King of England, as Edward IV.
Margaret soon increased her army to sixty thousand men, and Edward was obliged to hasten to the north. At Pontefract he passed in review nearly forty-nine thousand men. The armies met at Towton, in Yorkshire, March 29th, 1461. This was the bloodiest battle fought during the war. No quarter was given or expected on either side. The Lancastrians, routed with fearful slaughter, were intercepted in their flight by the river; and the pursuit of the Yorkists was unrelenting. The slain amounted to thirty or forty thousand. Henry VI. and his brave queen fled to Scotland.
After vainly soliciting aid from the Scottish court, Margaret went over to France, and by promising to give up Calais, obtained ten thousand men. With these she landed in Scotland, where she was speedily joined by many of her partisans, and also by a band of freebooters. With these she entered England, and advanced to Hexham, where she was totally defeated, May 15th, 1464, by Lord Neville.