This plan was carried into effect. Margaret set out from the castle of Wallingford under the care of a man on whom Edward's government could rely for keeping a close watch over her, and taking care that she went on quietly through England to the port of embarkation. This port was Sandwich. Here she embarked on board a vessel, with a retinue of three ladies and seven gentlemen, and bade a final farewell to the kingdom which she had entered on her bridal tour with such high and exultant expectations of grandeur and happiness.
At Rouen.
She arrived at Dieppe in the beginning of 1476, and proceeded immediately to Rouen, where the commissioner, who came to attend her, delivered her to the French embassadors appointed to receive her, and attend to the signing of the renunciation.
Her renunciation.
The document was written in Latin, but the import of it was as follows:
I, Margaret, formerly in England married, renounce all that I could pretend to in England, by the conditions of my marriage, with all other things there, to Edward, now King of England.
Feelings with which she signed it.
It cost Margaret no effort to sign this paper. With the death of her husband and her son all hope had been extinguished in her bosom, and life now possessed nothing that she desired. She signed this fatal document, renouncing not only all claims to be henceforth considered a queen, but all pretension that she had ever been one, with a passive indifference and unconcern which showed that her spirit was broken, and that the fires of pride and ambition which had burned so fiercely in her breast were now, at last, extinguished forever.
Ungenerousness of Louis.
When the paper was signed Margaret was dismissed and left at liberty to go her own way to her native province of Anjou, where it was her intention to spend the remainder of her days. Her plan was to pass by the way of Paris, in order to see once more her cousin, King Louis, who had treated her with so much consideration and honor when she was on her way to England with a fair prospect of finding her husband upon the throne. But the case was different now, Louis thought, and instead of receiving kindly her intimation that she was intending to visit Paris on her way home, he sent her word that she had better not come, and advised her instead to make the best of her way to her father in Anjou.