The Charges against Gloucester.
The charges read.
So she opened the paper and began to read it. The charges were numerous. The principal one related to some transactions in respect to the English dominions on the Continent, in which Gloucester was accused of having sacrificed the rights and interests of the crown in order to promote certain private ends of his own. There were a great many other accusations, relating to alleged usurpations of the prerogative of the king and high-handed violations of the laws of the land. Among these last the murder of Lady Neville was specified, and the deed was characterized in the severest terms as a crime of the deepest dye, and one committed under circumstances of great atrocity, although the author of the charges admitted that the details of the affair were not fully known.
The duke declares his innocence.
As Margaret read these accusations one after another, the duke affirmed positively of each one that it was wholly unjust. He seemed for a moment surprised and confused when the murder of Lady Neville was laid to his charge, but he soon recovered himself, and declared that he was innocent of this crime as well as of all the others. The whole series of accusations was a tissue of base calumnies, he said, from beginning to end.
Margaret's artful demeanor.
Margaret read the paper through, pausing only from time to time to hear what Gloucester had to say whenever he manifested a desire to speak, but without making any observations of her own. She assumed, in fact, the air and manner of an unconcerned and indifferent witness. After she had finished reading the paper she folded it up and laid it aside, saying at the same time to the king that those were very grave and weighty charges, and it would be very unjust to the duke to receive them against his positive declarations of his innocence, without the most clear and conclusive proof.
Proposes an investigation.