Soon after this she was taken away from this place and conveyed to York, and placed, for the time, under the protection of the archbishop—the same archbishop at whose enthronement, eight or ten years before, she had sat at the same table with Richard, under the royal canopy. But she was not left at peace here. Richard insisted on her marrying him. She insisted on her refusal. Her friends—the few that she had left—turned against her, and urged her to consent to the union; but she could not endure the thought of it.
RICHARD III.
His marriage.
Measures for securing the property.
Richard, however, persisted in his determination, and Anne was finally overcome. It is said she resisted to the last, and that the ceremony was performed by compulsion, Anne continuing to refuse her consent to the end. It was foreseen that, as soon as any change of circumstances should enable her to resume active resistance to the union, she would repudiate the marriage altogether, as void for want of her consent, or else obtain a divorce. To guard against this danger, Richard procured the passage of an act of Parliament, by which he was empowered to continue in the full possession and enjoyment of Anne's property, even if she were to divorce him, provided that he did his best to be reconciled to her, and was willing to be re-married to her, with her consent, whenever she was willing to grant it.
QUEEN ANNE.
Difficulty about the division of the property.