“The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colours of our striving houses.”
—SHAKESPEARE.
ONE of the most momentous civil commotions in the annals of English
history was the famous War of the Roses, which was waged for many
years between the Houses of Lancaster and York, during which sanguine
contests the plains of England were deluged with blood; eighty princes
were slain, and the ancient nobility were almost entirely annihilated.
With these exciting incidents the name of Margaret of Anjou is
indissolubly associated, and she stands forth in history as one of the
most important participants in that great civil struggle, which may be
thus briefly stated.
Henry VI., the reigning king of England, was the son of John of Gaunt,
a younger son of Edward the Third. About this time, the Duke of York,
who was descended by his mother’s side from Lionel, an older son of the
same Edward, aspired to the throne, and gathering to his standard many
powerful nobles, he sought to dethrone King Henry.
The partisans of the House of York chose the white rose for their
badge, while the reigning House of Lancaster wore, as their emblem, the
red rose.
Previously to this period, Henry, the king of England, had wedded
Margaret of Anjou.
This princess was the youngest daughter of René, Duke of Anjou. Her
father was the son of Louis II., king of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem,
and also sovereign count of Provence, Anjou, and Maine.
But though Duke René was heir to so many kingdoms at the time of his
daughter’s marriage, he was owner of none; and instead of providing her
with a rich dower, suitable to her rank, the marriage stipulations were
very peculiar.
Henry VI. of England was twenty-six years of age. His country was
impoverished by a thirty years’ war. Margaret was at this time living
at Naples, of which realm her father called himself king. Amongst the
princesses selected for the approval of the bachelor king of England,
none pleased King Henry so well as the beautiful face of Margaret of
Anjou, whose portrait had been sent to him for his examination. So
overtures were at once made to the father of this lovely princess.
René consented most readily to the marriage, on the condition that
the bride’s wedding portion should be only her own lovely charms and
superior accomplishments, which he declared were worth more than all
the riches of the world.
But this was not all in this strange marriage agreement. René also
demanded that Henry should restore to him his patrimonial estates of
Anjou and Maine, which had been wrested from him.
Though Margaret’s father possessed so many high-sounding titles, he
was in truth a royal pauper. He had been driven out of Naples, England
held Anjou and Maine, and in order to pay his ransom to the Duke of
Burgundy, who had kept him a prisoner for six years, René had been
obliged to mortgage his other dominions, so that now he possessed
neither castle nor an acre of ground he could call his own.
The Earl of Suffolk, who had been sent by King Henry to make the
marriage settlements, was alarmed to bring back to his sovereign such
an unheard-of demand from the father of a portionless bride; but as
René would not relent, Suffolk was forced to return to his king with
this strange proposal.
Although King Henry was almost as much poverty-stricken as the lovely
princess, her fair face so bewitched him that he readily consented to
take her, not only without dower, but to relinquish for her the domains
of Anjou and Maine.
The Earl of Suffolk was sent back to wed the fair princess as proxy
for Henry, and in St. Martin’s church, at Nanci, in November, 1444,
Margaret was married by proxy, the bride being in her fifteenth year.
The ceremony was performed in the presence of her aunt, Marie of Anjou,
queen of France, and Charles VII. The bride’s father and mother were
also present, and all the leading nobles of the courts of France and
Lorraine; the mother of the bride being Isabella, claimant of the duchy
of Lorraine.
At the nuptial tournaments and festivities, which lasted for eight
days, all the knights wore daisies on their helmets; and the bridemaids
and other maidens of Lorraine were decked with wreaths and garlands of
the same flower, in honor of the bride’s name, “Marguerite,” signifying
“the daisy.”
During these wedding festivities, an enlivening incident occurred.
Yolante, the elder sister of Margaret, had for a long time been
betrothed to Ferry of Lorraine, the heir of Duke Antony, the successful
competitor for that dukedom. For some reason René had delayed this
marriage; and so, at this auspicious moment, the young prince ran
away with his fiancée and married her. Charles VII., king of France,
interceded for their pardon, which René was only too willing to grant,
as his apparent opposition had only been on account of lack of dower
for his daughter.
Margaret now started on her journey to England, to meet King Henry, to
whom she had been married by proxy. She was attended by the Marquis of
Suffolk, who had been raised to that rank by King Henry, that he might
act as his proxy; and Suffolk’s wife, the Countess of Shrewsbury, and
many other noble ladies, accompanied the young bride on this momentous
journey.
So poor was the fair little bride, and so poverty-stricken was her
royal husband, that she had set out with no money and with little
apparel; and her royal lord could not forward to her a farthing, until
the Parliament, in February, 1445, granted him the half of a fifteenth
on all movables.
A rough bridal voyage, indeed, was vouchsafed to this young and
beautiful bride. It was five months after her marriage by proxy before
she was married to Henry with the usual ceremonies in Tichfield Abbey.
Meantime, not only had sea-sickness brought her to a hospital, but
there she was attacked by small-pox ere she had recovered from the
effects of her voyage. This terrible disease was fortunately very light
in her case, for her marriage took place in little more than a week
after she had recovered from the short attack.
It is curious to note that the doctor’s bill for attendance, during
the voyage and at the time of this sickness, was only three pounds
nine shillings and twopence; and this for attending the royal queen of
England.
Margaret’s nuptials with Henry VI. were solemnized April 22, 1445. The
bridal ring, set with a ruby, was made from the one with which Henry
was consecrated at the time of his coronation. The queen received
a bridal present of a lion. Her coronation took place May 30, at
Westminster Abbey.
But scarcely was the beautiful queen seated upon her royal throne ere
troubles gathered thick and fast about her; and she continued to be a
victim to misfortune during all the remainder of her life.
The Duke of Gloucester and the rich old Cardinal Beaufort were rival
statesmen of England. It had been through Cardinal Beaufort, assisted
by Suffolk, that Henry had won the fair Margaret; whereas the Duke of
Gloucester had proposed another alliance. For this reason the power of
the cardinal was now in the ascendant at court; and through Suffolk,
who gradually obtained uncontrolled authority, both in the council and
in Parliament, the cardinal possessed immense power over the crown. As
the king and queen were still hampered by their impoverished condition,
the rich cardinal frequently relieved the pressing needs of the royal
pair, and thus secured greater influence over them.
In 1447, the mysterious death of the Duke of Gloucester occurred, and
the enemies of Beaufort and the queen asserted that he was murdered
by their connivance. But this unjust charge is apparently without the
least foundation, as records state that the duke died from illness,
probably apoplexy.
During the same year the aged Cardinal Beaufort died, and the king and
queen were left without his support, and what was equally important,
the aid of his well-filled purse.
King Henry now began to show symptoms of the fearful brain malady which
he had inherited from his grandfather, Charles VI. Henry’s ministry,
headed by Suffolk, was despised and hated. At this time the government
fell mostly into the hands of the young queen of eighteen, who found
herself obliged to rely upon Suffolk, who became daily more distasteful
to the English people.
In 1448 hostilities with France were renewed, and Charles VII.
reconquered Normandy. This was the same king of France, whose
coronation at Rheims was secured to him through the brave efforts of
the Maid of Orleans, Joan d’Arc, whose romantic story has been so often
related. Declaring that she was called by the angel St. Michael and
the virgin saints to deliver her country from the English, she led her
troops to Orleans, carrying a marvellous sword in her hand, which she
said she had been directed to bring from the shrine of St. Catherine;
and she succeeded in delivering that city from the siege. This victory
prepared the way for the coronation of Charles VII.; but to his eternal
disgrace, when this brave maiden was afterwards captured by her
enemies, and tried as a witch, he did not make any effort to save her,
though to her he owed his crown; and she was burnt at the stake, in the
market-place at Rouen.
The loss of Normandy gave great offence to the English, who blamed
Queen Margaret, derisively calling her the “Frenchwoman”; and
the partisans of the Duke of York attributed their losses to the
misgovernment of the queen, and declared that King Henry was more fit
for a cloister than a throne, in that he had seemingly deposed himself
by leaving; his kingdom in the hands of a woman.
About this time Queen Margaret invested the Duke of York with the
government of Ireland. He left a strong party in England, who soon
caused the Duke of Suffolk to be impeached and arrested. In order to
save his life, the queen persuaded the king to banish Suffolk for five
years; but the ship on which he embarked was captured by his enemies,
and he was beheaded after a mock trial.
We cannot mention all the contests in this War of the Roses. An
insurrection headed by Jack Cade, who called himself Mortimer, arose
in Kent. This rebellion was quickly quelled by Henry VI.; but new
disasters followed. The Duke of Somerset returned from France, having
been defeated in trying to maintain England’s power there. Every
province in France, but Calais, was now lost to the English, and for
this misfortune the people blamed the poor young queen.
Suddenly the Duke of York came back from Ireland, impeached Somerset
in Parliament, and he was sent to the Tower. At this time the badges
of the red and the white rose were adopted by the partisans of York
and Lancaster. To add to the troubles in which the poor queen was
plunged, King Henry’s malady became so great that it could no longer
be concealed, and just at this inauspicious time the young Prince of
Wales was born. York assumed all the power of the government, and for
more than a year the king remained in total ignorance of all that was
passing around him, being in a continued state of helpless idiocy.
When the prince was about fifteen months old, his father recovered
his reason, and his first recognition of his wife and child is thus
quaintly described: “On Monday, at noon, the queen came to him, and
brought my lord prince with her. Then the king asked, ‘What the
prince’s name was?’ and the queen told him ‘Edward’; and then he held
up his hands and thanked God thereof. And he said he never knew him
till that time, nor wist what was said to him, nor wist where he had
been whilst he had been sick, till now. And he asked who were the
godfathers; and the queen told him, and he was well content.”
Margaret took immediate measures to secure King Henry’s restoration to
sovereign power. Though he was still very weak, the queen caused him to
be conveyed to the House of Lords, where he dissolved the Parliament,
and restored Somerset to liberty. The Duke of York, aided by Salisbury
and Warwick, now raised an army, and drew near to London. King Henry,
who hated bloodshed, sent word to the insurgents to ask why they had
armed themselves against him. The Duke of York replied that he would
not lay down arms unless the Duke of Somerset was delivered up to
justice. This the king refused to do, saying “he would deliver up his
crown as soon as he would the Duke of Somerset.” Whereupon the Earl of
Warwick commenced the attack. The battle was short but bloody. Somerset
was killed, and even King Henry was himself wounded by an arrow in the
neck. But he would not stir from the scene until he was left alone
under his royal banner, when he proceeded very coolly into a baker’s
shop near by, where the Duke of York found him, and bending the knee
before him in a sort of mock reverence, bade him rejoice that the
traitor Somerset was slain. King Henry replied: “For mercy’s sake, stop
the slaughter of my subjects!” York then took the wounded king by the
hand, and led him first to the shrine of St. Alban, and then to his own
apartments. The next day he conducted King Henry, with seeming respect,
to London; but in reality the king was the prisoner of the Duke of
York. Henry’s distress of mind brought on again his fits of insanity,
and in this state he was forced to pardon York and make him Protector.
The Duke of York relinquished the care of the imbecile king to Queen
Margaret, on condition that she would retire with the king and infant
prince to Hertford Castle.
For two years Margaret remained in retirement; but in February, 1456,
King Henry again recovered himself sufficiently to enter Parliament and
declare himself well enough to resume his royal authority. Parliament
allowed his claim, and York was forced to retire.
Again the government was put in the hands of the friends of the queen.
Again the health of the king was impaired, but Margaret took him to
Coventry, which she called her haven of safety, on account of the favor
shown her by the inhabitants there; and at length, King Henry having
somewhat recovered, he went to London, and there invited the Duke of
York and all his partisans to a pacification banquet and religious
ceremony at St. Paul’s cathedral, in which procession it is said that
every one walked with an enemy, from the queen down, as Margaret was
accompanied by the Duke of York to the altar, where all swore eternal
amity.
This amity lasted a year, when an affray broke out amongst the king’s
cooks and scullions, who soundly whipped Warwick’s men; whereupon
all parties flew to arms, and the battle of Bloreheath, and other
skirmishes, were fought.
At this time the Yorkists were defeated, but again they rallied and
seized upon London.
The queen once more brought her sick husband to her harbor of Coventry;
and, as he regained his strength, she rallied round the banner of the
Red Rose many of the heirs of the valiant earls who had fallen at St.
Albans, and she induced the king to leave Coventry, and encamp with
his army near Sandifford. The Lancastrians and the Yorkists met in
battle, July 9, 1460, near Northampton. In the conflict which lasted
two hours, ten thousand Englishmen were slain, and King Henry was taken
prisoner.
Queen Margaret was not herself in the battle, but was stationed with
the young prince, Edward, her son, where she could view the field and
communicate with her generals. Perceiving the disastrous result of the
contest, Margaret fled with the young prince to a castle in North Wales.
Meanwhile, the Duke of York had taken King Henry to London as his
prisoner, and there compelled him to sign an order, commanding
Queen Margaret and the prince to return to London under penalty of
high treason; and Henry was furthermore forced to acquiesce in an
arrangement that he should wear the crown for his life, but that, upon
his death, the Duke of York and his heirs should succeed to the right
of the throne.
But Margaret was not thus to be ordered by the haughty Duke of York
and his party against her royal will. When she received this summons,
she was in Scotland, seeking aid from the Scotch king; and her brave
answer was to march with a large army against York; and she drove him
to his strong castle, where he intended to await the coming of his son
Edward, with reinforcements. But Margaret surrounded his castle, and,
by challenge and taunts, urged him to come forth to battle. The Duke of
York, whose pride was at length stung by the defiant taunts of a woman,
gave her battle, and in the contest he was killed.
One of the royalists afterwards cut off the head from the corpse of
the Duke of York, and brought this bloody trophy to Queen Margaret,
who at first beheld it with horror, and then laughingly said: “Put the
traitor’s head on York gate, and take care that room be left for those
of the earls of March and Warwick, which, forsooth, shall soon keep him
company.”
Queen Margaret now pushed on towards London, flushed with her recent
success, determined to rescue King Henry from the power of the
Yorkists. The Earl of Warwick came out from the metropolis, bearing in
his train the royal prisoner, and met the forces of Queen Margaret on
the old battle-field of St. Albans. The Yorkists held the town, but
the royalists penetrated the streets, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued.
Warwick’s Londoners were no match for the brave Northmen who fought for
Queen Margaret, and the Yorkists were forced to fly, leaving King Henry
sitting in his tent. Here he was found by Queen Margaret and Prince
Edward, and his brave queen and son embraced him with joy; and King
Henry thereupon knighted the young Prince of Wales, and many valiant
Lancastrians, for their valor. But Margaret’s triumphs did not long
continue. St. Albans was won, but not London.
The victorious young warrior, Edward, Earl of March, eldest son of the
late Duke of York, who now bore his father’s title, having conquered
the Lancastrians in other contests while Margaret routed the Yorkists
at St. Albans, now entered London with all the pomp of a triumphant
king, and was received by the people with acclamations of delight;
for Margaret had injudiciously allowed her Northern men to plunder
the English, and had therefore incurred their hatred; so that now she
was again forced to seek refuge in the North, while Edward of York
was proclaimed king, as Edward IV. In a short time an army of sixty
thousand men was raised in behalf of Margaret, and commanded by Henry
Beaufort, who was now Duke of Somerset, and another intrepid noble,
Lord Clifford, who had killed the youngest son of the Duke of York,
and cut off the head from the dead body of the father, in the contest
between the Lancastrians and Yorkists, when the Duke of York had been
slain. By the advice of these nobles Margaret remained with her husband
and son in the city of York; while the army of the Red Rose went forth
to battle with the forces of the White Rose, under the banner of the
young Edward of York.
The Lancastrians were defeated at Ferrybridge and Towton, and Queen
Margaret then fled with King Henry and their son to Newcastle, and
from thence to Alnwick Castle. As the Yorkists still approached, she
retreated to Scotland. At length Margaret and her son went to France to
seek aid from King Louis XI. Upon Margaret’s promising to offer Calais
as security, King Louis lent her twenty thousand crowns, and permitted
Brezé, of Normandy, to follow her with two thousand men.
With this little army Margaret returned to Scotland and rallied
her Scotch adherents; and bringing King Henry into the field, who
had previously been hiding at Harleck Castle, the brave, undaunted
queen conquered the strong fortresses of Bamborough, Alnwick, and
Dunstanburgh.
But her triumph was of short duration. Somerset soon after surrendered
the castle of Bamborough to Warwick, on condition that he should
receive a pension from King Edward; Suffolk and Exeter also swore
homage to the throne of Edward. But notwithstanding these treacheries,
Margaret still courageously struggled, and at length succeeded in
winning back Somerset and Exeter to the banner of the Red Rose; but
Somerset was, after all, a poor support, and in the contest which
followed at Hexham his weak generalship caused a total rout of the
Lancastrian army. Margaret fled with the young prince to the Scottish
border, taking with her all the jewels and treasures she could
secure; but these were all stolen from her by a band of banditti who
attacked her small company of friends; and while the ruffians, with
drawn swords, were fighting for the plunder, Margaret escaped with
her son alone in the dense forest: here night closed over them. They
had neither of them tasted food since early in the day. To add to her
distress, poor Margaret did not know whether her husband was dead or
alive, as they had fled from Hexham in different directions. Every
tree in that dark forest seemed to the terrified queen’s fancies an
armed foe, seeking the life of herself and child. Suddenly, as the
moon broke through the obscuring clouds, she perceived a gigantic man
advancing towards her. For a moment her heart stood still for very
horror, but with the danger came also courage; and, filled with a
sudden inspiration of sublime action, she advanced with calm majesty to
the outlaw, leading her son by the hand, and with the manner of a queen
whose right it was to command, and in tones thrilling with overpowering
fervor, she presented her child, saying:—
“Here, my friend, save the son of your king! to your loyalty I intrust
him. Take him, and conceal him from those who seek his life. Give him
refuge in thine own hiding-place.”
The appeal of the brave queen was not in vain. The outlaw, who chanced
to be a ruined Lancastrian, well remembered his much-loved queen. Right
royally this knight of the forest received his honored guests; raising
the poor tired little prince in his strong arms, he led the way to his
hidden cave. Here the royal fugitives were refreshed and waited upon
by the wife of the Lancastrian outlaw: this retreat has since been
called “Queen Margaret’s Cave.” Here she was found three days after
by Brezé and the Duke of Exeter and other friends; and learning from
them that her husband was alive, she went with them to Scotland; then
finding no safety there, sailed for France. Storms drove her into the
dominions and power of her father’s old foe, the Duke of Burgundy.
Although Margaret had declared in the days of her prosperity, that if
she should ever get the Duke of Burgundy into her power, she would
make the “axe pass between his head and shoulders,” nevertheless this
family foe showed himself to be a true knight and worthy gentleman, for
he not only received her but gave her hospitality; and though he would
not listen to her entreaties in behalf of her husband, he gave her
twelve thousand crowns, and bestowed many favors upon her companions
in distress, and forwarded her in safety to her father’s duchy of Bar.
Here for seven years Margaret, no longer a queen, except in name,
resided with her son, the prince, in her father’s dominions, who, on
account of the ruinous contests in which he and his son were engaged
with Aragon, could offer her only an asylum. Her father René was little
fitted by nature for the severe and ferocious times in which he lived.
He was a poet, artist, and musician of rare talent, and his chansons
are still sung by his native Provençals. At length, King Edward of
England quarrelled with the Earl of Warwick, one of the strongest
supporters of the Yorkists; and that nobleman came to France with
others of his adherents to seek the aid of King Louis XI.
Margaret was summoned to the French court, and it was there arranged
that she should pawn Calais to Louis XI., and that her son Edward,
who was now a youth, should be married to the daughter of the Earl of
Warwick, the Lady Anne Nelville. Thus Warwick espoused the cause of
the Red Rose, and a new expedition was prepared for the invasion of
England. Warwick was at first successful. King Edward fled; Henry VI.
was released from his restraint in the Tower, where he had been held as
a royal prisoner; but having been treated with kindness, and weary of
conflict, he was not overjoyed at his restoration. Margaret prepared to
go to England with her son, the Prince of Wales, and his young bride
Anne. But furious storms again overtook her, and ere she landed at
Weymouth, her fortune had again forsaken her. When the dreadful news
reached her of the death of Warwick and recapture of King Henry, she
fell in a swoon, and upon regaining consciousness, refused for a long
time to be comforted. At length she was visited by Lancastrian nobles,
who persuaded her to again unfurl the banner of the Red Rose.
At Tewkesbury the fatal battle was fought which laid the Red Rose in
the dust. Upon this battle-field the last hope of the unfortunate queen
perished forever. The brave young Prince of Wales was taken prisoner;
and being brought into the presence of King Edward, the monarch,
impressed with the noble bearing of the youth, inquired “how he durst
so presumptuously enter his realms, with banners displayed against
him?” to which the prince, with more courage than policy, boldly
replied, “To recover my father’s crown and mine own inheritance.” Stung
into sudden anger, King Edward struck the intrepid prince in the face
with his gauntlet, which was the signal for the cruel men around him
to pierce his brave young heart with their sharp daggers. The following
day Queen Margaret was brought a prisoner to King Edward, by her old
enemy, Sir William Stanley, who had just revealed the terrible fate of
her son to the anguished mother, with brutal coldness and abruptness.
Smarting under this awful blow, Margaret invoked terrible maledictions
upon the head of King Edward; and this same enemy took very good care
to repeat these rash words which had escaped the agonized heart of the
distracted mother to his royal master, who was so exasperated that he
at first determined to put her to death; but as no Plantagenet had
shed the blood of woman, he feared to do this bloody deed, and ordered
her to be imprisoned in the Tower of London. The same night upon which
Margaret of Anjou was placed within its gloomy walls, her husband, whom
she had not met for seven long years, was dragged from his cell in the
same prison and put to death. At first the imprisonment of Margaret
was very rigorous; but through the intercession of King Edward’s wife,
Elizabeth of Woodville, who had been one of the ladies in waiting at
Queen Margaret’s court, the poor heart-broken sufferer was released
from such strict confinement; and at length her impoverished father
came to her partial relief, and by sacrificing his inheritance of
Provence, he succeeded in securing her release from imprisonment, she
having signed a formal renunciation of all the rights her marriage in
England had given her.
But this poor faded Red Rose had one more trial to bear. A dry leprosy
now attacked the once beautiful Margaret of Anjou, and transformed the
lovely “Marguerite,” whose beauty had been celebrated throughout the
world, into a loathsome spectacle of horror. For nearly six years
she endured a living death in the castles provided by her father for
her retreat, until, in 1482, the welcome summons came. She was buried
in the cathedral of Angers, and her only memorial was her portrait
on glass in a window of the cathedral, which had been painted by her
father twenty years before. Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon
I., possessed the breviary once owned by Margaret of Anjou: in it was
written, “_Vanite des vanites, tout la vanite!_” Surely a fitting
epitaph for the once beautiful, powerful, lovely Margaret of Anjou,
queen of England; but alas! afterwards, the fallen, faded, hapless Red
Rose of English history.
Among the warm partisans of the Lancastrian cause, was John Grey,
afterwards Lord Ferrers, whose wife was the beautiful Elizabeth
Woodville, maid of honor at the court of Queen Margaret.
Lord Ferrers lost his life in the War of the Roses; and his widow, the
beautiful Lady Grey, afterwards married Edward, son of the renowned
Duke of York, the champion of the White Rose.
By this marriage of the Roses, which occurred after Edward had become
king of England, as Edward IV., this famous War of the Roses ended in a
match of hearts.