[Sidenote: She is received by the dauphiness.]
On her arrival in France she repaired at once to the court of the dauphiness, who, being an English princess, was predisposed to take compassion upon her and to receive her kindly. She remained at this court, as we have seen, under the assumed name of Miss Sanders, until the death of the dauphiness. She was thus suddenly deprived of her protector in France, but almost at the same time the marriage of Margaret of Anjou seemed to open to her the means of returning to England.
So long as the Duke of Gloucester lived and retained his power, she knew very well that she could not return in safety to the English court; but she thought that Margaret's going to England would probably be the precursor of Gloucester's downfall.
[Sidenote: Political intrigues.]
"She must hate him," said she to herself, "almost as much as I do, for he has opposed her marriage from the beginning, and has done all in his power to prevent it. Margaret will never be satisfied until she has deposed him from his power and put some friend of hers in his place. I can help her in this work, if she will receive me under her protection and allow me to accompany her to England."
[Sidenote: Lady Neville and Margaret.]
So she proceeded to Abbeville to intercept the queen on her way to the coast, as we have already seen. At the long and secret interview which she had with her there she related to Margaret the story of her connection with Somerset and with Gloucester, and of her almost miraculous escape from death at Gloucester's hands. She now wished for revenge; and if Queen Margaret would receive her into her service and take her to England, she would concert measures with Somerset, her lover, which would greatly aid Margaret in the plans which she might form for effecting the downfall of Gloucester.
[Sidenote: Lady Neville returns.]
[Sidenote: Mystery.]
Margaret at once and very gladly acceded to this request, and took Lady Neville with her to England. She treated her with great consideration and honor; but still Lady Neville maintained a strict reserve in all her intercourse with the other ladies of the court, and kept herself in great seclusion, especially after the arrival of the bridal party in England. Her pretext for this was her deep affliction at the loss of her friend and patroness the Dauphiness of France. But the other ladies of the court were not wholly satisfied with this explanation. They were fully convinced that there was more in the case than met the view, especially when they found that on the arrival of the party in England the stranger seemed to take special pains to avoid meeting the Duke of Gloucester. They exerted all their powers of watchfulness and scrutiny to unravel the mystery, but in vain.
CHAPTER IX. PLOTTINGS.
[Sidenote: Personal and political intrigues.]
[Sidenote: Margaret's beauty.]
It was in this way that public affairs were mingled and complicated with private and personal intrigues in the English court at the time of Margaret's arrival in the country. Margaret was of a character which admirably fitted her to act her part well in the management of such intrigues, and in playing off the passions of ambition, love, resentment, envy, and hate, as manifested by those around her-passions which always glow and rage with greater fury in a court than in any other community-so as to accomplish her ends. She was very young indeed, but she had arrived at a maturity, both mental and personal, far beyond her years. Her countenance was beautiful, and her air and manner possessed an inexpressible charm, but her mental powers were of a very masculine character, and in the boldness of the plans which she formed, and in the mingled shrewdness and energy with which she went on to the execution of them, she evinced less the qualities of a woman than of a man.
[Sidenote: Lady Neville supposed to be dead.]
[Sidenote: Her father.]
It was supposed by all parties in England that Lady Neville was dead. Of course the Duke of Gloucester had no idea that any one could have escaped from the boat. He supposed that he had effected the complete destruction of all on board of it. Somerset's men, who had been stationed at some distance from the landing to receive Lady Neville and convey her home, waited until long past the appointed hour, but no one came. The inquiries which Somerset made secretly the next day showed that the boat had sailed from the village, but no tidings of her arrival in London could be obtained, and he supposed that she must have been lost, with all on board, by some accident on the river. As for the Earl of Salisbury, Lady Neville's father, Gloucester went to him at once, and informed him what he had done. He had detected his daughter, he said, in a guilty intrigue, which, if it had been made public, would have brought not only herself, but all her family, to shame. The earl, who was a man of great sternness and severity of character, said that Gloucester had done perfectly right, and they agreed together to keep the whole transaction secret from the world, and to circulate a report that Lady Neville had died from some natural cause.
[Sidenote: Arrival in London.]
Such was the state of things when Margaret and Lady Neville arrived in London. As soon as the queen became somewhat established in her new home, she began to revolve in her mind the means of deposing Gloucester. Her plan was first to endeavor to arouse her husband from his lethargy, and to awaken in his mind something like a spirit of independence and a feeling of ambition.
[Sidenote: The queen and Henry.]
"You have in your hands," she used to say to him, "what may be easily made the foundation of the noblest realm in Europe. Besides Great Britain, you have the whole of Normandy, and other valuable possessions in France, which together form a vast kingdom, in the government of which you might acquire great glory, if you would take the government of it into your own hands."
[Sidenote: Margaret's arguments.]
She went on to represent to him how unworthy it was of him to allow all the power of such a realm to be wielded by his uncle, instead of assuming the command at once himself, as every consideration of prudence and policy urged him to do. A great many instances had occurred in English history, she said, in which a favorite minister had been allowed to hold power so long, and to strengthen himself in the possession of it so completely, that he could not be divested of it, so that the king himself came at length to be held in subjection by his own minister. The Duke of Gloucester was advancing rapidly in the same course; and, unless the king aroused himself from his inaction, and took the government into his own hands, he would soon lose all power to do it, and would sink into a condition of humiliating dependence upon one of his own subjects.
[Sidenote: The example of ancestors.]
Then, again, she urged upon him at other times the example of his father and grandfather, Henry IV. and Henry V., whose reigns, through the personal energy and prowess which they had exhibited in strengthening and extending their dominions, had given them a world-wide renown. It would be extremely inglorious for the descendant of such a line to spend his life in spiritless inactivity, and to leave the affairs of his kingdom in the hands of a relative, who of course could only be expected to exercise his powers for the purpose of promoting his own interest and glory.