Part 17 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Her care of Henry.]

But she was not required to remain long in this humiliating position.

She procured the best possible medical advice and attendance for her husband, and devoted herself to him with the utmost a.s.siduity, and, at length, she had the satisfaction of seeing that he was beginning to amend. The improvement commenced in November, about eight or ten months after he first fell into the state of unconsciousness. When at length he came to himself, it seemed to him, he said, as if he was awaking from a long dream.

[Sidenote: Recovery.]

Margaret was overjoyed to see these signs of returning intelligence.

She longed for the time to come when she could show the king her boy.

He had thus far never seen the child.

[Sidenote: The prince shown to him.]

[Sidenote: Marks of returning consciousness.]

We obtain a pretty clear idea of the state of imbecility or unconsciousness in which he had been lying from the account of what he did and said at the interview when the little prince was first brought into his presence. It is as follows:

”On Monday, at noon, the queen came to him and brought my lord prince with her, and then he asked 'what the prince's name was,'

and the queen told him 'Edward,' and then he held up his hands, and thanked G.o.d thereof.

”And he said he never knew him till that time, nor wist what was said to him, nor wist where he had been, while he had been sick, till now; and he asked who were the G.o.dfathers, and the queen told him, and he was well content.

”And she told him the cardinal was dead,[12] and he said he never knew of it till this time; then he said one of the wisest lords in this land was dead.

”And my Lord of Winchester and my Lord of St. John of Jerusalem were with him the morrow after Twelfth day, and he did speak to them as well as ever he did, and when they came out they wept for joy. And he saith he is in charity with all the world, and so he would all the lords were. And now he saith matins of our Lady and even-song, and heareth his ma.s.s devoutly.”

[Footnote 12: The Archbishop of Canterbury, the circ.u.mstance of whose death has already been referred to.]

[Sidenote: The king reinstated.]

The very first moment that the king was able to bear it, Margaret caused him to be conveyed into the House of Lords, there to resume the exercise of his royal powers by taking his place upon the throne and performing some act of sovereignty. The regency was, of course, now at an end, and the Duke of York, leaving London, went off into the country in high dudgeon.

The queen, of course, now came into power again. The first thing that she did was to release Somerset from his confinement, and reinstate him as prime minister of the crown.

CHAPTER XIV.

ANXIETY AND TROUBLE.

[Sidenote: A great deal of trouble.]

[Sidenote: Angry disputes.]

[Sidenote: Insubordination.]

For about six years after this time, that is, from the birth of Prince Edward till he was six years old, and while Margaret was advancing from her twenty-fourth to her thirtieth year, her life was one of continual anxiety, contention, and alarm. The Duke of York and his party made continual difficulty, and the quarrel between him, and the Earl of Warwick, and the other n.o.bles who espoused his cause, on one side, and the queen, supported by the Duke of Somerset and other great Lancastrian partisans on the other, kept the kingdom in a constant ferment. Sometimes the force of the quarrel spent itself in intrigues, manoeuvres, and plottings, or in fierce and angry debates in Parliament, or in bitter animosities and contentions in private and social life. At other times it would break out into open war, and again and again was Margaret compelled to leave her child in the hands of nurses and guardians, while she went with her poor helpless husband to follow the camp, in order to meet and overcome the military a.s.semblages which the Duke of York was continually bringing together at his castles in the country or in the open fields.

The king's health during all this period was so frail, and his mind, especially at certain times, was so feeble, that he was almost as helpless as a child. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in the family, which made his case still more discouraging.

[Sidenote: Modes of amusing the king.]