great and
powerful sovereign to have public attention called to his errors by
having them corrected in that manner by an inferior, and to be
restricted in the exercise of his powers by a tutor and a governor, in
order to keep him from doing wrong, as if he were a child not
competent to act for himself.

[Sidenote: The world indulgent to the great.]

"Besides," she added, "if you would really take the charge of your
affairs into your own hands and act independently, what you call your
errors you may depend upon it the public would designate by a
different and a softer name. The world is always disposed to consider
what is done by a great and powerful monarch as of course right, and
even when it would seem to them wrong they believe that its having
that appearance is only because they are not in a position to form a
just judgment on the question, not being fully acquainted with the
facts, or not seeing all the bearings of them."

She assured her husband, moreover, that if he would take the business
of the government into his own hands, he would be very successful in
his administration of public affairs, and would be well sustained by
all the people of the realm.

[Sidenote: Margaret's secret designs.]

Besides thus operating upon the mind of the king, Margaret was
secretly employed all the time in ascertaining the views and feelings
of the principal nobles and other great personages of the realm, with
a view to learning who were disposed to feel hostile to the duke, and
to unite all such into an organized opposition to him. One of the
first persons to whom she applied with this view was Somerset, the
former lover of Lady Neville.

[Sidenote: Opposition to the Duke of Gloucester.]

She presumed, of course, that Somerset would be predisposed to a
feeling of hostility to the duke on account of the old rivalry which
had existed between them, and she now proposed to make use of Lady
Neville's return, and of her agency in restoring her to him, as a
means of inducing him to enter fully into her plans for overturning
his old rival's power. In order to retain the management of the affair
wholly in her own hands, she agreed with Lady Neville that Lady
Neville herself was not in any way to communicate with Somerset until
she, the queen, had first had an interview with him, and that he was
to learn the safety of Lady Neville only through her. Lady Neville
readily consented to this, believing that the queen could manage the