a very
important and very valuable possession, or else pay back double the
money which she borrowed.

[Sidenote: Mortgage of Calais.]

Thus it was not an absolute sale of Calais, but only a mortgage of it,
which the queen executed. But, nevertheless, as soon as this
transaction was made known in England, it excited great indignation
throughout the country, and seriously injured the cause of the queen.
The people accused her of being ready to alienate the possessions of
the crown, possessions which it had cost so much both in blood and
treasure to procure.

[Sidenote: Doubtful security.]

Of course, the security which the king obtained for his loan was of a
somewhat doubtful character, for Margaret's mortgage deed of Calais,
although she gave it in King Henry's name, and was careful to state in
it that she was expressly authorized by him to make it, was of no
force at all so long as Edward of York reigned in England, and was
acknowledged by the people as the rightful king. It was only in the
event of Margaret's succeeding in recovering the throne for her
husband that the mortgage could take effect. The deed which she
executed stipulated that, as soon as King Henry should be restored to
his kingdom, he would appoint one of two persons named, in whom the
King of France had confidence, as governor of the town, with authority
to deliver it up to the King of France in one year in case she did not
within that time pay back double the sum of money borrowed.

[Sidenote: Conditions.]

He seemed to think that, considering the great risk he was taking, a
hundred per cent per annum was not an exorbitant usury.

CHAPTER XIX.

RETURN TO ENGLAND.

[Sidenote: Margaret finds a friend.]

Margaret found one friend in France, who seems to have espoused her
cause from a sentiment of sincere and disinterested attachment to her.
This was a certain knight named Pierre de Breze.[16] He was an officer
of high rank in the government of Normandy, and a man of very
considerable influence among the distinguished personages of those
times.

[Footnote 16: Pronounced Brezzay.]

[Illustration: Map of the Scottish Border.]

[Sidenote: Account of Breze.]

[Sidenote: He enters the queen's service.]

Margaret had known him intimately many years before. He was appointed
one of the commissioners on the French side to negotiate, with Suffolk
and the others, the terms of Margaret's marriage, and he had taken a
very promine