arming one's self at King Rene's fireside.

Such was the family from which Margaret of Anjou sprang.

CHAPTER V.

ROYAL COURTSHIP.

[Sidenote: 1444.]

[Sidenote: Margaret's talents and accomplishments.]

[Sidenote: Offers of marriage.]

When Margaret was not more than fourteen or fifteen years of age, she
began to be very celebrated for her beauty and accomplishments, and
for the charming vivacity of her conversation and her demeanor. She
resided with her mother in different families in Lorraine and in other
parts of France, and was sometimes at the court of the Queen of
France, who was her near relative. All who knew her were charmed with
her. She was considered equally remarkable for her talents and for her
beauty. The arrangement which had been made in her childhood for
marrying her to the Count of St. Pol was broken off, but several other
offers were made to her mother for her hand, though none of them was
accepted. Isabella was very proud of her daughter, and she cherished
very lofty aspirations in respect to her future destiny. She was
therefore not at all inclined to be in haste in respect to making
arrangements for her marriage.

[Sidenote: State of things in England.]

[Sidenote: Henry's character.]

In the mean time, the feud between the uncles and relatives of King
Henry, in England, as related in a preceding chapter, had been going
on, and was now reaching a climax. The leaders of the two rival
parties were, as will be recollected, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of
Winchester, or Cardinal Beaufort, as he was more commonly called, who
had had the personal charge of the king during his minority, on one
side, and the Duke of Gloucester, Henry's uncle, who had been regent
of England during the same period, on the other. The king himself was
now about twenty-four years of age, and if he had been a man of vigor
and resolution, he might perhaps have controlled the angry disputants,
and by taking the government fully into his own hands, have forced
them to live together in peace under his paramount authority. But
Henry was a very timid and feeble-minded man. The turbulence and
impetuousness of his uncles and their partisans in their quarrel was
altogether too great for any control that he could hope to exercise
over them. Indeed, the great question with them was which should
contrive the means of exercising the greatest control over _him_.

[Sidenote: Plans of the courtiers.]

In order to accomplish