e state of neutrality; and the superiority visibly acquired by
France, rendered it then unnecessary for her ally to interpose in her
defence. But when the quarrel commenced between the houses of York and
Lancaster, and became absolutely incurable but by the total extinction
of one party, James, who had now risen to man's estate, was tempted to
seize the opportunity, and he endeavored to recover those places which
the English had formerly conquered from his ancestors. He laid siege to
the Castle of Roxburgh in 1460, and had provided himself with a small
train of artillery for that enterprise: but his cannon were so ill
framed, that one of them burst as he was firing it, and put an end to
his life in the flower of his age. His son and successor, James III.,
was also a minor on his accession: the usual distractions ensued in the
government: the queen dowager, Anne of Gueldres, aspired to the regency:
the family of Douglas opposed her pretensions: and Queen Margaret, when
she fled into Scotland, found there a people little less divided by
faction, than those by whom she had been expelled. Though she pleaded
the connections between the royal family of Scotland and the house of
Lancaster, by the young king's grandmother, a daughter of the earl of
Somerset, she could engage the Scottish council to go no further than to
express their good wishes in her favor; but on her offer to deliver to
them immediately the important fortress of Berwick, and to contract
her son in marriage with a sister of King James, she found a better
reception; and the Scots promised the assistance of their arms to
reinstate her family upon the throne.[*] But as the danger from that
quarter seemed not very urgent to Edward, he did not pursue the fugitive
king and queen into their retreat; but returned to London, where a
parliament was summoned for settling the government.

On the meeting of this assembly, Edward found the good effects of his
vigorous measure in assuming the crown, as well as of his victory
at Touton, by which he had secured it;[**] the parliament no longer
hesitated between the two families or proposed any of those ambiguous
decisions which could only serve to perpetuate and inflame the
animosities of party.

* Hall, fol. 137.

** Habington, p. 434.

They recognized the title of Edward, by hereditary descent, through the
family of Mortimer; and declared that he was king by right, from the
death of his father, who had also th