d schemes of the old
families interfered with and broken up by the queen's family thus
coming into power. It happened that the queen had five unmarried
sisters. She began to form plans for securing for them men of the
highest rank and position in the realm. This, of course, thwarted the
plans and disappointed the hopes of all those families who had been
scheming to gain these husbands for their own daughters. To see five
great heirs of dukes and barons thus withdrawn from the matrimonial
market, and employed to increase the power and prestige of their
ancient and implacable foes, filled the souls of the old Yorkist
families with indignation. Parties were formed. The queen and her
family and friends--the Woodvilles and Grays--with all their
adherents, were on one side; the Neville family, with the Earl of
Warwick at their head, and most of the old Yorkist noblemen, were on
the other; Clarence joined the Earl of Warwick; Richard, on the other
hand, or Gloucester, as he was now called, adhered to the king.

Things went on pretty much in this way for two years. There was no
open quarrel, though there was a vast deal of secret animosity and
bickering. The great world at court was divided into two sets, or
cliques, that hated each other very cordially, though both, for the
present, pretended to support King Edward as the rightful sovereign of
the country. The struggle was for the honors and offices under him.
The families who still adhered to the old Lancastrian party, and to
the rights of Henry and of the little Prince of Wales, withdrew, of
course, altogether from the court, and, retiring to their castles,
brooded moodily there over their fallen fortunes, and waited in
expectation of better times. Henry was imprisoned in the Tower;
Margaret and the Prince of Wales were on the Continent. They and their
friends were, of course, watching the progress of the quarrel between
the party of the Earl of Warwick and that of the king, hoping that it
might at last lead to an open rupture, in which case the Lancastrians
might hope for Warwick's aid to bring them again into power.

[Illustration: WARWICK IN THE PRESENCE OF THE FRENCH KING.]

And now another circumstance occurred which widened this breach very
much indeed. It arose from a difference of opinion between King Edward
and the Earl of Warwick in respect to the marriage of the king's
sister Margaret, known, as has already been said, as Margaret of York.
There was upon the Con