onfiscated. While the mother and the younger children were thus
closely shut up and reduced to helpless destitution, the father and
the older sons were obliged to fly from the country to save their
lives. In less than three months after this time these same exiled and
apparently ruined fugitives were marching triumphantly through the
country, at the head of victorious troops, carrying all before them.
Lady Cecily and her children were set at liberty, and restored to
their property and their rights, while King Henry himself, whose
captives they had been, was himself made captive, and brought in
durance to London, and Queen Margaret and her son were in their turn
compelled to fly from the realm to save their lives.

This last change in the condition of public affairs took place only a
short time before the great final contest between Prince Richard of
York, King Richard's father, and the family of Henry, when the prince
lost his life at Wakefield, as described in the last chapter.

[Illustration: PALACE AND GARDEN BELONGING TO THE HOUSE OF YORK.]

Of course, young Richard, being brought up amid these scenes of wild
commotion, and accustomed from childhood to witness the most cruel and
remorseless conflicts between branches of the same family, was trained
by them to be ambitious, daring, and unscrupulous in respect to the
means to be used in circumventing or destroying an enemy. The seed
thus sown produced in subsequent years most dreadful fruit, as will be
seen more fully in the sequel of his history.

There were a great many hereditary castles belonging to the family of
York, many of which had descended from father to son for many
generations. Some of these castles were strong fortresses, built in
wild and inaccessible retreats, and intended to be used as places of
temporary refuge, or as the rallying-points and rendezvous of bodies
of armed men. Others were better adapted for the purposes of a private
residence, being built with some degree of reference to the comfort of
the inmates, and surrounded with gardens and grounds, where the ladies
and the children who were left in them could find recreation and
amusement adapted to their age and sex.

It was in such a castle as this, near London, that Lady Cecily and her
younger children were residing when her husband went to the northward
to meet the forces of the queen, as related in the last chapter. Here
Lady Cecily lived in great state, for she thought the time was dr