han on well-known love for England, her
glory and her peace, it rests with you to bury forever in one grave the
feuds of Lancaster and York! What Yorkist who hath fought at Towton or
St. Albans under Lord Warwick's standard, will lift sword against the
husband of Lord Warwick's daughter? What Lancastrian will not forgive a
Yorkist, when Lord Warwick, the kinsman of Duke Richard, becomes father
to the Lancastrian heir, and bulwark to the Lancastrian throne? O
Warwick, if not for my sake, nor for the sake of full redress against
the ingrate whom thou repentest to have placed on my father's throne, at
least for the sake of England, for the healing of her bleeding wounds,
for the union of her divided people, hear the grandson of Henry V., who
sues to thee for thy daughter's hand!"

The royal wooer bent his knee as he spoke. The mighty subject saw and
prevented the impulse of the prince who had forgotten himself in the
lover; the hand which he caught he lifted to his lips, and the next
moment, in manly and soldierlike embrace, the prince's young arm was
thrown over the broad shoulder of the king-maker.

CHAPTER IX. THE INTERVIEW OF EARL WARWICK AND QUEEN MARGARET.

Louis hastened to meet Margaret at Tours; thither came also her father
Rene, her brother John of Calabria, Yolante her sister, and the Count of
Vaudemonte. The meeting between the queen and Rene was so touching as to
have drawn tears to the hard eyes of Louis XI.; but, that emotion over,
Margaret evinced how little affliction had humbled her high spirit, or
softened her angry passions: she interrupted Louis in every argument for
reconciliation with Warwick. "Not with honour to myself and to my son,"
she exclaimed, "can I pardon that cruel earl, the main cause of King
Henry's downfall! in vain patch up a hollow peace between us,--a peace
of form and parchment! My spirit never can be contented with him, ne
pardon!"

For several days she maintained a language which betrayed the chief
cause of her own impolitic passions, that had lost her crown. Showing
to Louis the letter despatched to her, proffering the hand of the Lady
Elizabeth to her son, she asked if that were not a more profitable
party [See, for this curious passage of secret history, Sir H. Ellis's
"Original Letters from the Harleian Manuscripts," second series,
vol. i., letter 42.], and if it were necessary that she should
forgive,--whether it were not more queenly to treat with Edward than
with a