Ferri, Count of Vaudemonte, Margaret's brother, the Duke
of Calabria, and the powerful form of Sir Pierre de Breze, who had
accompanied Margaret in her last disastrous campaigns, with all the
devotion of a chevalier for the lofty lady adored in secret. [See,
for the chivalrous devotion of this knight (Seneschal of Normandy) to
Margaret, Miss Strickland's Life of that queen.]

When the door opened, and gave to the eyes of those proud exiles the
form of their puissant enemy, they with difficulty suppressed the murmur
of their resentment, and their looks turned with sympathy and grief to
the hueless face of their queen.

The earl himself was troubled; his step was less firm, his crest less
haughty, his eye less serenely steadfast.

But beside him, in a dress more homely than that of the poorest exile
there, and in garb and in aspect, as he lives forever in the portraiture
of Victor Hugo and our own yet greater Scott, moved Louis, popularly
called "The Fell."

"Madame and cousin," said the king, "we present to you the man for whose
haute courage and dread fame we have such love and respect, that we
value him as much as any king, and would do as much for him as for man
living [Ellis: Original Letters, vol. i., letter 42, second series]; and
with my lord of Warwick, see also this noble earl of Oxford, who, though
he may have sided awhile with the enemies of your Highness, comes now to
pray your pardon, and to lay at your feet his sword."

Lord Oxford (who had ever unwillingly acquiesced in the Yorkist
dynasty), more prompt than Warwick, here threw himself on his knees
before Margaret, and his tears fell on her hand, as he murmured
"Pardon."

"Rise, Sir John de Vere," said the queen, glancing with a flashing eye
from Oxford to Lord Warwick. "Your pardon is right easy to purchase, for
well I know that you yielded but to the time,--you did not turn the time
against us; you and yours have suffered much for King Henry's cause.
Rise, Sir Earl."

"And," said a voice, so deep and so solemn, that it hushed the very
breath of those who heard it,--"and has Margaret a pardon also for the
man who did more than all others to dethrone King Henry, and can do more
than all to restore his crown?"

"Ha!" cried' Margaret, rising in her passion, and casting from her the
hand her son had placed upon her shoulder, "ha! Ownest thou thy wrongs,
proud lord? Comest thou at last to kneel at Queen Margaret's feet?
Look round and behold her cour