of Richard II. He professed but to claim his duchy,--and men were
influenced by justice, till they became agents of ambition. This be
your policy; with two thousand men you are but Duke of York; with ten
thousand men you are King of England! In passing hither, I met with
many, and sounding the temper of the district, I find it not ripe to
share your hazard. The world soon ripens when it hath to hail success!"

"O young boy's smooth face! O old man's deep brain!" said Edward,
admiringly, "what a king hadst thou made!" A sudden flush passed over
the prince's pale cheek, and, ere it died away, a flaming torch was
hurled aloft in the air; it fell whirling into the ship--a moment, and a
loud crash; a moment, and a mighty blaze! Up sprung from the deck, along
the sails, the sheeted fire,--

"A giant beard of flame." [Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 314]

It reddened the coast, the skies, from far and near; it glowed on the
faces and the steel of the scanty army; it was seen, miles away, by the
warders of many a castle manned with the troops of Lancaster; it brought
the steed from the stall, the courier to the selle; it sped, as of old
the beacon fire that announced to Clytemnestra the return of the Argive
king. From post to post rode the fiery news, till it reached Lord
Warwick in his hall, King Henry in his palace, Elizabeth in her
sanctuary. The iron step of the dauntless Edward was once more pressed
upon the soil of England.

CHAPTER V. THE PROGRESS OF THE PLANTAGENET.

A few words suffice to explain the formidable arrival we have just
announced. Though the Duke of Burgundy had by public proclamation
forbidden his subjects to aid the exiled Edward, yet, whether moved
by the entreaties of his wife, or wearied by the remonstrances of his
brother-in-law, he at length privately gave the dethroned monarch fifty
thousand florins to find troops for himself, and secretly hired Flemish
and Dutch vessels to convey him to England. [Comines, Hall, Lingard, S.
Turner] But so small was the force to which the bold Edward trusted his
fortunes, that it almost seemed as if Burgundy sent him forth to his
destruction. He sailed from the coast of Zealand; the winds, if less
unmanageable than those that blew off the seaport where Margaret and her
armament awaited a favouring breeze, were still adverse. Scared from the
coast of Norfolk by the vigilance of Warwick and Oxford, who had filled
that district with armed men, storm and tempest dro