The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [194]
Her words wrought a curious change in the man. Perhaps he had been a Lancastrian soldier and had once fought for her. Now he fell on his knees before her and swore to die rather than harm or forsake her or the Prince. He told her he was known as Black Jack, and led them by a secret route to a cave beside a stream in Deepden Woods, which is still to be seen and still known as the ‘Queen’s Cave’. Here they sheltered for two days until Brézé and his squire, Barville, who had been searching for the Queen and Prince, found them. After bidding farewell to Black Jack and pardoning him for the offences he had committed, the Queen and Brézé rode to Carlisle and thence across the Scottish border to Kirkcudbright.
While she was there, an English spy called Cork devised a plan to kidnap her and take her to Edward IV. He paid his men well, and one night they laid hands on Brézé and Barville and forced them into a small rowing boat, where they were bound and gagged. After that, it was an easy matter to capture the unguarded Queen and her son, drag them on board and put to sea. There they remained all night, but in the light of dawn the Queen recognised Brézé and surreptitiously helped him to loosen his bonds. Freed, he was able to knock Cork senseless and seize the oars. For some hours the boat was tossed in the choppy waters of the Solway Firth before being beached at Kirkcudbright Bay, a wild and desolate place. Brézé carried the Queen ashore and laid her down on the sand to recuperate, while Barville joined them with the Prince. When they had recovered they all walked to a nearby hamlet and begged shelter. Brézé sent Barville to Edinburgh – a hundred miles away – to enlist the help of Queen Mary. He came back with a message that Mary would see Margaret, but only in private, and that the betrothal between the Prince and Margaret Stewart had been broken at Burgundy’s request. Perplexed and angry, Margaret made her own way to Edinburgh, but could not prevail upon the embarrassed Scottish government to change its mind. All the Regent would do was help her return to her friends in Northumberland.
Margaret was now in desperate straits, being so poor that she was obliged to borrow a groat from a Scottish archer to make an offering on the feast day of her patron saint, St Margaret. As she made her way back with Brézé towards Bamburgh, she met up with her husband and son, but their food supplies quickly ran out and, according to Chastellain, they ‘were reduced to such abject misery and destitution that for five days they had but one herring between the three and not more bread than would have sufficed a day’s nourishment’.
Meanwhile the activities of the Lancastrians in the north had rebounded on Somerset, who had in no way been involved. There were many at court who resented his appointment as captain of the garrison at Newcastle, and who could not forget the support given to the Lancastrians by himself and his family, and in late July the King sent him away from court for his own safety; the Duke appears to have gone to one of the royal castles in Wales.
Margaret of Anjou was now determined to make a personal plea to Burgundy for help, especially after July 1463, when she learned that Warwick was marching north with a great host, and knew she had no hope of holding out against him. After bidding farewell to Henry VI at Bamburgh, promising that she would be back in