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By Root 1158 0

At a banquet given in her honour, the Queen, whose royal dignity and manners had not been impaired by her penury, indicated that Charolais should use the fingerbowl before herself and the Prince. But he, following the example of his father, who always insisted on paying due reverence to crowned heads, absolutely refused to come forward, saying that the son of a duke ought not to wash with the son of a king. The affair almost provoked a diplomatic incident. The Burgundian court, where great attention was paid to matters of etiquette, was a-buzz with consternation in case some offence had been given, and messengers were even sent to the Duke to ask his advice on the question of precedence. He agreed that Charles had acted properly and preserved the honour of Burgundy.

Margaret met the chronicler Georges Chastellain in Bruges and at his request recounted her adventures, which he related in detail in his chronicle. His imagination was stirred by her beauty and her misfortunes, and he was grieved to hear her say that she had several times thought of killing herself, ‘but happily the fear of God, and His restraining grace, had preserved her from so deadly a sin’.

Enriched with a gift of 12,000 crowns from Philip, Margaret rode on to Nancy to see her father, King René. Realising the hopelessness of her cause and knowing that it would be dangerous for her to return to Scotland, he persuaded her to remain in France for the present, and lent her his castle of Koeur-la-Petite in the duchy of Bar. Here she set up a small court of exiles, who included Sir John Fortescue, Dr John Morton, Sir Robert Whittingham, and George Ashby, her clerk of the signet. René allocated her 6000 crowns a year, but this did not cover her expenses and for most of her exile she lived on or near the breadline. This drove her to pay long visits to various relatives, including her grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, her brother, John of Calabria, and her aunt, the Dowager Queen Marie of France at Amboise. From time to time she went to Paris to try to revive King Louis’s interest in her cause, but in vain. She also tried to enlist the support of the Emperor Frederick III, the King of Portugal and Charles of Charolais, but met with no better success.

All her hopes for the future rested on her ten-year-old son. She was now able to devote some time to his education, and appointed Fortescue his chief tutor. Fortescue wrote a treatise on the laws of England – De Laudibus legum Angliae – for the boy, and schooled him well, probably with the help of George Ashby. Edward flourished under his guidance and doubtless benefited from this more settled existence. His mother taught him courtesy and social skills, and he received the customary military training considered mandatory for a boy of his rank from the men of her household.

Early in December 1463, King Edward’s prolonged negotiations with the Scots bore fruit in the form of a truce, one of the conditions of which was that James III undertook not to give any further help to the Lancastrians. This caused the Scots no heart-searching, for they believed by now that Henry VI’s cause was irrevocably lost. On 8 December, Henry VI crossed the border with his small court and again took up residence at Bamburgh Castle, where for the next few months he would rule what remained of his kingdom – the Northumbrian castles.

For some time Somerset had suffered mounting frustration at King Edward’s failure to pay him the pension promised a year earlier. He may also have felt guilty about abandoning Henry VI. In December 1463 he finally deserted Edward IV, riding from Wales to Newcastle, having sent ahead to instruct his men there to open the gates. In an inn near Durham he was recognised and, being awakened in the dead of night by footsteps outside his room, he was obliged to escape via the window wearing only his shirt and no shoes. Meanwhile, the Yorkist garrison at Newcastle had learned of his coming and put his retainers to flight. The Duke was therefore obliged to leave England and make his way to Margaret of Anjou’s court at