Affairs did not immediately proceed to the last extremities; the nation was kept some time in suspense; the vigor and spirit of Queen Margaret,[1] supporting her small power, still proved a balance to the great authority of Richard, which was checked by his irresolute temper.  A parliament, which was soon after assembled, plainly discovered, by the contrariety of their proceedings, the contrariety of the motives by which they were actuated.  They granted the Yorkists a general indemnity; and they restored the protectorship to the Duke, but at the same time they renewed their oaths of fealty to Henry, and fixed the continuance of the protectorship to the majority of his son Edward.

It was not found difficult to wrest power from hands so little tenacious as those of the Duke of York.  Margaret, availing herself of that Prince’s absence, produced her husband before the House of Lords; and as his state of health permitted him at that time to act his part with some tolerable decency, he declared his intentions of resuming the government, and of putting an end to Richard’s authority.  The House of Lords assented to Henry’s proposal, and the King was declared to be reinstated.  Even the Duke of York acquiesced in this irregular act of the peers, and no disturbance ensued.  But that Prince’s claim to the crown was too well known, and the steps which he had taken to promote it were too evident ever to allow sincere trust and confidence to have place between the parties.

The court retired to Coventry, and invited the Duke of York and the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick to attend the King’s person.  When they were on the road, they received intelligence that designs were formed against their liberties and lives.  They immediately separated themselves; Richard withdrew to his castle of Wigmore; Salisbury to Middleham, in Yorkshire; and Warwick to his government of Calais, which had been committed to him after the battle of St. Albans, and which, as it gave him the command of the only regular military force maintained by England, was of the utmost importance in the present juncture.  Still, men of peaceable dispositions, and among the rest Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, thought it not too late to interpose with their good offices in order to prevent that effusion of blood with which the kingdom was threatened; and the awe in which each party stood of the other rendered the mediation for some time successful.

It was agreed that all the great leaders on both sides should meet in London and be solemnly reconciled.  The Duke of York and his partisans came thither with numerous retinues, and took up their quarters near each other for mutual security.  The leaders of the Lancastrian party used the same precaution.  The mayor, at the head of five thousand men, kept a strict watch night and day, and was extremely vigilant in maintaining peace between them.  Terms were adjusted, which removed not the ground of difference.  An outward reconciliation only was procured; and in