On that same day Margaret of Anjou and her son landed at Weymouth.  Hearing of Warwick’s death, they tried to reach Wales but were intercepted and forced to fight at Tewkesbury.  Here the young prince, too, met his death.  To Edward’s direct command is attributed the murder of the unfortunate Henry VI. in the Tower, which happened at about the same time.  The desolated Margaret of Anjou lingered five years under restraint in England before she was ransomed by King Louis.

    “Sir John Paston to Margaret Paston.  Wreten at London the
    Thorysdaye in Esterne weke, 1471.

    “God hathe schewyd Hym selffe marvelouslye lyke Hym that made all
    and can undoo agayn whare Hym lyst."[32]

Charles of Burgundy could now pride himself on his foresight.  His brother of the two Orders was himself again.

“The very day on which this fight happened [says Commines] the Duke of Burgundy, being before Amiens, received letters from the duchess his wife, that the King of England was not at all satisfied with him, that he had given his aid grudgingly and as if for very little cause he would have deserted him.  To speak plainly there never was great friendship between them afterwards.  Yet the Duke of Burgundy seemed to be extremely pleased at this news and published it everywhere.”

A transaction of his own of this time, the duke did not publish.  It was a procedure perhaps justified by these wonderful “mutations in the world” which impressed Commines as strange and terrible.  The Duke of Burgundy caused a legal document to be drawn up attesting his own heirship to Henry VI. of England, and filed the same in the Abbey of St. Bertin with all due formality.  If there came more “mutations” in the world whose very existence was a new experience to Philip de Commines, Charles was ready to interpose his own plank in the new structure.

In the archives of the House of Croy in the chateau of Beaumont, rests this document, which was duly signed by Charles on November 3, 1471, in his own hand “so that greater faith” be given to the statement that no one was truer heir to the Lancaster House than Charles of Burgundy.[33] Two canons attested the instrument as notaries, and the witnesses were Hugonet, Humbercourt, and Bladet.

It was expressly stipulated that if there were any delay in the duke’s entering upon his English inheritance—­which devolved to him through his mother,—­a delay caused by motives of public utility of Christendom, and of the House of Burgundy, this should not prejudice his rights or those of his successors.  A mere deferring of assuring the titles, etc., brought no prejudice to his rights.  His delay ended in his death and Edward IV. never had to combat this claim of the brother-in-law who had helped him, though grudgingly, to regain his throne.

[Footnote 1:  Meyer is the earliest historian to tell this story and it is vouched for by no existing contemporary evidence.]