Queen Margaret and her son Edward were living with her father in France, and she was always trying to have her husband set free, and brought back to his throne.  In the meantime, all England was exceeedingly surprised to find that Edward IV. had been secretly married to a beautiful lady named Elizabeth Woodville—­Lady Grey.  Her first husband had been killed fighting for Henry, and she had stood under an oak tree, when King Edward was passing, to entreat that his lands might not be taken from her little boys.  The king fell in love with her and married her, but for a long time he was afraid to tell the Earl of Warwick; and when he did, Warwick was greatly offended—­and all the more because Elizabeth’s relations were proud and gay in their dress, and tried to set themselves above all the old nobles.  Warwick himself had no son, but he had two daughters, whom he meant to marry to the king’s two brothers—­George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester.  Edward thought this would make Warwick too powerful, and though he could not prevent George from marrying Isabel Nevil, the eldest daughter, the discontent grew so strong that Warwick persuaded George to fly with him, turn against his own brother, and offer Queen Margaret their help!  No wonder Margaret did not trust them, and was very hard to persuade that Warwick could mean well by her; but at last she consented, and gave her son Edward—­a fine lad of sixteen—­to marry his daughter, Anne Nevil; after which, Warwick—­whom men began to call the king-maker—­ went back to England with Clarence, to raise their men, while she was to follow with her son and his young wife.  Warwick came so suddenly that he took the Yorkists at unawares.  Edward had to flee for his life to Flanders, leaving his wife and his babies to take shelter in Westminster Abbey—­since no one durst take any one out of that holy place—­and poor Henry was taken out of prison and set on the throne again.  However, Edward soon got help in Flanders, where his sister was married to the Duke of Burgundy.  He came back again, gathered his friends, and sent messages to his brother Clarence that he would forgive him if he would desert the earl.  No one ever had less faith or honor than George of Clarence.  He did desert Warwick, just as the battle of Barnet Heath was beginning; and Warwick’s king-making all ended, for he was killed, with his brother and many others, in the battle.

And this was the first news that met Margaret when, after being long hindered by foul weather, she landed at Plymouth.  She would have done more wisely to have gone back, but her son Edward longed to strike a blow for his inheritance, and they had friends in Wales whom they hope to meet.  So they made their way into Gloucestershire; but there King Edward, with both his brothers, came down upon them at Tewkesbury, and there their army was routed, and the young prince taken and killed—­some say by the king himself and his brothers.  Poor broken hearted Queen Margaret was made prisoner too, and carried to the Tower, where she arrived a day or two after the meek and crazed captive, Henry VI., had been slain, that there might be no more risings in his name.  And so ended the long war of York and Lancaster —­though not in peace or joy to the savage, faithless family who had conquered.