The ladies went on their way in the track which Chaucer has made memorable, laying their count to meet Queen Margaret and her son, and win their ears beforehand, and wondering that they came not.  Kentish breezes soon revived the Prioress, and she went through many strange devotions at the shrine of Becket, which, it might be feared, did not improve her spiritual, so much as her bodily, health, while Anne’s chiefly resolved themselves into prayers that Harry Clifford might be guarded and restored, and that she herself might be saved from the dreaded Lord Redgrave.

They did not set out on the return to London till they had inhaled plenty of sea breezes by visiting the shrine of St. Mildred in the isle of Thanet, and St. Eanswith at Folkestone, till Lent had begun, and the first fresh tidings that they met were that Edward had landed in Yorkshire, but his fleet had been dispersed by storms, and the people did not rise to join him, so that he was fain to proclaim that he only came to assert his right to his father’s inheritance of the Dukedom of York.

At the Minoresses’ Convent they found that a messenger had arrived, bidding Anne go to meet her father at his castle in Bedfordshire.  He was coming over with the Queen whenever she could obtain a convoy from King Louis of France.  Lord Redgrave was with him, and the marriage should take place as soon as they arrived.

‘Never fear, child,’ said the Prioress; ’many is the slip between the cup and the lip.’

Further tidings came that Edward had thrown off his first plea, that he had passed Warwick’s brother Montagu at Pontefract, and that men from his own hereditary estates were flocking to his royal banner.  Warwick was calling up his men in all directions, and both armies were advancing on London.  Then it was known that ’false, fleeting, perjured Clarence’ had deserted his father-in-law, and returned to his brother; and worthless as he individually was, it boded ill for Lancaster, though still hope continued in the uniform success of the Kingmaker.  Warwick was about twenty miles in advance of Edward, till that King actually passed him and reached the town of Warwick itself.  Still the Earl wrote to his brother that if he could only hold out London for forty-eight hours all would be well.

Once more poor King Henry was set on horseback and paraded through the streets.  Brother Martin went out with the chaplain of the Poor Clares to gaze upon him, and they came back declaring that he was more than ever like the image carried in a procession, seeming quite as helpless and indifferent, except, said Brother Martin, when he passed a church, and then a heavenly look came over his still features as he bowed his head; but none of the crowd who came out to gaze cried ‘Save King Harry!’ or ‘God bless him!’

There were two or three thousand Yorkists in the various sanctuaries of London, and they were preparing to rise in favour of their King Edward, and only a few hundred were mustering in St. Paul’s Churchyard for the Red Rose.