*

[Sidenote: Margaret in confinement.]

[Sidenote: Wallingford.]

For some time after Henry's death Margaret was kept in close
confinement in the Tower. At length, finding that every thing was
quiet, and that the new government was becoming firmly established,
the rigor of the unhappy captive's imprisonment was relaxed. She was
removed first to Windsor, and afterward to Wallingford, a place in the
interior of the country, where she enjoyed a considerable degree of
personal freedom, though she was still very closely watched and
guarded.

[Sidenote: She is ransomed.]

At length, about four years afterward, her father, King Rene,
succeeded in obtaining her ransom for the sum of fifty thousand
crowns. Rene was not the possessor of so much money himself, but he
induced King Louis to pay it, on condition of his conveying to him his
family domain.

The ransom was to be paid in five annual installments, but on the
payment of the first installment the queen was to be released and
allowed to return to her native land. It was stipulated, too, that, as
a condition of her release, she was formally and forever to renounce
all the rights of every kind within the realm of England to which she
might have laid claim through her marriage with Henry. It might have
been supposed that they would have required her to sign this
renunciation before releasing her. But it was held by the law of
England, then as now, that a signature made under durance was invalid,
the signer not being free. So it was arranged that an English
commissioner was to accompany her across the Channel, and go with her
to Rouen, where he was to deliver her to the French embassadors, who,
in the name of Louis, were to be responsible for her signing the
document.

[Sidenote: 1476.]

[Sidenote: The commissioner.]

[Sidenote: Margaret crosses the Channel.]

This plan was carried into effect. Margaret set out from the castle of
Wallingford under the care of a man on whom Edward's government could
rely for keeping a close watch over her, and taking care that she went
on quietly through England to the port of embarkation. This port was
Sandwich. Here she embarked on board a vessel, with a retinue of three
ladies and seven gentlemen, and bade a final farewell to the kingdom
which she had entered on her bridal tour with such high and exultant
expectations of grandeur and happiness.

[Sidenote: At Rouen.]

She arrived at Dieppe in the beginning of 1476, and pro