At last, in the course of the winter, he conceived the idea of trying
what pretended kindness could do in enticing the queen and her family
out of sanctuary. So he sent a messenger to her, to make fair and
friendly proposals to her in case she would give up her place of
refuge and place herself under his protection. He said that he felt no
animosity or ill will against her, but that, if she and her daughters
would trust to him, he would receive them at court, provide for them
fully in a manner suited to their rank, and treat them in all respects
with the highest consideration. She herself should be recognized as
the queen dowager of England, and her daughters as princesses of the
royal family; and he would take proper measures to arrange marriages
for the young ladies, such as should comport with the exalted station
which they were entitled to hold.

The queen was at last persuaded to yield to these solicitations. She
left the sanctuary, and gave herself and her daughters up to Richard's
control. Many persons have censured her very strongly for doing this;
but her friends and defenders allege that there was nothing else that
she could do. She might have remained in the Abbey herself to starve
if she had been alone, but she could not see her children perish of
destitution and distress when a word from her could restore them to
the world, and raise them at once to a condition of the highest
prosperity and honor. So she yielded. She left the Abbey, and was
established by Richard in one of his palaces, and her daughters were
received at court, and treated, especially the eldest, with the utmost
consideration.

But, notwithstanding this outward change in her condition, the real
situation of the queen herself, after leaving the Abbey, was extremely
forlorn. The apartments which Richard assigned to her were very
retired and obscure. He required her, moreover, to dismiss all her own
attendants, and he appointed servants and agents of his own to wait
upon and guard her. The queen soon found that she was under a very
strict surveillance, and not much less a prisoner, in fact, than she
was before.

While in this situation, she wrote to her son Dorset,[R] at Paris,
commanding him to put an end to the proposed marriage of her daughter
Elizabeth to Henry of Richmond, "as she had given up," she said, "the
plan of that alliance, and had formed other designs for the princess."
Henry and his friends and partisans in Paris were indi