Queen, bred up in the graceful, poetical Court of Aix or Nancy,
looked on her as no better than a barbarian, and if she did not show
this openly, reporters were not wanting to tell her that the Queen
called her the great northern hag, or that her rugged unwilling
curtsey was said to look as if she were stooping to draw water at a
well. Her husband had kept her in some restraint, but when be had
gone to Ireland with the Duke of York, offences seemed to multiply
upon her. The last had been that when she had tripped on her train,
dropped the salver wherewith she was serving the Queen, and broken
out with a loud "Lawk a daisy!" all the ladies, and Margaret herself,
had gone into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and the Queen had
begged her to render her exclamation into good French for her
benefit.

"Madam," she had exclaimed, "if a plain woman's plain English be not
good enough for you, she can have no call here!" And without further
ceremony she had flown out of the royal presence.

Margaret of Anjou, naturally offended, and never politic, had sent
her a message, that her attendance was no longer required. So here
she was going out of her way to make a casual inquiry, from the Court
at Winchester, whether that very unimportant article, her only
daughter, were dead or alive.

The Earl absolutely prohibited all conversation on affairs in debate
during the supper which was spread in the hall, with quite as much
state as, and even greater profusion and splendour, than was to be
found at Windsor, Winchester, or Westminster. All the high born sat
on the dais, raised on two steps with gorgeous tapestry behind, and a
canopy overhead; the Earl and Countess on chairs in the centre of the