the train of Charles of Charolais. On the other hand the warmest advocates of the French alliance could hardly press for closer relations with a king whose ruin seemed certain, and even Warwick must have been held back by the utter collapse of the royal power when the League attacked Lewis in 1465. Deserted by every great noble, and cooped up within the walls of Paris, the French king could only save himself by a humiliating submission to the demands of the Leaguers. [Sidenote: The Woodvilles] The close of the struggle justified Edward's policy of inaction, for the terms of the peace told strongly for English interests. The restoration of the towns on the Somme to Burgundy, the cession of Normandy to the king's brother, Francis, the hostility of Britanny, not only detached the whole western coast from the hold of Lewis, but forced its possessors to look for aid to the English king who lay in their rear. Edward himself seemed at this moment freed from the last danger of revolt at home, for after some helpless wanderings Henry the Sixth was betrayed into the hands of his enemies and brought in triumph to London. His feet were tied to the stirrups, he was led thrice round the pillory, and then sent as a prisoner to the Tower. But Edward had little time to enjoy his good luck at home and abroad. No sooner had the army of the League broken up than its work was undone. The restless genius of Lewis detached prince from prince, won over the houses of Britanny and Anjou to friendship, snatched back Normandy in January 1466, and gathered an army in Picardy to meet attack either from England or Count Charles. From neither however was any serious danger to be feared. Charles was held at home till the close of the year by revolts at Liege and Dinant, while a war of factions within Edward's court distracted the energies of England. The young king had rapidly followed up the blow of his marriage by raising his wife's family to a greatness which was meant to balance that of the Nevilles. The queen's father, Lord Rivers, was made treasurer and constable; her brothers and sisters were matched with great nobles and heiresses; the heiress of the Duke of Exeter, Edward's niece, whose hand Warwick sought for his brother's son, was betrothed to Elizabeth's son by her former marriage. The king's confidence was given to his new kinsmen, and Warwick saw himself checked even at the council-board by the influence of the Woodvilles. Still true to an alliance with France, he was met by their advocacy of an alliance with Burgundy, where Charles of Charolais through his father's sickness and age was now supreme. Both powers were equally eager for English aid. Lewis despatched an envoy to prolong the truce from his camp on the Somme, and proposed to renew negotiations for a marriage treaty by seeking the hand of Edward's sister, Margaret, for a French prince. Though "the thing which Charles hated most," as Commines tells us,