Margaret was sent to the Tower, but not to her husband; they were kept apart, and the Princess of Wales was delivered over to the care of her uncle, the Archbishop of York. But even so Edward’s malice was not exhausted. The Queen was conducted without honour, or even decency, in the suite of Edward on his return to the capital. At Coventry,--of all places for further outrage, a place so greatly agreeable to Henry and herself,--ill-fated Margaret was subjected to personal insults from her vanquisher. In reply she reviled him, and thrust him with abhorrence from her. In revenge he ordered her to be fastened upon a common sumpter horse, and he ordered a placard to be placed on her breast, “This is Queen Margaret, good lieges,” and her hands were tied behind her back. Thus was the most valiant, most unselfish, and most loyal Queen that England ever had led to grace the mock triumph of a royal murderer. She was thrust into the foulest dungeon of the grim Tower, and there remained, bereft of food, of service, and wellnigh of reason, too, for seven dreary, weary months. The day after her incarceration King Henry’s dead body was discovered in his cell. Gloucester, it was said, had killed him; but Edward was, if not the actual murderer, privy to the deed. Queen Margaret, hearing in her dark, foul den the heavy tramp of men-at-arms, scrambled up to the bars of her little window, and beheld,--what probably Edward meant she should,--the corpse of her slaughtered husband borne past for burial. No ceremony of any kind accompanied that mournful passing. At St. Paul’s, Henry’s body was exposed in a chapel of the crypt, and then it found merciful sepulture in the God’s-acre at Chertsey Abbey. That her beloved son,--her one and only hope,--was dead as well, heart-broken Margaret gathered amid ribald blasphemies of the intoxicated soldiery as she was borne to London in that “Triumph.” Now was she bereft indeed, and nothing seemed so desirable as death; indeed, she resigned herself, and prepared herself for execution at any moment, at any savage hint of her consort’s supplanter on England’s throne--accursed Edward! It was, however, not to be supposed that King Louis of France or King René of Sicily-Anjou should silently condone the unhalting cruelty of a bloodthirsty monarch, especially when the person and the honour of a French Princess were at stake. III.