The people of England were in a great rage. The principal object of their resentment was Lord Suffolk, who was now the first minister and the acknowledged head of the government. During the progress of the difficulties with Gloucester, Margaret had kept him a great deal in the background, in order that the public might not associate him with those transactions, nor hold him in any way responsible for them, though there was no doubt that he was the queen's confidential friend and counselor through the whole. After the death of Gloucester he had been gradually brought forward, and he had now, for some time, been the acknowledged minister of the crown, and as such responsible, according to the theory of the British Constitution and to the ideas of Englishmen, for every thing that was done, and especially for every thing like misfortune and disaster which occurred. [Sidenote: Suffolk in danger.] There was, of course, a great outcry raised against Suffolk, and also, more covertly, against the queen, who had brought Suffolk into power. All the mischief originated, too, people said, in the luckless marriage of Margaret to the king, and the cession of Maine and Anjou to the French as the price of it. The French would never have been able to have penetrated into Normandy had it not been for the advantage they gained in the possession of those provinces on the frontier. [Illustration: View of Bordeaux.] [Sidenote: Guienne.] There were still large possessions held by the English in the southwestern part of France on the Garonne. The capital of this territory, which was the celebrated province of Guienne, was Bordeaux,[11] a large and important city in those days as now. It stands on the bank of the river where it begins to widen toward the sea, and thus it was accessible to the English in their ships as well as when coming with their armies by land. It was a place of great strength as well as of commanding position, being provided with castles and towers to defend it from the landward side, and thick walls and powerful batteries along the margin of the water. [Footnote 11: See map.] [Sidenote: Bordeaux lost.] Suffolk did all in his power to raise and send off re-enforcements to the army in Guienne, but it was in vain. The English were driven out of one town and castle after another, until, at last, Bordeaux itself fell, and all was lost. [Sidenote: Excitement in England.]