It was Easter Sunday, in the year 1471, and the battle of Barnet had been fought. Exeter lay stretched among the dead and the dying on the blood-stained heath of Gladsmuir; Oxford was spurring toward the north; Somerset was escaping toward the west; Henry of Windsor had been led back to his prison in the Tower; the bodies of Warwick and Montagu were being conveyed in one coffin to St. Paul's; and Edward of York was at the metropolitan cathedral, offering his standard upon the altar, and returning thanks to GOD for his victory over the Red Rose of Lancaster and the flower of the ancient nobility, when Margaret of Anjou once more set foot on the shores of England. Nor, in circumstances so inauspicious, did she arrive as a solitary victim. Accompanied by the son of the captive king and the daughter of the fallen earl, and attended by Lord Wenlock, Sir John Fortescue, and the Prior of St. John's, came the Lancastrian queen on that day when the wounded were dying, and the riflers prying, and the ravens flying over the field of Barnet. At Weymouth, on the coast of Devon, Margaret landed with the Prince and Princess of Wales. From Weymouth, the ill-starred queen was escorted to the Abbey of Cearne, a religious house in the neighborhood. While at Cearne, resting from the fatigues of her voyage, she was informed of the defeat of the Lancastrians and the death of Warwick. Margaret had hitherto, through all perils and perplexities, been sustained by her high spirit. She had won the reputation of being one of the race of steel, who felt her soul brighten in danger, and who never knew fear without such a feeling being succeeded by a blush at having yielded to such weakness. On hearing of the defeat at Barnet, however, she evinced the utmost alarm, raised her hands to heaven, closed her eyes, and, in a state of bewilderment, sunk swooning to the ground. Her first idea, on recovering consciousness, was to return to France; but, meanwhile, for the sake of personal safety, she hastened to the Abbey of Beaulieu, in Hampshire, and registered herself and her whole party as persons availing themselves of the privilege of sanctuary.