On Tuesday, while the scaffold was being erected in the market-place of Tewkesbury for the execution of those who had risked all in her cause, Margaret of Anjou was discovered in the religious house to which she had been conveyed from the field on which her last hopes were wrecked. The Lancastrian queen was brought to Edward by Sir William Stanley, still zealous on the Yorkist side, and little dreaming of the part he was to take at Bosworth in rendering the Red Rose finally triumphant. Margaret's life was spared; but her high spirit was gone, and, on being informed of her son's death, the unfortunate princess only gave utterance to words of lamentation and woe. Now that he around whom all her hopes had clustered was no more, what could life be to her? what the rival Roses? what the contentions of York and Lancaster? Her ambition was buried in the grave of her son, who had been her consolation and her hope. Sir John Fortescue was among the Lancastrians whom the victory of Tewkesbury placed in Edward's power; and the great lawyer was in some danger of having to seal with his blood his devotion to the Red Rose. Fortescue, however, had no longings for a crown of martyrdom; and Edward, luckily for his memory, perceived that the house of York would lose nothing by sparing a foe so venerable and so learned. It happened that, when in Scotland, Fortescue had produced a treatise vindicating the claims of the house of Lancaster to the English crown, and the king consented to pardon the ex-chief-justice if he would write a similar treatise in favor of the claims of the line of York. The condition was hard; but that was an age when, to borrow old Fuller's phrase, it was present drowning not to swim with the stream; and Fortescue, consenting to the terms, applied himself to the arduous task. The difficulty was not insuperable. In his argument for Lancaster he had relied much on the fact of Philippa of Clarence having never been acknowledged by her father. In his argument for York he showed that Philippa's legitimacy had been proved beyond all dispute. On the production of the treatise his pardon was granted; and the venerable judge retired to spend the remainder of his days at Ebrington, an estate which he possessed in Gloucestershire. About the time that Fortescue received a pardon, John Morton, who, like the great lawyer, had fought on Towton Field, and since followed the ruined fortunes of Lancaster, expressed his readiness to make peace with the Yorkist king. In this case no difficulty was interposed. Edward perceived that the learning and intellect of the "late parson of Blokesworth" might be of great service to the government. Morton's attainder was therefore reversed at the earliest possible period, and he soon after became Bishop of Ely.