The ceremony was fixed for the 1st of May, and, since privacy was the object, the day was well chosen. Indeed, May-day was the festival which people regarded as next in importance to Christmas; and they were too much taken up with its celebration to pry into the secrets of others. It was while milkmaids, with pyramids of silver plate on their heads, were dancing from door to door, and every body was preparing to dance round the maypole, that Edward secretly met his bride at the chapel of Grafton, and solemnized that marriage which was destined to bring such evils on the country. As the duchess probably suspected that it was not the first time the king had figured as a bridegroom, she was careful, in the event of any dispute arising, to provide herself with other witnesses than the priest and the mass-boy. With this view she brought two of her waiting-women; and the king, having gone through the ceremony, took his departure as secretly as he came. Ere long, however, Edward intimated to the father of the bride that he intended to spend some time with him at Grafton; and Woodville, who still feigned ignorance of the marriage, took care that his royal son-in-law should have nothing to complain of in regard to the entertainment. Having thus wedded her daughter to the chief of the White Rose, the Duchess of Bedford converted her husband and sons from violent Lancastrians into unscrupulous Yorkists, and then manifested a strong desire to have the marriage acknowledged. This was a most delicate piece of business, and, managed clumsily, might have cost the king his crown. It happened, however, that while Edward, in the shades of Grafton, had forgotten every thing that he ought to have remembered, Montagu, by his victory at Hexham, had so firmly established Edward's power that the king deemed himself in a position to inflict signal chastisement on any one venturesome enough to dispute his sovereign will. Nevertheless, it was thought prudent to ascertain the feeling of the nation before taking any positive step; and agents were employed for that purpose.