Page:The Queens of England.djvu/251

ELIZABETH WOODYILLE. 213 uncle to the queen, attended by a band of a hundred knights, with their retainers, arrived in England a few days previous to the coronation. Elizabeth was crowned at Westminster in the month of May, 1465, with all possible magnificence; and the efforts made on this occasion by herself and her royal spouse to conciliate the good- will of their subjects, by Various acts of favor and condescension, won them over to a certain degree to look with more satisfaction on a match that had previously excited no small portion of displeasure and discontent ; and when, in the- following year, a princess was born, their policy in choos- ing the child's grandmother, the Duchess of York, for one of the sponsors, succeeded in soothing her violent disapprobation of her son's choice. But one implacable enemy was made whom no attempts at conciliation could win — the Earl of War- wick ; and though at this precise period his animosity was not yet developed, as is shown by the fact of his standing godfather to this princess, it was at no distant time fully called forth by various circumstances, — among others, that of the queen art- fully succeeding in marrying the heiress of the Duke of Exe- ter to her eldest son by her first husband, when Warwick had set his heart on securing her for his nephew, George Neville. It has been stated also,, by some historians, that Edward had ventured to offer an insult to the daughter of Warwick — the very person whom the ambitious earl had from her childhood hoped to see his bride, until the accession of Elizabeth Wood- ville to that dignity dealt the deathblow to these aspirations. And now a storm, which had long been gathering and gain- ing force, began to burst forth. Robin of Redesdale, reported to have been a noble outlawed for his exertions in behalf of the house of Lancaster, with a large body of insurgents, fought and conquered the royal troops at Edgecote, in Yorkshire ; and finding Lord Rivers, against whom the people entertained a furious indignation in consequence of his having, in his capac- ity of Lord Treasurer, tampered with the coin, they dragged him and his son John from their place of concealment in the forest of Deane, and led them, in the names of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence, to Northampton, where they beheaded them without even the form of a trial (1469). F^ut even this was not sufficient to satisfy their thirst for vengeance on the queen's family; for an accusation of witchcraft was brought