BOOK IV.

INTRIGUES OF THE COURT OF EDWARD IV.




CHAPTER I.

MARGARET OF ANJOU.

The day after the events recorded in the last section of this
narrative, and about the hour of noon, Robert Hilyard (still in the
reverend disguise in which he had accosted Hastings) bent his way
through the labyrinth of alleys that wound in dingy confusion from the
Chepe towards the river.

The purlieus of the Thames, in that day of ineffective police,
sheltered many who either lived upon plunder, or sought abodes that
proffered, at alarm, the facility of flight. Here, sauntering in twos
or threes, or lazily reclined by the threshold of plaster huts, might
be seen that refuse population which is the unholy offspring of civil
war,--disbanded soldiers of either Rose, too inured to violence and
strife for peaceful employment, and ready for any enterprise by which
keen steel wins bright gold. At length our friend stopped before the
gate of a small house, on the very marge of the river, which belonged
to one of the many religious orders then existing; but from its site
and aspect denoted the poverty seldom their characteristic. Here he
knocked; the door was opened by a lay-brother; a sign and a smile were
interchanged, and the visitor was ushered into a room belonging to the