York, her husband, was at Dublin, "strengthened with his earls and homagers." Christopher Hausson writes to John Paston, esq. a letter dated from London, October 12, 1460, that "the Monday after our Lady-day, there came hither to my master's place, my master Bowser, Sir Harry Ratford, John Clay, and the harbinger of my lord of March, desiring that my lady of York, and her two sons, my lord George and my lord Richard, and my lady Margaret her daughter; which I have granted them, in your name, to lie here until Michaelmas; and she had lain here two days, but she had tidings of the landing of my lord at Chester. The Tuesday next after, my lord sent for her, that she should come to him at Harford, Hereford, and thither she went, leaving the children, whom the lord of March, her eldest son, every day paid visits to."
Soon after this, namely, December 31, 1460, the duke her husband fell at Wakefield. Here are proofs sufficient of her love to her children, obedience to her husband, and the regard of the public towards her.
She was equally respected in her widowed state, and this too at a time when her late husband was attainted, and she stripped of every thing which rank and fortune gave: for her person was then safe, even amongst her enemies, and her reputation remained unsullied, though it was so much to the interest of the Lancastrians to have aspersed her character, if there had been even a shadow, or semblance of probability of doing it, so as to gain belief.
In the reign of king Edward IV. she was treated with the respect due to his mother. In 1461 he sent under his sign manual a letter acquainting her of his having defeated king Henry VI, with every particular of the bloody battle of Towton. Fabian says, that in February 1470, when the nobility strove to make up the breach between king Edward IV. and Clarence, these royal bro-
