All the banished Lancastrians flocked to her; and, among the rest, the duke of Somerset, son of the duke beheaded after the battle of Hexham.

This nobleman, who had long been regarded as the head of the party, had fled into the Low Countries on the discomfiture of his friends; and as he concealed his name and quality, he had there languished in extreme indigence.

Philip de Comines tells us,[***] that he himself saw him, as well as the duke of Exeter, in a condition no better than that of a common beggar; till being discovered by Philip, duke of Burgundy, they had small pensions allotted them, and were living in silence and obscurity when the success of their party called them from their retreat.

But both Somerset and Margaret were detained by contrary winds from reaching England,[****] till a new revolution in that kingdom, no less sudden and surprising than the former, threw them into greater misery than that from which they had just emerged.
Though the duke of Burgundy, by neglecting Edward, and paying court to the established government, had endeavored to conciliate the friendship of the Lancastrians, he found that he had not succeeded to his wish; and the connections between the king of France and the earl of Warwick still held him in great anxiety.[*****] This nobleman, too hastily regarding Charles as a determined enemy, had sent over to Calais a body of four thousand men, who made inroads into the Low Countries;[******] and the duke of Burgundy saw himself in danger of being overwhelmed by the united arms of England and of France.

He resolved therefore to grant some assistance to his brother-in-law; but in such a covert manner as should give the least offence possible to the English government.
* Comines, liv.iii.chap.