Grisell indeed considered Leonard as a sort of property of hers, but
she beset him in the manner that boys are apt to resent from younger
girls, and when he was thirteen, and she ten years old, there was
very little affection on his side. Moreover, the birth of two
brothers had rendered Grisell's hand a far less desirable prize in
the eyes of the Copelands.
To attend on the Court was penance to the North Country dame, used to
a hardy rough life in her sea-side tower, with absolute rule, and no
hand over her save her husband's; while the young and outspoken
Queen, bred up in the graceful, poetical Court of Aix or Nancy,
looked on her as no better than a barbarian, and if she did not show
this openly, reporters were not wanting to tell her that the Queen
called her the great northern hag, or that her rugged unwilling
curtsey was said to look as if she were stooping to draw water at a
well. Her husband had kept her in some restraint, but when be had
gone to Ireland with the Duke of York, offences seemed to multiply
upon her. The last had been that when she had tripped on her train,
dropped the salver wherewith she was serving the Queen, and broken
out with a loud "Lawk a daisy!" all the ladies, and Margaret herself,
had gone into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and the Queen had
begged her to render her exclamation into good French for her
benefit.
"Madam," she had exclaimed, "if a plain woman's plain English be not
good enough for you, she can have no call here!" And without further
ceremony she had flown out of the royal presence.
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