In the fabrication of perfumes for the
pouncet box, and sweetmeats prepared with honey and sugar, she proved
to have a dainty hand, so that Lambert, who would not touch her
jewels, declared that she was fully earning her maintenance by the
assistance that she gave to him.
They were not molested by the war, which was decidedly a war of
battles, not of sieges, but they heard far more of tidings than were
wont to reach Whitburn Tower. They knew of the advance of Edward to
London; and the terrible battle of Towton begun, was fought out while
the snow fell far from bloodless, on Palm Sunday; and while the choir
boys had been singing their Gloria, laus et honor in the gallery over
the church door, shivering a little at the untimely blast, there had
been grim and awful work, when for miles around the Wharfe and Aire
the snow lay mixed with blood. That the Yorkists had gained was
known, and that the Queen and Prince had fled; but nothing was heard
of the fate of individuals, and Master Lambert was much occupied with
tidings from Bruges, whence information came, in a messenger sent by
a notary that his uncle, an old miser, whose harsh displeasure at his
marriage had driven him forth, was just dead, leaving him heir to a
fairly prosperous business and a house in the city.
To return thither was of course Lambert's intention as soon as he
could dispose of his English property. He entreated Grisell to
accompany him and Clemence, assuming her that at the chief city of so
great a prince as Duke Philip of Burgundy, she would have a better
hope of hearing tidings of her husband than in a remote town like
Sunderland; and that if she still wished to dispose of her jewels she
would have a far better chance of so doing.
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