One of the functions of any good lord or lady was to provide support and protection when their tenants or servants – or other persons with a claim on them – were threatened or harassed. Some disputes that Margaret dealt with involved actual threats to life and limb or more general ‘vexation’, alleged false charges of debt or trespass and complaints regarding purveyance. Another large group of complaints revolved around property matters and claims of wrongful disseisin. This occurred when someone was dispossessed of property, often by force. In her response to appeals for protection and aid, Margaret was doing no more and no less than what her contemporaries expected of persons in the upper strata – even when they took issue, usually on personal grounds, with the influence of someone on the outcome of a particulardispute.

The queen's response to these appeals took different forms. She might simply order the perpetrators to stop whatever it was that they were doing. Often, however, the matter was not so simple. When the offending party was attached to another lord, she would ask – or require – him to intervene on her appellant's behalf to resolve the matter. In other cases, she called upon some neutral person to be an arbiter. Her expectation that the outcome should favor her appellant is generally quite clear. Nevertheless, it should not be thought that Margaret simply set out to ride roughshod over other competing claims. In several instances, she was careful to indicate that complaints against her people should be brought before her council, or to acknowledge the possibility of legitimate grounds for contention. This chapter contains more letters than any other in this section. Their number provides testimony to the importance of these activities to Margaret as queen and good lady.

The first three letters involve general harassment and physical threats to Margaret's people. Other specific forms of harassment follow: an accusation of trespass, two circumstances of alleged debt, a claim against purveyance, and another against the infringement of liberties. Next come the property disputes. Three letters require lords to put a stop to wrongful disseisins committed by their clients or servants. Two more request less specific ‘help’ in restoring property to its rightful owners. But lest we think that Margaret always stood on the side of the dispossessed, a further letter shows her encouraging the predators.