return, in the Tower, where much of his life had been passed, as a pageant of state or prisoner of war.

Edward was now without a rival; his fine person and frank disposition gained the affection of the populace. His reign is remarkable as the first for some centuries during which no law or statute was enacted for the redress of grievances, or the maintenance of the subjects' liberties. This may be accounted for by the imperious character of Edward, the loss of so many of the natural leaders of the commons, and the exhaustion consequent on the civil wars. Parliament occupied itself chiefly with regulations which prove the rising importance of trade, and also show an ignorance of those natural laws which must regulate it. The importation of foreign corn was prohibited, because it was thought that the people were ruined by having their bread made cheap; and foreign manufactures were shut out, in the vain hope of thus encouraging native industry.

But we must not wonder at the ignorance of the fifteenth, when these fallacies are prevalent in the nineteenth century; and we are but recently liberated from the most pernicious of them. The king dignified commerce in the eyes of his subjects, by himself engaging in trading ventures with the merchants of London.

Edward invented a new method of taking his subjects' money without consent of parliament; this was by means of benevolences, or gifts, which he demanded from the wealthy merchants and seldom repaid.

An event occurred in this reign, which far excels in importance the transitory glories of victories and the changes of royal dynasties.

This was the introduction into England of the art

of printing. The honour of so doing is due to William Caxton, who, in the year 1472, brought over from Germany the materials, and erected the first printing press in one of the chapels of Westminster. The first work he printed in England was "The Game and Play of Chess," which was published in 1474. From this time till 1490, Caxton continued busy, printing many works of native and foreign authors, and among these, the noble poems of Chaucer. Earl Rivers, an eminent patron of letters, presented Caxton to the king, who gave him his protection and encouragement. In 1478, Edward became jealous of his brother Clarence, and caused him to be put to death in the Tower, under the pretence that he was in correspondence with the Lancastrian party.

In 1483, Edward died, in the forty-second year of his age, leaving two young sons, the eldest of whom became Edward the Fifth.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Edward's brother, hearing of the king's death, proclaimed the Prince of Wales at York, where he then was, under the title of Edward the Fifth. The young king and his brother were taken to London by their mother Elizabeth, who, knowing the dislike the nobles entertained towards her family, and suspecting the intentions of Gloucester, took sanctuary in Westminster. Shortly afterwards she was persuaded to allow the two princes, for greater security, to lodge in the Tower. Gloucester now actively commenced what he had long meditated. first accused Earl Hastings, one of the queen's friends, of attempting to destroy him, and procured his execution. A similar fate awaited Earl Rivers, and others of

He

the queen's relatives and supporters, and Gloucester assumed the supreme direction of affairs. Eager to give some colour of justice to his usurpation, he employed a noted preacher, named Dr. Shaw, to preach a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, (the great place of public resort in London,) and in it to assert the illegitimacy of the young princes in the Tower, and point to Richard as the true heir of the throne. A few days afterwards the Duke of Buckingham addressed the citizens on the same subjects, and in laudation of Richard. Some of the bystanders applauded, and the duke told Richard that the people had chosen him as their lawful king, and now offered him the crown. After a show of reluctance, Richard hastened to London to take possession of the throne, and was crowned on the 6th of July, 1483.

CHAP. XXI.

RICHARD III. 1483-1485.

YOUNG Edward the Fifth and his brother were in the Tower at Richard's accession, and they never left those gloomy walls. There can be little doubt that the king was uneasy so long as there was a possibility of a rising in their favour; and the popular story is no doubt true in the main, that they were smothered in bed by hired assassins, and their bodies buried at the foot of the stairs leading to their apartments. The discovery made

in the reign of Charles the Second of skeletons corresponding to the age of the princes confirmed this very strongly; though the pretenders in Henry the Seventh's reign have caused some doubts to be cast upon it. Edward the Fifth thus reigned hardly three months.

Richard attempted to gain the popular favour, by causing his first and only parliament to declare that the forced loans and benevolences exacted by his brother Edward were illegal. But the discontent was not allayed; and one of the first to desert Richard was the Duke of Buckingham, who had offered him the crown. The person to whom the eyes of Richard's enemies were turned was Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond, the grandson of Catherine of France, the widow of Henry the Fifth, who had married a private gentleman of Wales, named Owen Tudor. By the marriage of her son Edmund Tudor with Margaret Beaufort, the last descendant of John of Gaunt's union with Catherine Swinford, Henry was the only remaining Lancastrian claimant of the throne. It was arranged by the wise Morton, Bishop of Ely, that Henry should marry Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward the Fourth, and thus put an end to the dissensions of the rival roses.

The first attempt at a rising was frustrated by the vigilance and activity of Richard, and the leader of the revolt, the Duke of Buckingham, taken and executed.

But next year, 1485, Henry landed at Milford Haven, and, with a small army, marched to meet Richard. The two armies met at Bosworth, in Leicestershire, on the 23rd of August, and a decisive battle ensued. At first it seemed as if victory were to lie with the

royal troops; but the desertion of Sir William Stanley and the Duke of Northumberland with their men to Henry's side, showed Richard that all was lost. He spurred his horse into the thickest of the fight, and having killed the standard-bearer, made a fierce attack on Henry; Stanley warded off the blow, and Richard fell fighting amidst a heap of foes. The royal crown was found on the field, and there placed on the head of Henry, amidst the shouts of the victorious army. This battle ended the Wars of the Roses, which had for nearly thirty years wasted England, and uselessly deluged the country with the blood of Englishmen.

CHAP. XXII.

HENRY VII. 1485-1509.

THE period on which we are now entering may be regarded as the true commencement of modern times, as distinguished from the dark and middle ages. About this time the great European monarchies were consolidated, and the map of Europe assumed very much the appearance it presents to us. Three wise and powerful monarchs more especially contributed to this result, and, favoured by various circumstances, consolidated their respective kingdoms; these were-Louis the Eleventh of France, Ferdinand of Spain, and Henry the Seventh of England.

Commerce and trade were no longer considered as