manner the possession of Brittany was in all cases secured to France; and the duchess ceased to exercise her sovereignty in Brittany, and was prevented from making any stipulations for the maintenance of the liberties and usages of her native country. Charles paid her a short visit in Rennes, and then retired into Touraine. His court maintained a specious farce to the last they treated his affianced bride Margot as Queen of France, giving her splendid fêtes at the very moment that Charles was enforcing another marriage; and still farther to lull and delude Maximilian, they drew up and published an extraordinary passport or safe conduct, permitting the Duchess Anne to travel through France to join her husband, the King of the Romans, in Flanders. But now the scene changed instead of his bride, it was his rejected daughter that Charles sent to Maximilian; and the fair bride, the heiress of Brittany, was conducted to the Castle of Langeais, in Touraine, and there married to Charles on the 6th of December, 1491.*

A.D. 1492.-The history of princes scarcely offers a parallel to the curious case of Maximilian, who had lost for himself a wife and a great territory, for his daughter a husband and one of the first thrones in Europe. He made every court in Europe resound with his complaints and imprecations; and he threatened France with an invasion from the co-operating armies of the House of Austria, of Spain, and of England. Henry, seeing that there was business to be done in the way of money-making, pretended to be greatly shocked (irritation was a state of mind he never felt or affected) at the double-dealing and over-topping ambition of his cousin of France: he addressed himself to the gathering up of the loosened threads of the European coalition, and he summoned a parliament to vote him fresh supplies,-almost the sole duty which parliament had to perform in his reign. During the preceding summer he had levied a few troops, and as recently as the month of October he had obtained a grant of two tenths and two fifteenths. He now, in the month of January, pressed for an accelerated rate of payment, and got a parliamentary sanction to measures by which the English gentry might ruin themselves in bearing personally the expenses of a campaign, and so save his purse. An act was passed to allow the warlike spirits, who were eager for glory, to alienate their estates without payment of the ordinary fees or fines, and to enfeoff lands, to the end that their executors might have funds to fulfil their bequests. Many persons of the best quality, knights and noblemen, thus encouraged,

Daru.-Bacon.-" Archives de Nantes and Actes de Bretagne," quoted by Daru.

He had also issued a commission to extort money in the different counties and cities under the illegal name of "Benevolence." The citizens of London were forced to pay ten thousand pounds. Archbishop Morton, now chancellor, put men between the horns of a cruel dilemma: if they lived frugally and without show, they were told that they must be rich from their parsimony, and therefore could well afford to pay,-if they lived hospitably and splendidly, their rate of expenditure proved that they must be opulent, and therefore they could well afford to pay.

Rot. Parl.

proceeded at once to sell their estates, or to raise money upon them. They hoped to indemnify themselves by conquests and possessions in France; but, in the event, they found that they had impoverished-in many instances utterly ruined-themselves and their families to no purpose. Henry had declared in parliament, with his own mouth, that Charles was a disturber of the Christian world, and that he was now determined to conquer the French crown, his rightful inheritance, for himself. The levies of troops proceeded with rapidity; and from one end of England to the other nothing was heard but the magical words of Crecy and Poictiers, Azincourt and Verneuil. "But, for all this," says Bacon, "and though the king showed great forwardness for a war, not only to his parliament and court, but to his privy council likewise (except the two bishops and a few more); yet, nevertheless, in his secret intentions, he had no purpose to go through with any war upon France. But the truth was, that he did but traffic with that war to make his return in money." Some suspicion was excited by seeing that he let the spring, and the summer too, go by without taking the field, and that his excuses for delay were not always of a very convincing nature. At last, in the month of October, a season in which commanders usually thought of retiring into winter quarters, and not of opening a campaign, he embarked, and sailed for Calais, where he safely landed with a magnificent army of twenty-five thousand foot and sixteen hundred horse. Some of his captains ventured to hint that, after all, this would prove a mere demonstration, and that the king would not have taken the field at such a time of the year if he were not sure of concluding a peace presently. The fact was, Henry had arranged a treaty three months before this, and peace was, in substance, concluded with Charles before the army left England: but this he was anxious to conceal; and he silenced the captains by asserting that, as he had come over to make an entire conquest of France, which was not the work of one summer, it was of no consequence at what season he began the invasion, especially as he had Calais ready for winter quar

ters.

To have an air of doing something, he marched from Calais to Boulogne, and sate down before that place as if he meant to besiege it. So completely was this campaign settled beforehand, upon paper, that the French did not employ the useless and expensive ceremony of setting an army on foot to resist the invaders. There were scarcely any troops between the coast and the capital. This reliance upon a secret bargain might have proved dangerous, but King Charles had a secret security in his hands, as we shall see presently. "During the siege of Boulogne, which continued nearly a month," says Bacon, "there passed no memorable action nor accident of war; only Sir John Savage, a valiant captain, was slain, riding about the walls of the town to take a view.' Of course it was never

Morton and Fox.

intended to take the town. Instead of pressing the siege, Henry caused letters from his ambassadors to be published in the camp, showing that no co-operation was to be expected from Ferdinand and Maximilian, and that no reliance was to be placed on either of those allies. On the 27th of October, eight days after his arrival before Boulogne, he summoned twenty-four of the principal officers of the English army to a solemn council, and submitted to their consideration the preliminaries of a treaty of peace with France. Those great captains did what they were required to do, and what they had been paid to do (for all Henry's favourites touched some French gold): they put their names to a report, and strenuously advised him to sign the treaty. All this was merely wanted for a cover, but impudence could scarcely go farther than in some of the reasons alleged: the officers, for example, said that the season was too far advanced for military operations, and that the army was sickly. Early in November two treaties were duly signed,-one public, the other private. By the firstt Henry and Charles were to live in peace and alliance all the days of their lives; and the peace between the two countries was to last for one year after the death of the survivor of the two kings. By the second, Charles was to pay Henry, by instalments, the sum of 149,000l. sterling; 124,000l. to go in discharge of all claims upon Anne of Brittany, and 25,000/. in payment of the pension (our kings called it tribute) due to Edward IV. It was thus that Henry sold war, or the hopes of it, to the people, and peace to his enemies. "But the truth is, this peace was welcome to both kings: to Charles, for that it assured unto him the possession of Brittany, and freed the enterprise of Naples: to Henry, for that it filled his coffers, and that he foresaw, at that time, a storm of inward troubles coming upon him, which presently after broke forth. But it gave no less discontent to the nobility and principal persons of the army, who had many of them sold or engaged their estates, upon the hopes of the war. They stuck not to say that the king cared not to plume his nobility and people to feather himself. And some made themselves merry with that the king had said in parliament: that after the war was once begun, he doubted not but to make it pay itself; saying he had kept promise."

The "storm of inward trouble, " which Henry had foreseen, proceeded from a new pretender to the crown, in right of an assumed descent from the House of York. In the preceding year a

Hall thus describes the raising of the siege of Boulogne :"But when every man was prest and ready to give the assault, a sudden rumour rose in the army that a peace was, by the commissioners, taken and concluded; which bruit, as it was pleasant and mellifluous to the Frenclimen, so it was to the English nation bitter, sour, and dolorous, because they were prest and ready at all times to set on their enemies, aud refused never to attempt any enterprise which might seem either to be for their laud or profit: they were in fumes, angry and evil content, railing and murmuring among themselves, that the occasion of so glorious a victory, to them manifestly offered, was, by certain conditious, honourable to no man, nor yet to the king, refused, put by, and shamefully slacked."

This treaty went by the name of the peace of Estaples. + Bacon.

stranger,-a beautiful young man,—landed in the Cove of Cork, and gave himself out to be Richard Duke of York, the second son of Edward IV. The murder of the elder son by order of their uncle Richard was admitted, but this youth (so went the story) had escaped by some marvellous means from the Tower; and, after being a fugitive and a wanderer for seven long years, had come to claim his inheritance. Without caring for the recent case of the baker's boy, the citizens of Cork warmly declared in favour of the adventurer, whose name was soon spread over the greater part of Ireland. Many of the Anglo-Irish nobles were quite ready to draw the sword; but the powerful Earl of Kildare was rather more cautious than he had been on the previous occasion, and the young man was induced to accept a pressing invitation to the French court. King Charles, who was then expecting the invasion of Henry, and who had not as yet begun his secret negotiations, saw the use that might be made of him in disturbing and alarming the English government, and he therefore gave him a most courteous reception, and caused his whole court to treat him as the real Duke of York and heir to the crown of England. A royal body-guard was appointed to wait upon him; the story of his adventures, and the list of his accomplishments, were diligently circulated; and Sir George Nevil, Sir John Taylor, and about a hundred English exiles, went to Paris and bound themselves to his service. The person of this claimant was the security which Charles had against Henry, and of which he made the most, threatening to espouse his cause and to let him loose in England, backed by a French army; and it was this consideration that hastened the conclusion of the peace of Estaples. When that treaty was concluded, Charles turned the adventurer out of France, as his maintenance occasioned considerable expense, and there was no further immediate use for him. Henry endeavoured to make the French court deliver him up; but Charles, probably thinking that he might be useful hereafter, said that such a measure would be inconsistent with his honour. The wanderer then retired for protection and assistance to the Duchess of Burgundy. This princess pretended many scruples, and submitted his whole story to a studied and imposing scrutiny, in order that the world might see that she did not take up his cause lightly. All this, and something more, may have been necessary to counteract the recollections left by her conduct in relation to Simnel. But in the end she embraced her guest as her dear nephew, the living image of her loving brother King Edward IV. She bestowed on him the poetical surname of "the White Rose of England," in allusion to his pure Yorkist descent, and she appointed him a guard of thirty halberdiers. The people of Flanders, out of their love and respect for the duchess, showed a great alacrity in believing what she desired, and, by means of the active commercial intercourse between them and the

English, the present condition of the young man was soon made known, and a correspondence was opened in his behalf in England, where Henry's conduct had excited many new disgusts, particularly among some of the old nobility, who saw that the whole tendency of his system of government was utterly to destroy their already crippled power and influence. Sir Robert Clifford was secretly despatched as the confidential agent of these malcontents to the court of the Duchess Margaret, to ascertain whether this were a true prince or not. Sir Robert reported that he had seen "the White Rose," had conversed with him and his aunt, and that there could not be a shadow of doubt as to his birth and rights. But Henry also had sent his secret emissaries into the country, and they framed a report of a very different nature, stating, as the result of their diligent researches, that "the White Rose was none other than one Peterkin or Perkin Warbeck, the son of a merchant, a converted Jew, of the city of Tournay; that he had lived much with the English merchants in Flanders, and that he had recently been travelling about Europe as a servant to Lady Brompton, the wife of one of the exiles. In the summer of 1493 Henry despatched an embassy to the Archduke Philip, son of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, grandson of Charles the Rash, and now sovereign prince. The ambassadors were charged to demand the surrender, or at least the expulsion, of Warbeck; but the answer they received was, that, to have the love and favour of the king of England, the archduke from that time forward would neither aid nor assist Perkin or his accomplices, but that it was not in his power to interfere with the duchess; dowager, because she, in the lands assigned to her for her dower, might, as a sovereign princess, do and order all things at her own will and pleasure. Henry upon this withdrew the mart of English cloth from Antwerp to Calais, and prohibited all intercourse with Flanders. "After this the king, looking circumspectly to his matters, purposed to pacify the storms and blasts that he perceived to be growing rather by policy and counsel than by dubious war." The first thing he did was to bribe Sir Robert Clifford and William Barly, his associate; and these secret agents of the English malcontents, won by his money and promises, betrayed the names of all the gentlemen in England who had entered into Warbeck's scheme. On the same day Henry caused to be arrested, in different places, and brought before him in London, John Ratcliffe Lord Fitzwater, Sir Simon Mountford, Sir Thomas Thwaites, William Daubeney, Robert Ratcliffe, Thomas Cressemer, Thomas Astwood, "as also certain priests and religious men," as Sir William Richeforde, doctor of divinity, and Sir Thomas Poynes, both friars of St. Dominick's order, Dr. William Sutton, Sir William Worsely, dean of Paul's, Robert Layborne, and Sir Richard Lessey. It was not possible to keep secret

Bacon says, "The news came blazing and thundering over into England that the Duke of York was sure alive."

so many arrests of conspicuous persons, and many who had been sharers in the same treason fled and took sanctuary. Judgment of death was passed upon all the prisoners, and Sir Simon Mountford, Sir Robert Ratcliffe, and William Daubeney, were beheaded immediately. The others were pardoned, and all the priests for their order's sake; "but," adds the chronicler, "few of them lived long after." Lord Fitzwater was pardoned of his life; but afterwards, being sent to Calais and there laid in hold, he was beheaded because he corrupted the keepers in order to escape out of prison, intending, as was thought, to have gone to Perkin. These transactions passed towards the end of the year 1494, or nearly two years after the peace of Estaples.*

A.D. 1495.-Henry's suspicions had fallen upon Sir William Stanley, brother to Lord Stanley who had placed the crown upon his head at Bosworth Field. After the festival of Christmas the king and court went to lodge in the Tower of London. One day, as Henry sate there in council, the false Clifford was introduced suddenly to enact a part. Falling upon his knees, as if he who had sold his party were in fear of his life, he implored the royal pardon; and Henry, as good an actor as the traitor, granted it with much benignity of countenance. The traitor was then questioned concerning the full extent of the conspiracy, and Clifford named Sir William Stanley. Henry expressed both horror and incredulity, but he recommended his friend Stanley to keep his room in the Tower, where Sir William was residing with the court in discharge of his duties as chamberlain. Regard had no doubt been paid to the convenience of having the court and prison within the same walls. On the following morning, when he was brought before the council, Stanley "denied little of that wherewith he was charged, nor endeavoured much to excuse or extenuate his fault, so that (not very wisely), thinking to make his offence less by confession, he made it enough for condemnation." It is by no means clear to what extent the Lord Chamberlain was engaged with Warbeck, or indeed whether he was in the plot at all. According to one account he had undertaken to establish him in England, and had sent him money; according to another he had merely said, that if he were sure that he was the son of Edward IV. he would never bear arms against him. The judges at Westminster, however, considered his confession sufficient grounds for a sentence of death. People could scarcely believe that Henry would refuse the royal pardon in such a case. To the Stanleys he had been chiefly indebted for the crown; the criminal himself had saved his life at Bosworth Field, when he was near falling under the furious charge of Richard; and the Lord Stanley, Sir William's brother, in addition to his many important services, was husband to the king's mother, who was still living. But the prisoner was "the richest subject for value in the kingdom," his death would put the + Bacon.

Hall.-Stow.-Bacon,-Rot, Parl.

king in possession of 40,000 marks in ready money and plate, besides jewels and other property of great value, and a fine estate yielding 3000l. ayear of old rent,-and accordingly he died the death of a traitor on the 15th of February. Other political reasons, such as a wish to inspire terror by striking down a great man, have been assigned; but nearly all the writers who lived near the time seem to agree in thinking that Stanley would have had a much better chance for his life if he had not been so very rich.*

The party of Perkin Warbeck, after all these executions, and the treachery of Sir Robert Clifford, were filled with despair and distrust.

"So

that they were now, like sand without lime, ill bound together, especially as many as were English; who were at a gaze, looking strange one upon another, not knowing who was faithful to their side; but thinking that the king, what with his baits and what with his nets, would draw them all unto him that were anything worth."+ At the same time, the Flemings, who suffered severely from the interruption of the trade with England, began to murmur, and even to threaten the Pretender. Warbeck, upon this, adopted the bold resolution of landing in England: for Henry, with remarkable address, and with a higher course of policy than he usually pursued, had succeeded in tranquillising Ireland, and had so cut off his hopes in that quarter. On the 3rd of July, while the king was in Lancashire on a visit to his mother, a few hundred desperate men-English exiles or foreign adventurers-landed near Deal, and attempted to raise the country in favour of the White Rose. The people were easily moved, but it was fiercely to repel, not to join, the invaders, who, after a sharp conflict, were driven back to the sea-shore. One hundred and sixty-nine were taken prisoners; the rest, with Perkin among them, returned with a press of sail to Flanders.‡ All the captives were driven to London tied together like a great team of cattle, and they were executed to a man, some at London and Wapping, others at different places upon the coast of Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Norfolk, their bodies being gibbeted," for sea-marks or lighthouses to teach Perkin's people to avoid the coast." The learned historian of this reign speaks of this wholesale execution in the tone of the times of James I. "It was done," he says, "because the king thought that to punish a few for example was gentleman's pay, but for rascal people they were to be cut off every man, especially in the beginning of an enterprise." Henry sent Sir Richard Guildford to thank the men of Kent for their fidelity and bravery, and even to promise rich rewards to some who had particularly distinguished themselves in the fight at Deal. These promises were private,

Bacon.-Hall.-Polydore Virgil.-Andre (MS. in Brit. Mus.)Stow-Speed-Fabyan.

+ Bacon.

It appears that Warbeck never landed, but kept himself on board with sails bent, to make off in case of not finding the people favourable.

and so was the performance of them—for it is not noted that the king ever parted with money to any of those to whom they were made.*

This avarice and the arbitrary methods adopted to gratify it, and his shy and retiring habits, prevented Henry from obtaining that popularity which he sought whenever he considered it needful. At times, however, when it was necessary to produce an effect, he could be liberal, and even splendid; and, smoothing his dark and wrinkled brow, he could partake in festivals and pageants. In the autumn of this year a great feast of the serjeantsat-law was held at Ely Place. "The king," says Bacon, "to honour the feast, was present with his queen at the dinner-being a prince that was ever ready to grace and countenance the professors of the law; having a little of that, that as he governed his subjects by his laws, so he governed his laws by his lawyers." In the preceding year, at the same season, when he was alarmed at the conspiracy, he created twenty-three knights of the Bath, giving a splendid entertainment on the occasion; and on Hallow-mass, or All Saints' Day, he made a grand procession to please the people of London; he and the queen wearing their crowns,

our Lord Harry,"† Duke of York, carried in the arms of Lord Shrewsbury, ten of the bishops wearing their mitres, and a long retinue walked round Westminster Abbey and the Hall. Henry, indeed, on many occasions seems to have relied greatly on the effect to be produced by religious processions.

A.D. 1496. The interruption of the commercial intercourse with Flanders was of necessity almost as injurious to the English as to the Flemings, and Henry agreed to a reconciliation with the Archduke Philip. A "great treaty of commerce" between the two countries was signed in the month of February, bearing this important appendagethat Philip should prevent the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy from assisting or harbouring the king's rebels, and that each of the contracting parties should banish from his dominions the enemies of the other.§ Upon this, Warbeck, who could no longer stay in Flanders, returned to Ireland, where he met with a cold reception. From Ireland he crossed over to Scotland, where the court, which was incensed against Henry, received him with open arms.||

To James III., who had so readily recognised his accession, and made treaties with him, Henry was never a warm friend, or an open enemy. He kept up a correspondence with the factions in Scotland even at a time when he had no ground whatever for quarrel with the king. But in the summer of 1487, when he was preparing to take part in the war on the continent, he despatched his favourite negotiator, Richard Fox, Lord Privy Seal, wh had recently been appointed to the bishopric of

Bacon-Fabvan.-Hall.-Stow.-Rot. Parl. Afterwards Henry VIII. Paston Letters. Rymer. This last clause Heury continued to insert in all his treaties with foreign powers.

Hall.-Polydore Virgil.-Stow.-Tytler, Hist. Scot.