erine were celebrated by proxy in Spain,* of the reigning house of Burgundy and of which the remembrance caused that Britany was attended with considerable disprincess, deeply imbued by the religion or turbance of that part of the European syssuperstition of her country, to exclaim long tem to which England was particularly atafter, in the most melancholy moments of tached.‡ Maximilian, archduke of Austria, her life" The divorce is a judgment of emperor of the Romans, had obtained the God, for that my former marriage was made Burgundian dominions by marriage with in blood!" The length of the proceedings Mary, the heiress of these fine provinces, preliminary to the matrimonial negotiation which were inferior to few monarchies in suggests a suspicion that hard conditions Europe. Louis XI. might have united the were secretly sought by one of the parties. Low Countries to France amicably, by the How came the espousal by proxy to occur marriage of Mary to a prince of French only six months before the execution of blood, if the impolitic rapacity with which Warwick, when it was easy to see that the he seized Burgundy and part of Picardy disorders and revolts of the kingdom would had not offended the princess and the peoafford a pretext for involving him in a ple. Anne, heiress of Britany, had many charge of treason? The personal union suitors for her hand, before, by her marriage was delayed till 1501. Will it be thought with Charles VIII., she united that great an over-refinement, to discover, in these fief to the crown of France. In this case, dates, a delay till the removal of Warwick Henry was influenced by various and discould be made sure, without bringing the similar motives to profess an interest, if not marriage so near to the murder as still fur- to take a share, in the contests between ther to shock the feelings and to strengthen France and Britany which preceded the the unfavorable judgment of mankind? union. When earl of Richmond, he had Lord Bacon, a witness against Henry, above been long sheltered in Britany. There he exception, positively affirms, that the flagi- formed the coalition with the Yorkists which tious correspondence had been seen in Eng-placed the crown on his head. But the land, and that it was shown by the king to duke of Britany was induced, either by a excuse his assent to a deed of blood. simplicity scarcely credible, or by the bribes Letters of such murderous import allow of Edward IV., to surrender Richmond to very little interval between a breach of the that formidable prince. Henry made his intercourse and an acquiescence in its pro- escape, and found a safe asylum in France, posals; but when it terminates in the suc- where the government supplied him with cess of the negotiation, and the opportune the men and money which enabled him to removal of the only obstacle known to us undertake a successful invasion of England. which stood in its way, there seems little He was outwitted by the French in the reason for doubting either the correspond-affairs of Britany, where he considered conence which Bacon expressly attributes to quest and marriage as improbable. Influhis hero, or the criminal agreement which enced in some degree by this error, he long is imputed to him, in language as clear, confined himself to speeches and memothough not so directly expressed.† rials, which filled his coffers with parliaThe prevalent opinion that there was a mentary grants, and kept up a certain dissecret correspondence with Spain relating position to resistance both in England and to the removal of Warwick, singularly cor- Britany. He was easily satisfied with any responds with the intrinsic probability of political reasoning which gave him a presuch a design; both are corroborated by the tence for the indulgence of his wary and otherwise inexplicable change of the king's penurious disposition. He was more lukedealing with the hitherto despised impostor; warm than insincere in his regard for the and they all concur in leading to the con- independence of his neighbors, but was too clusion that the offences of the unhappy sagacious not to perceive its connexion with Warwick, if not altogether imaginary, were his own. Being at length induced to make the result of a snare laid by Henry for the a tardy effort for the balance of power, he inoffensive simpleton.

The extinction of the male descendants

* Rymer, xii. 658. 666. Tract. inter Reges Hisp. et Angl. The first formal authority to conclude the treaty of marriage seems to be a commission to the bishop of London, 22d of September, 1496.-Rymer, xii. 636.-May 14, 1499.

This marriage was almost seven years in treaty, which was, in part, caused by the tender years of the marriage couple, especially of the prince; but the true reason was, that these two princes, being princes of great policy and profound judgment, stood a great time looking one upon another's fortunes how they would go."-Bacon, iii. 374. Mont. edit.

The negotiations with the duchess of Britany, Rymer, xii. 355. 372.; Maximilian, 393. 397.; with Ferdinand and Isabella, 411.; with the duke of Milan, 429.; with the grandees of Britany, 433.; alliance with Spain against France, 462.; preparations against that kingdom, 446-464.; the indentures for the French war, 477.; are sufficient examples of the activity and watchfulness of Henry between the defeat of Symnel in 1487, and the diversion of French policy towards Italy in 1493, to show the English monarch's ambitious neighbors that, if they desired to prosecute their schemes of aggrandizement without disturb ance, they would do well, by supporting a pretender to his crown, to provide such a neighbor with occu pation at home.

landed in France in 1492, and laid siege to in a few months after, the same treaty, from Boulogne. The situation of all Europe which hopes were doubtless entertained of threw a considerable weight into his scale. lasting quiet, was confirmed and ratified by Maximilian, sovereign of the Low Coun- the three estates of the parliament of Engtries, courted the alliance of England, a land, represented on that occasion in a manpower more interested than any other in ner unusual, if not unexampled, by deputathe independence of the Belgic territory. tions from the three estates in each bishopCharles VIII. was now engrossed by his ric in the kingdom. It may be added, that designs against Naples, the first attempt, the king did not conclude the peace of since the Suabian emperors, to reduce a Etaples till more than twenty of the highest large portion of Italy under a foreign yoke. class of his subjects had addressed him as Though Naples was as speedily lost as won, follows:-"We all and every of us humbly though the French incursions into Italy beseech and require (request) the king's proved to be only brilliant inroads where grace tenderly to take to his gracious convictory was its own sole reward; yet the sideration the jeopardies likely to ensue; stream of French policy long flowed to- and for the conservation of his royal perwards Lombardy and Naples, in spite of the son, of us his subjects, and also of his realm mountain barrier, of the climate, unfriendly of England, to accept the said peace." to northern soldiers, and of the national Peace was also concluded with Scotland; aversion to the yoke of the transalpine bar- and Margaret Tudor, the king's eldest barians. By these wars, however, the Alps daughter, then given in marriage to the were divested of their defensive terrors; Scottish king, became the stock from whom the road to the most beautiful regions of sprung all the sovereigns who have reigned Europe was laid open; and the Italians in Great Britain since the extinction of the were taught, that the nations beyond the Tudors. This princess had been solemnly mountains had acquired the rudiments of wedded on behalf of king James, by his the art of war, and had increased in terri- proxy, Patrick Hepburn earl of Bothwell, tory and numbers, so much that the attempt in the palace of Richmond, on the 27th of of the feeble states of Italy to cope with January, 1503. She did not begin her them in the field became vain. journey to Scotland till the following sumSpain had now reached the highest point mer, where, on the 8th of August, the marin her fortunes, and had prospects more riage was completed, and the queen was bright than any other country could boast. crowned with the usual parade. This union The fall of Grenada established the Chris- gave quiet to the borders, and established tian authority in every province of the pe- friendship between the monarchs, which a ninsula; and the discovery of a new world little while before was foreign to the minds seemed to open boundless hopes of splendor, of both. In the year 1491, a very singular wealth, and power. The connexion of incident occurred, which has received less John of Gaunt and his children with the notice than it deserves from historians, royal families of Spain and Portugal facili- either as a specimen of the sentiments of tated, perhaps, that union between Spain good will, of good faith, or of international and England, to which both were attracted law which were then almost openly avowed by common interest. This union appeared by European princes. On the 16th of to be cemented by the marriage of Arthur April in that year, a secret agreement was prince of Wales to Catherine, the daughter entered into by Henry at Westminster, of Ferdinand and Isabella: and if a human with John lord Bothwell|| and Sir Thomas victim was sacrificed at the celebration of Toddie, Scottish knights, by which it was these unhappy nuptials, it does not appear, stipulated "that the right honorable lord from the temper of those who have related James earl of Boughan (probably Buchan), that horrible crime, that it either excited and the said Sir Thomas, should take, bring, the indignation of contemporaries or the and deliver into the said king of England's remorse of the assassins. hands the king of Scots now reigning, and

In the treaties of peace with France, and his brother the duke of Roos (Ross), or at of alliance with Burgundy, a stipulation of least the said king of Scotland: the king no small importance to Henry's quiet was of England, for the achieving of their said obtained by him, that no rebel subjects of purpose, having lent and delivered unto either power should be harbored or aided them (Boughan and Todd) the sum of 2667. by the other. It is observable that the treaty of Etaples with France was ratified by the three estates of Aquitain, Normandy, Id. 490. Request and supplication of the captains and Languedoc, and probably of all the con- of England for a peace, November, 1492. siderable provinces of France;* and that| § Rymer, xii. 440.

* Rymer, xii. 592, &c.

† Rymer, xii. 710. Commoners or persons not

knighted are called "Quamplures alii."

The signature in Rymer is Bothvaile, though in the body of the agreement the usual manner of writing Bothwell is adopted by the English clerk.

13s. 4d., to be by them repaid to him." Of to all principles of morality, but to trample this extraordinary conspiracy we have no under foot the last fragments of a show of information but that which this document duty between nations. It might be alleged, contains. We know, however, that John indeed, that as there is no evidence of any Ramsay of Balmain, created lord Bothwell attempt being made to carry this agreement in 1486, was one of the favorites whose in- into execution, the offer may have been vidious ascendant over James III. brought finally rejected by the English monarch. defeat and death on that prince in 1488 at But, in answer, we may ask how the wages Stirling; and there can be no doubt that he of the assassins were paid beforehand. A and Todd had been driven to take shelter mind must be little susceptible of honorable in England by the violence of the victo scruples, which has steadily contemplated rious factions, for their adherence to the such a project, and taken measures so secause of that obnoxious prince. Whether rious to realize it.

they were influenced by indigence, or ac- The king on another occasion showed tuated by a desire of revenging the death symptoms of dispositions of the same naof their master; whether they were se- ture. Philip the Fair, the son of the emduced by Henry, or courted his aid, are peror Maximilian, being on a voyage to questions which no historical evidence Spain, was driven by storms into Weyknown to be extant will enable us to an- mouth, in January, 1506. Wearied by seaswer. Other parts of Bothwell's life war- sickness, he ventured to trust himself on rant the worst interpretation of his actions. shore, against the advice of his more wary Though he was pardoned by James IV., we counsellors. Trenchard and Carey, two find him, within two years of his pardon, gentlemen of the west, understanding it to acting as a spy for Henry VII. at the court be the maxim of their master to consider of Edinburgh.* strangers as enemies, immediately brought The conduct of Henry, however, which together an armed force. They appeared is more important, can occasion no differ- before Weymouth, and invited Philip to ence of opinion or hesitation of judgment. remain with them until they should apprize James IV., for whose abduction this plot their sovereign of the arrival of this illuswas formed, was then in the nineteenth trious guest. Henry dispatched the earl `year of his age, and already ranked as the of Arundel with directions to offer an immost accomplished of the royal youth of mediate visit from the king to Philip. The Europe. One of the truces which had latter prince felt that he was no longer served for nearly a century as substitutes master of his own movements, and, anticifor treaties of peace between the two Brit-pating the king's visit, repaired to Windsor, ish nations was now recognized as in force to pay his court to his royal kinsman, who by both parties. It was concluded on the received him with every mark of friendship 20th of February, 1491, and was to be in and honor, but soon began to turn to acforce to the 20th of November, 1492. The count the involuntary residence of Philip ink with which the articles of the truce in the English dominions. Occasion was were written was scarcely dry, when a now taken to obtain a renewal of the treanew agreement was executed by the king ties of commerce and alliance, which, if of England to tear James from his palace, they contained no amendment unduly faand to drag him to a foreign prison. That vorable to England, owed their freedom young prince naturally, but it seems, vainly, from actual wrong more to the unskilfultrusted, that if neighborhood and consan-ness than to the honesty of the more powguinity, and the dignity of crowns, did not erful party.†

secure him against those perfidious machi- But the persecution of a Yorkist was still nations, at least he might repose under the the favorite pursuit of the English monarch. faith of a treaty of armistice which was the He chose a moment of courteous and kind latest solemn transaction between the two intercourse to sound Philip on the means of nations. Death, accidentally or intention- removing the jealousy, or satisfying the really, was so natural a consequence of the venge, of which one of the most unhappy projected outrage, that a statesman so sa- of these exiles was the object." "Sir," said gacious as Henry must have been prepared Henry to Philip, "you have been saved for its probable occurrence. To reduce this upon my coast; I hope you will not suffer murderous purpose to paper is a contempt me to be wrecked on yours." The latter of shame and infamy rarely exhibited by asked what he meant. I mean," said the assassins. To clothe it with all the form- king, "that harebrained wild fellow, the alities of a treaty, to bestow on it the solemnities intended for the preservation of peace and justice, is not only to bid defiance

* Pinkerton, i. 27. Douglas's Peerage.

†The Flemings, however, thought otherwise; for they called the treaty Intercursus malus, as the great commercial treaty was called Intercursus magnus. These treaties are in Dumont, Corps Diplom. ii. 30 76. 83.

earl of Suffolk, who is protected in your [some by her malady: and it was not till dominions."—"I thought," replied Philip, his decease, when she herself was in the "your felicity had been above such thoughts; sixth month of her pregnancy, that she had but if it trouble you, I will banish him."- a full scope for her wild but harmless "These hornets," said the king, "are best fancies, which indulged themselves by arin their nest, and worst when they fly raying him in his royal ornaments, and abroad. Let him be delivered to me."- watching by the bed of state for his resto"That," said Philip, "can I not do with ration from death.

my honor, and less with yours; for you In consequence of her total incapacity, will be thought to have used me as a Ferdinand, though he proclaimed Joanna prisoner."- "Then," said the king, with and Philip king and queen, at the same ready shrewdness and craft, "the matter time declared himself regent of that kingis at an end; for I will take that dishonor dom, in virtue of Isabella's will, of the asupon me, and, so your honor is saved." sent of the Cortez, and of a real or supposed Philip closed the conversation with equal ancient custom of the monarchy. Philip, quickness and more honorable address:- who carried everywhere the poor lunatic "Sir, you give law to me; so will I to you. with whose name he covered his power, You shall have him; but upon your honor was, at the time of his visit to England, on you shall not take his life." The very ill- his voyage for the recovery of the regency fated man in question was John de la Pole, of Castile: which attempt, being seconded the nephew of Edward IV. He was com- by the dislike of the Castilians for Ferdimitted to the Tower, on his arrival in Eng-nand and the Aragonese, very speedily sucland. The king kept the word of promise ceeded. But his success was almost imduring the short sequel of his own reign, mediately followed by his death, while his but left directions for perpetrating the per- wretched wife was doomed to bear the fidious murder among the dying injunctions burden of life for nearly fifty years longer.§ to his son. The command was not exe- These occurrences seemed to foreshow cuted till the 30th of April, 1515, when the danger to which Henry might be exHenry VIII. was about to invade France. posed by circumstances in the condition of It being said, that "the people were so his own family not wholly dissimilar. The well affected to the house of York as that death of Elizabeth has already been menthey might take Edmund de la Pole out of tioned. Arthur prince of Wales espoused the Tower and set him up, it was thought Catharine of Spain, on the fourteenth of fit that he should be dispatched out of the November, 1501: he died on the 2d of way; whereupon they cut off his head."+ April following. A treaty was signed in The object of Philip's winter voyage to June by Henry, and in September by Spain suggested thoughts not likely to Ferdinand and Isabella, for the marriage calm the apprehensions by which Henry of Henry, then prince of Wales (afterwas haunted after the deaths of the queen wards Henry VIII.), to his brother's widow.|| and of Arthur prince of Wales. Ferdi- This union was sanctioned by a bull of pope nand king of Aragon, by his marriage with Julius II., certainly indicating no doubts of Isabella queen of Castile, had united all the the extent of his authority, and no misgivChristian territories of the peninsula ex-ings of the validity of his dispensation, in cept Portugal. But as Isabella retained which, after reciting the previous marher independent sovereignty over Castile, riage, he proceeds to pronounce that even the continuance of the union of the two if the union with Arthur were perhaps crowns depended on the lives of the two consummated, yet he by the present dispensovereigns. When Isabella died, on the sation relieves both parties from all cen25th of November, 1504, Castile and its sure which might be otherwise incurred by dependencies were inherited by Joanna her such an alliance, dispenses with the imeldest daughter, the wife of Philip the Fair. pediment to their nuptials which the affinity That unfortunate princess, surrounded as had caused, authorizes them to solemnize she was with all the majesty and mag- their marriage, and to remain conjoined in nificence of the world, was not only sunk lawful wedlock; and, lastly, as a necessary below the duties of royalty, but unable to consequence, decrees that the children who taste its amusements and gratifications. may be the progeny of their union shall be She was early reduced to a state of mental held and deemed to be legitimate. The disorder, which fluctuated between a sluggish melancholy and the illusions of insanity. Her fond passion for her husband, ill requited from the commencement of the union, was rendered fulsome and lothe

Bacon, iii. 302.

§ She died in 1555, only three years before the death of her son Charles, called the Fifth in Germany, and the Second in Spain.

Rymer, xiii. 76. Sep. Kal. Jan. 1503, which I understand to be the 26th of December of that year. Nicholas Calendar, 58.

¶ Ibid. 89.

prince of Wales was then in his thirteenth other members on whose subserviency they year, and his aspiring and domineering char- could best rely, would have had resistless acter probably even then betrayed a determi- temptations to incessant encroachment on nation to assert all his plausible pretensions. the rights of the subject, even if the judges None of the sayings recorded of Henry had not been so powerful as to defy all orVII., though he was called the Solomon of dinary consequences, and if the very letter England, show so much sagacity as his an- of the law had not quickened their passion swer to the counsellors who objected to for discretionary powers, by alleging the the Scottish marriage, that the kingdom disturbance and failure of justice in its ormight by that connexion fall to the king dinary course through juries, as the reason of Scotland. "Scotland would then," said for the establishment of the new tribunal. he, "become an accession to England, not Their jurisdiction over juries, in effect, England to Scotland; the greater would subjected the laws to their will. - When draw the less: it is a safer union for Eng- they animadverted on a verdict, they had land than one with France."* an opportunity of retrying the cause in

An examination of the laws of this reign which it was given, and thus of taking would neither suit the purpose nor the cognizance of almost all misdemeanors, limits of this undertaking. Several reforms especially those of a political nature, which in private legislation, principally founded, they might plausibly represent as offering however, on practice introduced by the most obstacles to the course and order of judges, honorably distinguish it from many the common law. From these and the like others. The statute-book attests the uni- causes sprang that rapid growth of the arversal distempers of the community during bitrary power of this court, which, if the the civil wars, and bears frequent marks of constitution had not overthrown, must have the vigorous arm of a severe reformer, worked the downfall of the constitution. employed in extirpating the evils of long Lord Bacon, indeed, tells us, that "this license. Of these, not the least remarka- court is one of the sagest and noblest instible is the act commonly entitled The Act tutions of this kingdom." "There was alfor the Authority of the Star Chamber,‡ ways a high and pre-eminent power in of which the first object seems to have been causes which might concern the commonthe suppression of the unlawful combinations wealth; which, if they were criminal, which endanger the public quiet, or disturb were tried in the star chamber.” “As the the ordinary dispensation of law. No words chancery had the prætorian power for in the statute expressly comprehended libels equity, so the star chamber had the censoor other political misdemeanors, in which rian power in offences under the degree of the court of the star chamber became de capital."||

servedly odious. Neither does it appear Such opinions, expressed by a man whose from the statute that the name of Star fall from public life had released him from Chamber was then bestowed upon it, or its restraints, in a book rather addressed to that it was regularly composed of the the king than to the people, are a pregnant king's council, either ordinary or privy. proof how the secret doctrines of eminent The early history of these councils is ob- statesmen concerning the comparative value scure; but they appear to have derived of various institutions may sometimes corjurisdiction sometimes from acts of parlia- respond to the language with which the ment, and oftener, perhaps, to have assumed plausibilities of political life may compel it by an usurpation, which usage in due them to amuse the multitude. time legitimated. The court established In the year 1494 a law was passed, which by this statute was composed of the chan- provided that those who serve a king for cellor, the treasurer, the privy-seal, “call- the time being shall in nowise be convicted ing to themselves a bishop and a temporal or attainted of high treason, nor of other lord of the king's most honorable council," offences, for that cause. T "The spirit of and the two chief justices; and they ap- this law," says lord Bacon, " pear early to have appropriated to them- fully pious and noble," selves many fragments of the authority an- justice, doubtless, than when he applied ciently exercised by the council, as well as the like terms of honor to the court of star to have stretched their jurisdiction beyond chamber. But we are left without the the boundaries prescribed to it by the stat- means of ascertaining what were the inute. A tribunal composed of five of the ducements of Henry to pass a law against king's servants, removable by him at plea- which the historian insinuates some censure, invested with a right of selecting two

* Bacon, iii. 379.

was wonder"** with much more

§ See Mr. Hallam's Constitutional History, chap. i. a work from which I seldom differ, and never

Mr. Hallam, Constitutional History. Reeves's without distrust of my own judgment. History of English Law,

t2 Hen. VII. c. i.

Bacon, iii. 224. ** Bacon, iii. 310.

T2 Hen. VII. c. i.