Chapter V: The Reign of Henry VII (1)

Henry's Defective Title--Imprisonment of the Earl of Warwick--The
King's Title to the Throne--His Marriage--Lovel's Rising--Lambert
Simnel--Henry's prompt Action--Failure of the Rebellion--The
Queen's Coronation--The Act of Maintenance--Henry's Ingratitude
to the Duke of Brittany--Discontent in England--Expedition to
France and its Results--Henry's Second Invasion--Treaty of
Étaples--Perkin Warbeck--His Adventures in Ireland, France,
and Burgundy--Henry's Measures--Descent on Kent--Warbeck in
Scotland--Invasion of England--The Cornish Rising--Warbeck
quits Scotland--He lands in Cornwall--Failure of the
Rebellion--Imprisonment of Warbeck and his subsequent
Execution--European Affairs--Marriages of Henry's Daughter and
Son--Betrothal of Catherine and Prince Henry--Henry's Matrimonial
Schemes--Royal Exactions--A Lucky Capture--Henry proposes for
Joanna--His Death.

Though Henry Tudor had conquered Richard III. on the field of Bosworth, he had no title whatever to the crown of England, except such as the people, by their own free choice, should give him. He was descended, it is true, from Edward III., through John of Gaunt, but from the offspring of not only an illicit, but an adulterous connection. When the natural children of John of Gaunt, therefore, were legitimatised by Act of Parliament, that Act expressly declared them incapable of inheriting the crown. Still more, the true hereditary claim lay in the house of York; and had that line been totally extinct, and had the bar against his line not existed, the royal house of Portugal at least had a superior title in point of descent from John of Gaunt. Further still, he stood attainted as a traitor by Act of Parliament, and could not, therefore, assert a Parliamentary right. Yet, as we have said, for years public expectation, overlooking the claims of all others of both the contending lines, had turned towards him, as the individual destined by Providence to put an end to the sanguinary broils of York and Lancaster, and unite them in peace.

The only son of the late Duke of Clarence, who, next to the children of Edward IV., was the heir apparent of the line of York, had been confined by his uncle, Richard III., in the castle of Sheriff Hutton, in Yorkshire. Richard had at first treated this poor boy with kindness; he had created him Earl of Warwick, the title of his illustrious grandfather, the king-maker. On the death of his own son, he had at first proposed to nominate him his heir; but, fearing that he might be too dangerous a competitor, he had omitted that favour, and conferred it on the Earl of Lincoln, John de la Pole, the son of his sister the Duchess of Suffolk, and therefore nephew both of himself and Edward IV. Henry, the very first day after the battle of Bosworth, despatched Sir Robert Willoughby to take the young earl from Sheriff Hutton, and convey him to the Tower of London. Henry then put himself at the head of his victorious troops, and commenced his march towards the capital. Everywhere he was received, not as a conqueror, but a deliverer.

He arrived safely at Kennington, and after dining with Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, he proceeded with a splendid attendance of lords, both spiritual and temporal, towards the city. The nobles, imitating the absurd custom of France, rode two together on one horse, to show how completely the rival parties had amalgamated, and in this ridiculous style they passed through the city to the Tower, where Henry for the present took up his residence. On the 30th of October he was crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he immediately appointed a body-guard of fifty archers to attend upon him. This was an indication of distrust in his subjects or of the state of a conqueror, which astonished and dismayed the public; but Henry assured them that it was merely the state which, on the Continent, was now deemed essential to a king.

The Parliament assembled on the 7th of November, to settle the new order of things. Before proceeding to business they found themselves in a great dilemma. No less than 107 of the members were persons attainted during the last two reigns, and were therefore disqualified for acting. They were the most zealous partisans of the house of Lancaster, and immediate application was made to the judges for their decision on this new and singular case. They came to the conclusion that the attainted members could not take their seats till their attainders were reversed, and a bill was passed by the remaining members accordingly.

When Henry met his duly qualified Parliament, he informed them that "he had come to the throne by just title of inheritance, and by the sure judgment of God, who had given him the victory over his enemies in the field." In this declaration he was careful, while he asserted what was not true, to avoid what would alarm the pride and the fears of the nation. He had no just title of inheritance, as we have shown, and he dared not use the words "right of conquest," for such right was held to imply a lapse of all the lands in the nation to the Crown, since they had been held of the prince who had been conquered. Lest he had, even in speaking of victory, gone too far, he immediately added, that "every man should continue to enjoy his rights and hereditaments, except such persons as in the present Parliament should be punished for their offences against his royal majesty."

Another claim to the crown, which Henry was still more careful to ignore, though it was one on which he secretly placed confidence, was the right of Elizabeth of York, whom he had pledged himself to marry, and who was the undoubted owner of the throne. But as Henry would not owe his throne to his people, so he would not owe it to his wife. He therefore used every means to establish his own title to the throne before he in any way alluded to hers, or took any steps towards fulfilling his pledge of marriage. He renewed that pledge, indeed, on arriving in London, to satisfy the York party; but he proceeded to have his claims to the throne acknowledged by Parliament without any reference to hers. If he had mentioned the right of Elizabeth of York, his extreme caution suggested that he would be held to possess the throne, not by his own claims, but by hers, an idea which equally offended his pride, and alarmed him for the security of the succession in his offspring. Should Elizabeth die without children, in that case the right would die with her; and any issue of his by another marriage might be accounted intruders in the succession, and they might be removed for the next heirs of Edward IV. If she should die childless, and even before him, even his own retention of the throne might be disputed. All these points the mind of Henry saw clearly; and in a moment, and as if no such person as Elizabeth existed, and as if no pledge to marry her had helped him to his success, he procured an Act of Parliament, which provided that "the inheritance of the crown should be, rest, remain, and abide in the most royal person of the then sovereign lord, King Henry VII., and the heirs of his body lawfully coming, perpetually with the grace of God so to endure, and in none other."

But this excess of caution and this nicely balanced policy had not been carried through without alarming all parties, and greatly disgusting that of York. The whole country looked to the union of the houses by the marriage of Henry and Elizabeth as the only means of putting an end to the civil wars which had so long rent the nation. Still Henry, though now securely seated on the throne, evinced no haste to fulfil his pledge of placing Elizabeth of York upon it. It was not, therefore, till the feeling of the public became strongly manifested at his neglect of the princess, and till the Commons presented him a petition praying him "to take to wife the Princess Elizabeth, which marriage they hoped God would bless with a progeny of the race of kings;" and till the Lords, spiritual and temporal, had testified their participation in this wish, by rising simultaneously and bowing as it was uttered, that Henry consented to the celebration of the marriage.

The marriage took place on the 18th of January, 1486, and the rejoicings in London, Westminster, and other cities were of the most lively kind. They were heartfelt, for now all parties concluded that there was hope of peace and comfort. They were far more ardent than at the king's accession or coronation, and the mean-souled monarch saw it with sullen displeasure, for it seemed to imply that though he had taken such pains to place foremost his right to the throne, the people recognised, spontaneously, the superior title of the house of York, and that of his beautiful, and by him superciliously treated wife. Lord Bacon, who is the great historian of this period, and who may be supposed to be sufficiently informed, does not hesitate to add that the manifest affection of the people for the queen produced in him towards her additional coldness and dislike.

Henry, before dismissing his Parliament, conferred favours and promotions on many of his friends. The two persons, however, whose counsels and administrative services he chiefly valued, were Bishops Morton and Fox, the latter of whom he raised to the see of Exeter. They had shared in all his adversities, and were now admitted to participate in his high fortune. Morton was, on the death of Bourchier, made Primate of England; and Fox was entrusted with the Privy Seal, and successively made Bishop of Bath and Wells, Durham, and finally, Winchester. These two able prelates were Henry's ministers and constant advisers. "He loved," says the historian of the time, "to have a convenient number of right grave and wise priests to be of his council; because," adds Bacon, "having rich bishoprics to bestow, it was easy to reward their services."

Having dismissed his Parliament, and left all in order, Henry set out on a progress through the kingdom. The people of the northern counties had been the most devoted to Richard, and he sought, by spending some time amongst them, to remove their prejudices and attach them to his interests. He had advanced as far as Lincoln, and was there keeping his Easter, on the 2nd day of April, when he learned that Lord Lovel, formerly chamberlain to Richard, with Humphrey and Thomas Stafford, had left the sanctuary at Colchester, and were gone with dangerous intentions, no man knew whither. The news did not seem to give him much concern, and he proceeded towards York. At Nottingham, more pressing and alarming intelligence reached him, that Lord Lovel was advancing towards York with 4,000 men, and that the two Staffords were besieging Worcester with another army.

At Nottingham, Henry received an embassy from the King of the Scots; and despatching his uncle, the Duke of Bedford, with about 3,000 men in pursuit of Lord Lovel, on the 6th of April he quitted Northampton in the same direction. At Pontefract he was met, on the 17th, by the news that Lovel had passed him on the road, had raised a force in the neighbourhood of Ripon and Middleham, and was preparing to surprise him on his entrance into York. Henry's courage did not fail him; he was now surrounded by most of the northern and southern nobility, who had brought up considerable forces. But the man who always trusted more to his shrewd knowledge of human nature than to arms, now hit on a means of dispersing the insurgent army without a blow. He sent on his uncle, Jasper of Bedford, to offer a free pardon to all who would desert Lovel's standard, and the whole host dispersed as by magic. It was, in fact, the magic of the right incentive applied at the right moment. Lovel, who was as much affected by the proclamation of pardon as his followers--for it instantly struck him with the fear of universal desertion--fled at once to the house of his friend, Sir Thomas Broughton, in Lancashire; and, after lying concealed there some days, contrived to escape to the court of the Duchess of Burgundy, in Flanders. Some of his followers, as it would seem, in defiance of the king's offer of pardon, were seized and executed by the Earl of Northumberland.

On the 30th of September the queen was prematurely delivered of a son, who, however, was pronounced a strong and healthy child, and was christened by the name of Arthur, after Prince Arthur of the ancient Britons, from whom Henry pretended to derive his descent. But the birth of an heir-apparent tried too severely the temper of the numerous malcontents who still existed. Though Henry had put himself to much trouble, and to some cost, to win over the people of the northern counties, his conduct in general had not been such as to conciliate the enemies of the Lancastrian line.

However, the Yorkist party, though roused to disturb the quiet of the king, prepared their measures of annoyance with a lack of acumen which was more likely to irritate than overturn. Perhaps they did not want to dethrone him, because that would overturn also the head, and most popular representative of their own party--Elizabeth; especially as she was now the mother of a legitimate prince, capable of uniting all interests. Perhaps they wished rather to show the cold and unforgiving monarch that he was more at their mercy than he supposed, and that they could embitter, if they did not proceed to terminate, his reign. Such, in fact, whether this was their purpose or not, were the character and tendency of the plots and impostures which, for so many years, kept Henry in disquiet and anxiety.

The first attempt was to bring forward a youth as the Earl of Warwick, the son of Clarence, whom Henry was keeping confined in the Tower. So little depth was there in this plot, that at first it was evidently the plan to bring the impostor forward as the Duke of York, the younger of the two princes supposed to be murdered in the Tower. It was given out that though his elder brother had been murdered, the younger had been allowed to escape. Had this story been adhered to, and well acted, it might have raised a most formidable rebellion; but, for some unknown reason, it was as speedily abandoned as adopted, and the Earl of Warwick pitched upon as the preferable impersonation. Nothing, however, could be more absurd, for the true earl being really alive, Henry could at any moment bring him forward.

Towards the close of the year 1486, there appeared at the castle of Dublin a priest of Oxford named Richard Simon, attended by a boy of about fifteen years of age. The boy was of a peculiarly handsome and interesting appearance; and Simon, who was a total stranger in Ireland, presented him to the lord-deputy, the Earl of Kildare, as Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, who, he represented, had fortunately escaped from his dungeon in the Tower of London, and had come to throw himself under the protection of the earl and his friends. Thomas Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, was a zealous Yorkist; his brother was chancellor, and almost all the bishops and officers in the Irish Government had been appointed by Edward IV. or Richard. It is most likely that the lord-deputy and the party were already cognisant of the whole scheme of this agitation; for it is neither likely that Simon the priest should have originated so daring and arduous an enterprise as that of presenting a new claimant for the throne in opposition to the astute and determined Henry Tudor, nor that he should have so particularly singled out Ireland as the opening ground of his operations, and the lord-deputy as his patron and coadjutor. What sufficiently proved this was, that simultaneously the Earl of Lincoln, of whom we have lately made mention, son to the eldest sister of the two late kings, had disappeared from England and gone over to his aunt Margaret, Duchess-Dowager of Burgundy, Henry's most inveterate enemy. This satisfied the king that the plot which showed itself in Ireland was produced in England, and was fomented by the Yorkist party at large. It was soon found that Simon had been diligently instructing the young pretender, whose name was Lambert Simnel, before he produced him in public, in all the arcana of the character he had to support.

The loyalty of the lord-deputy had been already questionable. Henry had sent him a summons to attend in London, but he evaded that by a petition from the spiritual and temporal peers of Ireland, stating strongly the absolute necessity of his presence there. No sooner did Simon present his _protégé_ to Kildare, than that nobleman received him without any apparent reluctance to put faith in his story.

When Henry received this news, he hastened to do what he ought to have done long before. He took the Earl of Warwick out of the Tower, conducted him publicly to St. Paul's, so that all might see him, and all who desired it were allowed to approach him, and converse with him. The nobility and gentry were personally introduced to him, and the king then took him with him to Sheen, where he held his court, and gave familiar access to all those who had seen or known him before. By this politic act he completely satisfied the people of England, who laughed at the impostor in Ireland; but the Irish, on the contrary, declared that Henry's Warwick was the impostor, and theirs the real one. To consult on the best measures for defeating this plot, Henry called a great council at Sheen; but at its breaking up, the public were thrown into still greater surprise and perplexity by the king, who, instead of offering to crown the queen, seized her mother, the queen-dowager, confiscated her property, and consigned her to the custody of the monks of Bermondsey. The reason assigned was, that the queen-dowager, in the last reign, had promised her daughter to Henry, and then put her into the hands of Richard. Such a reason, if really put forward, was a simple absurdity, because since then Elizabeth Woodville had been living at court as the queen-mother, in all public honour. The real cause was presumably connected with the business in hand--the Simnel conspiracy. This is the opinion of Lord Bacon, who, living a hundred years later, nevertheless had access to sources of information not available to the modern student, though his authority may easily be overrated. Speaking of Simon, he says:--"It cannot be but that some great person, that knew particularly and familiarly Edward Plantagenet, had a hand in the business, from whom the priest might take his aim. That which is most probable out of the preceding and subsequent acts is, that it was the queen-dowager from whom this action had the principal source and motion; for certain it is that she was a busy, negotiating woman, and in her withdrawing-chamber had the fortunate conspiracy for the king against Richard III. been hatched, which the king knew, and remembered, perhaps, but too well; and was at this time extremely discontented with the king, thinking her daughter--as the king handled the matter--not advanced but depressed; and none could hold the book so well to prompt and instruct this stage play as she could."

But the most formidable and unwearied enemy of Henry VII. was Margaret, the Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy. As the sister of Edward IV. and of Richard, no circumstance could induce her to tolerate Henry Tudor, in her eyes a low-born man, who had thrust the Yorkist line from the throne. To her Lord Lovel had fled, and to her also fled the Earl of Lincoln. To her the Irish party sent emissaries for aid; and she despatched 2,000 veteran German troops, under a brave and experienced general, Martin Schwarz, accompanied by the Earl of Lincoln.

The moment that Henry Tudor learned the flight of the Earl of Lincoln, he set out on a progress through the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, in which the chief interest of the earl lay. He was at Kenilworth when news was brought him that the Earl of Lincoln and Lord Lovel had landed with the pretended Edward VI., supported by Martin Schwarz and his German legion, at the pile of Foudray, an old keep in the southern extremity of Furness. Henry advanced by Coventry and Leicester to Nottingham; Lincoln had already approached Newark. The royal army advancing to oppose the whole force lost its way between Nottingham and Newark, and there was such confusion in consequence, and such rumours of the enemy being upon them, that numbers deserted. But five guides were procured from Ratcliff-on-Trent, and soon afterwards the vanguard of Henry's army, led by the Earl of Oxford, encountered the forces of Lincoln at Stoke, a village near Newark. The battle lasted for three hours, and was obstinately contested. The veteran Germans, under Schwarz, fought till they were exterminated almost to a man. The Irish displayed not the less valour; but, being only armed with darts and skeans--for the English settlers had adopted the arms of the natives--were no match for the royal cavalry. The whole of the troops of the insurgents, expecting no mercy if they were taken, seemed prepared to perish rather than to yield. Four thousand of the insurgents and 2,000 of the king's best troops are said to have fallen in this desperate engagement; but nearly all the leaders of the rebel army, the Earl of Lincoln, Sir Thomas Broughton, the brave Schwarz, and the Lords Thomas and Maurice Fitzgerald, having fallen, the victory on Henry's part became complete.

The pretender Lambert Simnel and the priest Simon were captured by Sir Robert Bellingham, one of the king's esquires; but nothing was seen of Lord Lovel. He was believed to have escaped, but no traces of him were discoverable; many thought that he had perished in attempting to swim his horse across the Trent. But nearly two centuries afterwards a subterranean chamber was discovered accidentally by some workmen at Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of his family. In this chamber was seated a skeleton in a chair, with its head resting on a table; and this was supposed to be the remains of this same Lord Lovel, who had reached his house, and secreted himself in this apartment, where he had perished by some unknown cause.

After the battle, Henry travelled northward to ascertain that all was secure in the tract through which the insurgents had passed, and to punish such as had aided the rebels, and those who just before the battle had spread the rumour of his defeat. The royal punishments did not consist in putting his enemies to death, but in fining them severely, for Henry Tudor much preferred making a profit of a man to killing him. The late insurrection had taught him that if he did not wish for a repetition of it, he must concede something to the Yorkist party, and must pay some respect to the queen. Accordingly, on the 25th of November, 1487, Elizabeth was crowned with much state at Westminster.

Having thus made this _amende_ to public opinion, Henry, instead of giving Simnel consequence by putting him to death, or making a State prisoner of him in the Tower, turned him into his kitchen as a scullion, thus showing his contempt of him. "He would not take his life," says Lord Bacon, "taking him but as an image of wax that others had tempered and moulded;" and considering that if he was made a continual spectacle, he would be "a kind of remedy against the like enchantments of people in time to come." The priest Simon he shut up in a secret prison, saying he was but a tool, and did not know the depths of the plot. He even professed to regret the death of the Earl of Lincoln, who, had his life been spared, he said, "might have revealed to him the bottom of his danger." In his peculiar way he threw much mystery over the matter, for mystery was one of his greatest pleasures.

Having settled these matters, which he did on his own authority, Henry summoned a Parliament to grant him supplies, and to increase those supplies by bill of attainder against all those who had been engaged in the late conspiracy. To prevent similar risings, he demanded that the law should be rigorously put in force against the practice of maintenance. This maintenance was the association of numbers of persons under a particular chief or nobleman, whose badge or livery they wore, and to whom they were bound by oath to support him in his private quarrels against other noblemen. But the instrument was too convenient not to be turned on occasion against the Crown, whenever rich chiefs took up the opposite party, and by this means it was that such numbers of troops could be brought at the shortest notice into the field against the monarch. Various laws had been passed on this subject, and heavy penalties decreed; but now it was ordained that, instead of calling such offenders before the royal council, as had been the custom, a particular Court should be established for the purpose. The chancellor, the treasurer, the keeper of the privy seal, or two of them, one bishop, one lay peer, and the judges of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, were empowered to summon all such persons before them, and to punish the guilty just as if they had been convicted by ordinary course of law. This was the origin of what came to be called the Court of the Star Chamber, from the walls or ceiling of the room where it met being decorated with stars.

The affairs on the Continent were now in a state which demanded the most serious attention, but which were by no means likely to be settled to the honour of the country by a monarch of the penurious character of Henry VII. If ever a monarch was bound by gratitude to succour another prince, it was Henry VII. He had been protected in Brittany from all the attempts of the Yorkist monarch for years. The Duke Francis, who had been his host and friend during his long exile, was now growing old. He appears never to have been of a very vigorous mind, and now mind and body were failing together. He had two daughters, and the hope of securing the patrimony of the eldest, Anne, drew the attention of many suitors, the chief of whom were Maximilian, King of the Romans; the Duke of Orleans, the first prince of the blood in France; and the Count D'Albret, a powerful chieftain, at the foot of the Pyrenees. But hostile alike to all these wooers was Charles VIII. of France, who, though he was under engagement to marry the daughter of Maximilian, and therefore apparently debarred from the hand of Anne of Brittany, was resolved, if possible, to secure her territory. In this dilemma, Francis sent repeated importunate entreaties to Henry to come to his rescue. France, at the same time, sent to him, praying him to be neutral, alleging that Charles was only seeking to drive his revolted subjects out of Brittany. Henry was bound by honour to give prompt succour to his old friend; he had received from Parliament two-fifteenths for the purpose, and was urged by it to send efficient aid to prevent France from seizing this important province. But Henry could not find it in his heart to spend the money in active service; he proposed to mediate between the parties. This suited the views of France exactly, because while Henry was negotiating they could continue to press on their victories. The poor Duke Francis was compelled to submit to a treaty, in August, at Verger, by which he surrendered to the French all the territory they had conquered, and was bound never again to call in assistance from England or any other country, nor to marry either of his daughters without the consent of the King of France. Having signed this humiliating treaty, the duke died of a broken heart, on the 7th of September, 1488, only three weeks afterwards.

The people of England received these tidings with undisguised indignation. Twice had they voted large sums to enable their ungrateful and pusillanimous king to aid his old benefactor and the ally of England; twice had he put the money in his coffers, and sold the honour of the country and the fortunes of the unfortunate ally to the French, wholly insensible to honour or shame. But whilst the public were foaming in wrath over this despicable conduct, the indefatigable French were pressing on. Anne, the young orphan duchess, was a mere child of only twelve years of age. Around her were contending rivals and their adherents. But all this time the French were seizing town after town. The news of this awoke such a fermentation in England, and Henry was upbraided in such vehement terms for thus, as the sovereign of a great people, sacrificing the honour of the nation, and permitting the helpless orphan of his benefactor to become the prey of France, that he was compelled to rouse himself. He determined to send ambassadors to Maximilian, to his son, the Archduke Philip, to the Kings of Spain and Portugal, inviting them to act in concert with him for the repression of French ambition. Having taken this magnanimous, and, if it had really been intended to follow it up vigorously, most admirable step, Henry called a Parliament, and demanded more money to carry on the war.

The pretences of this huckstering king were now become too transparent to deceive any one. All the money hitherto voted for a war that never took place was still in Henry's coffers. The people thought that he ought first to bring out that before he asked for more. Parliament, therefore, made strong opposition, and finally reduced his demand of £100,000 to £75,000. But, when they had voted, the indignant people refused to pay it, considering that the selfish monarch had their cash already in hand. Great disturbances arose in the endeavour to enforce the collection of the tax. This manifested itself especially in the north, where Henry had used such endeavours to soothe and win the inhabitants.

The Earl of Northumberland directed the collection to be enforced, accompanying the command with such menaces as he deemed necessary to procure obedience. But these had a contrary effect. The people flew to arms, and, turning their vengeance first against the earl, as the rigorous instrument of an imperious monarch, they stormed his house and put him to death. They then declared war against the tyrant, as they termed Henry, himself. Their leader was a fiery fellow of the common order, named John à Chambre, but, as they assumed a formidable aspect, Sir John Egremont, one of the Yorkist faction, put himself at their head. Henry lost no time in despatching Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who soon suppressed the insurrection, and hanged John à Chambre and some of his accomplices. Sir John Egremont escaped to Flanders to the Duchess of Burgundy.

Henry now sent over to Brittany a body of 6,000 men under Lord Willoughby de Broke; but he limited their service to six months, which was, in fact, to render them nearly useless, especially when they had instructions not to fight, and he would not even afford that aid until he had exacted from the poor orphan girl, the young duchess, the surrender of her two best sea-ports in security of payment. He moreover compelled the duchess to bind herself by the like oath to him as she had taken to the French king, not to marry without his consent. Before the end of the year Anne found herself invested by the French army in Rennes; and rather than fall a helpless and humiliated captive into the hands of Charles, she consented to marry him, having not a single soul left to stand by her in her resolute opposition. She was married to Charles on the 13th of December, 1491, at Rennes, was crowned in the abbey church of St. Denis, and made her entrance into Paris amid the acclamations of a vast multitude, who regarded this event as one of the most auspicious which had ever happened to France.

The rage of Maximilian may be imagined. He had lost Brittany, his daughter had lost the throne of France, and he was duped and insulted in the most egregious manner before all Europe. He made his complaints ring far and wide, but they were only echoed by the laughter of his enemies, and he proceeded to vow revenge by the assistance of Spain and England.

Henry was now bent, according to all appearance, on war. He was too clear-sighted not to perceive the immense advantage France had obtained over him in securing Brittany, and how the political foresight and sagacity on which he prided himself had suffered from the paltry promptings of his avarice. He therefore put on a most belligerent attitude. He summoned a Parliament at Westminster, and addressed it in the most heroic strain. He commented on the insolence of France, elated with the success of her late perfidy, and on--what he no doubt felt more deeply than anything else--her refusal to pay what he called the tribute agreed by Louis XI. to be paid to Edward IV., and hitherto continued to himself. Two-fifteenths were at once granted him, and the nobility were on fire with the anticipation of realising all the glories and the plunder of the past ages.

He availed himself of the paroxysm of the moment, not only to gather in and garner the two-fifteenths newly granted, but the remains of the benevolence voted last session. Whilst the fresh tax fell on the nation generally, this fell on the monied and commercial capitalists. London alone furnished £10,000 of it or £100,000 of our money. The wily old archbishop, Morton, instructed the commissioners to employ this dilemma, which was called "Morton's fork." They were to urge upon people who lived in a modest and careful way, that they _must_ be rich in consequence of their parsimony; on those who indulged in expensive abodes and styles of living, that they _must_ be opulent, because they had so much to expend. To afford ample time for harvesting these riches, Henry found perpetual causes for delaying his expedition. The nobles were already crowding to his standard with their vassals, and impatient to set out, but Henry had always some plausible excuse for lingering. At one time it was the unsafe state of Scotland, and four months were occupied in negotiating an extension of the truce; then it was the necessity of contracting for fresh levies of troops. These troops, however, were ready in June and July, but still they were not allowed to move. "The truth was," says Bacon, "that though the king showed great forwardness for a war, not only to his Parliament and Court, but to his Privy Council, except the two bishops (Fox and Morton), 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 money."

At length, in the beginning of October, 1492, he landed at Calais, with a fine army of 25,000 foot, and 1,600 horse, which he gave in command to the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Oxford. This was a force capable of striking an alarming blow, but the whole affair was a sham. In fact, Henry had entered into a treaty of peace before he had set out, and the only difficulty now was how to get out of the war without incurring too much resentment at home. To guard against this, the odium of the abortive expedient must be carefully removed from himself to other parties. The machinery for this was already prepared. His ambassadors appeared in the camp at Boulogne, informing them that their visit to his previous ally Maximilian had been useless; he was incapable of joining him. These were followed by others from Spain, bringing the intelligence that Ferdinand had concluded a peace with France, Roussillon and Cerdagne being ceded to him by Charles. But with Henry's fine army, and the defenceless state of France, the defection of these allies, from whom little or nothing had been expected, would have scarcely cost him a thought had he been a Henry V. As it was, after all his boasts, it was not even for him to propose an abandonment of the enterprise, and therefore, the Marquis of Dorset and twenty-three other persons of distinction were employed to present to him a request that he would also make a peace with France. They urged, as they were instructed for this purpose, the defection of these allies, the approach of winter, the difficulty of obtaining supplies at Calais at that season, and the obstinacy of the siege of Boulogne. All these were circumstances that had been foreseen from the first, and treated with indifference, as they deserved to be; but now Henry affected to listen to the desires of his army, and sent off the Bishop of Exeter and the Lord Daubeney to confer with the Marshal de Cordes, who had been sent as plenipotentiary on the part of Charles to Étaples. They soon returned, bringing the rough draft of a treaty, by which peace and amity were to be maintained betwixt the two sovereigns during their lives, and a year afterwards. Even this Henry affected to decline, and only consented to give way at the earnest entreaty of his already-mentioned four-and-twenty officers.

After having thus assumed all this pretence to exonerate himself from censure, Henry signed a peace on the following terms:--Charles was to retain Brittany for ever, and he was to pay Henry 620,000 crowns in gold for the money advanced by Henry on account of Brittany and his present expenses, and 125,000 crowns in gold as arrears of the pension paid to Edward IV. by Louis XI. He was also to continue this pension of 25,000 crowns to Henry and his heirs. The whole amount which Henry sacked was 745,000 crowns, equal to £400,000 of our present money. The members of his council, who openly acted the part of petitioners of this peace, are said not only to have been instructed by Henry to perform this obnoxious duty, but to have been gained by the bribes of the French king, who was anxious to make short work of it, that he might proceed on an expedition which he had set his mind upon against Naples. They went about declaring that it was the most glorious peace that any king of England ever made with France, and that if Henry's subjects presumed to censure it, they were ready to take the blame upon themselves.

Having used these precautions to ward off the reproaches of his subjects, Henry ratified the peace on the 6th of November, and led back his army to England. There, though he had the money safely in his chests, the disappointment and indignation of the people were extreme, and tended to diminish his sordid satisfaction. The people protested that he had been trading on the honour of the nation, and had sold its interests and reputation for his own vile gain, and his enemies did not neglect to avail themselves of his unpopularity. During the past year, a young man had landed in Cork, of a singularly fascinating exterior and insinuating address. He represented himself to be no other than the Duke of York, the younger of the two princes who were supposed to have been murdered in the Tower. He was a fine young man, apparently exactly of the age of the Duke of York, and bearing a striking likeness to Edward IV. "Such a mercurial," says Bacon, "as the like hath seldom been known; and he had such a crafty and bewitching fashion, both to move pity and induce belief, as was like a kind of fascination or enchantment." What would appear to have been the real story of this remarkable pretender, so far as we can gather from the records of the time, is this:--

Margaret, the Duchess-Dowager of Burgundy, having played off Lambert Simnel, devised this scheme, or was supplied with it by the Yorkist refugees at her Court, who had immediate and constant communion with the heads of the York faction in England. A young man was industriously sought after who should well represent the Duke of York, though she knew him to be dead. Such a youth was found in the son, or reputed son, of one John Osbeck, or Warbeck, a renegade Jew of Tournay. This Warbeck had lived and carried on business in the time of Edward IV., and had dealings with the king, who was so free with him that the Jew prevailed on him to become godfather to his child, who was called Peter, and whose name became converted into the diminutive Peterkin or Perkin. Others assert that Warbeck's wife had been amongst the numerous favourites of Edward, and that this Perkin was really his son--whence the striking resemblance, the cleverness and liveliness of his character. Warbeck had returned to Flanders, and there, in course of time, his son had attracted the attention of the Yorkist conspirators as the very youth, in all respects, for their purpose. He was introduced to the duchess, who found him already familiar with the whole story of Edward's Court from the past affairs and position there of his parents.

The scheme being now matured and the chief actor ready, they only waited for the true moment for his appearance. That came in the prospect of Henry being involved in war with France. As soon as this seemed inevitable, the pretended Duke of York landed in Ireland. The York faction was still strong in that country, and, despite the failure of the former pretender, Simnel, the Irish were ready, to a certain extent, to embrace another claimant of Henry's crown. He landed at Cork, where the mayor and others of that city received him as the true Richard Plantagenet, as, no doubt, they had previously agreed to do. Many of the credulous people flocked after him, but the more prudent stood aloof. He wrote to the Earls of Desmond and Kildare, inviting them to join his standard, but those powerful noblemen kept a cautious distance. Kildare had been disgraced by Henry for his reception of Simnel, and dreaded his more deadly vengeance in case of a second failure. But Warbeck, undismayed, spread everywhere the exciting story of his escape from the cruelty of his uncle Richard, and was gradually making an impression on the imaginative mind of Ireland, when a summons came to a new scene.

Charles VIII. of France was now menaced by Henry with invasion. He knew the man too well to doubt the real object of his menace, and the power of money to avert it, but it was of consequence to reduce the bribe as much as possible; and every instrument which promised to assist in effecting that was most valuable. Such an instrument was this self-styled Duke of York, who had suddenly appeared in Ireland. The watchful Duchess of Burgundy is said to have adroitly turned Charles's attention to this mysterious individual through the agency of one Frion, a man who had been a Secretary of Henry, but who had been won over by his enemies. Charles caught at the idea; an invitation was instantly despatched to Perkin Warbeck to hasten to the French Court, where he was "to hear of something to his advantage," and he was received by the king as the undoubted Duke of York and true monarch of England. Perkin's person, talents, and address, being worthy of a real prince, won him the admiration of all who approached him; and not only the Court and capital, but the whole of France, soon rang with praise of the accomplishments, the adventures, and the unmerited misfortunes of this last of the Plantagenets. The king settled upon him a princely income; a magnificent abode was assigned him, and a body-guard befitting a royal personage was conferred upon him, of which the Lord of Concressault was made captain.

The news of this cordial reception of the reputed Duke of York by the French Court flew to England, and Sir George Neville, Sir John Taylor, and above a hundred gentlemen hastened to Paris, and offered to him their devoted services. This decided and rapidly-growing demonstration had the effect which Charles contemplated. Henry was greatly alarmed, and hastened to close the negotiations for peace. These once signed, the puppet had done its work in France. Henry made earnest demands to have Warbeck handed over to him, but Charles, who, no doubt, was bound by agreement with the Duchess of Burgundy to refuse any such surrender, declared that to do so would be contrary to his honour; but he gave the pretender a hint to quit the kingdom, and he retired to the Court of Burgundy.

The duchess now heaped on Perkin all the marks of affection and the honours which she would have deemed due to her own nephew. She ordered every one to give him the homage belonging to a real king; she appointed him a guard of thirty halberdiers, and styled him the "White Rose of England." On all occasions her conduct towards him was that of an affectionate aunt, who regarded him as the head of her family, and the heir of the brightest crown in Europe.

It is not to be supposed that the tempest which was gathering around Henry had escaped his attention. On the contrary, he was aware of all that was passing, and with the caution and concealment of his character, he was at work to counteract the operations of his enemies. The first object with him was to convince the public that the real Duke of York had perished at the same time as his brother, Edward V. Nothing, he concluded, would be so effectual for this purpose as the evidence of those who had always been held to be concerned in the death of the young princes. Of five implicated, according to universal belief, two only now survived, namely, Sir James Tyrell--who had taken the place of Sir Robert Brackenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower, during the night of the murder--and John Dighton, one of the actual assassins. These two were secured and interrogated, and their evidence was precisely that which we have stated when relating the murder of the princes. The bodies, therefore, were sought for, but as the chaplain was dead who was supposed to have witnessed their removal, according to the order of Richard III., they could not then be found and produced. The testimony of Tyrell and Dighton, however, was published and circulated as widely as possible, and these two miscreants, after their full and frank avowal of the perpetration of this diabolical murder, were, to the disgrace of the king and of public justice, again allowed to go free. Everyone, however, must perceive at once how important it was to Henry that the real witnesses of that murder should exist, and be forthcoming to confound any one pretending to be either of these princes.

Henry next applied to the Archduke Philip, the son of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, and now sovereign of the Netherlands in his own right, to deliver up to him the impostor, Warbeck, who, he contended, was entertained in his dominions contrary to the existing treaties, and the amity betwixt the two sovereigns. But Margaret had the influence to render his application abortive. Philip professed to have every desire to oblige his great ally, Henry of England, but he pleaded that Margaret was sole ruler in her own states, and, though he might advise her in this matter, he could not control her. Henry resented the polite evasion by stopping all commercial intercourse between England and the Low Countries, by banishing all Flemings from his dominions, and recalling his own subjects from Flanders; and Philip retaliated by issuing similar edicts.

In 1494, several Yorkist lords were arrested and executed, but there remained a conspirator far higher than any who had yet been unveiled--a conspirator where it was least expected, in the immediate vicinity of the throne, and in the person who more than all others, perhaps, had contributed to place Henry upon it. His name stood in the secret list of traitors furnished by spies, but he had been left for a more striking and dramatic discovery, for a dénouement calculated to produce the most startling and profound impression.

After the festivities of Christmas the king took up his residence in the Tower, where he held his council on the 7th of January, 1495. If there was one man more distinguished than another by the royal favour in that august circle, he was Stanley, Lord Chamberlain. Sir William Stanley had burst upon Richard III. at Bosworth Field, at the critical moment, slain his standard-bearer, and, by his followers, killed the tyrant. His brother, Lord Stanley, had put the crown of the fallen monarch on Henry's head. For this he had been created Earl of Derby, and had been allowed to ally himself to the throne by the marriage of Henry's mother, the Countess of Richmond. Sir William had been made Lord Chamberlain, and both brothers had been glutted, as it were, with the wealth and estates of proscribed families. There were no men--not even Fox and Morton--who were supposed to stand so high, not merely in the favour, but in the friendship of Henry. He was suddenly arrested at the council chamber and executed, his vast wealth passing to the Crown.

The fall of Stanley was a paralysing blow to the partisans of Warbeck. They saw that even that great nobleman, while apparently living in the very centre and blaze of royal favour, had been surrounded by spies who watched all his actions, heard his most secret communications, and carried them all to the king. No man who was in any degree implicated felt himself safe. Henry's cautious and severe temper, while it made him hated, made him proportionately feared. Assured by the success which had attended all his measures, Henry every day displayed more and more the grasping avarice of his disposition, and accusations and heavy fines fell thickly around. He fined Sir William Capel, Alderman of London, for some offence, £2,743; and, though he failed to secure the whole, he obtained £1,615. Encouraged by this, he repeated the like attempts; and, while he depressed the nobility, he especially countenanced unprincipled lawyers, as the ready tools of his rapacity. Whilst this conduct, however, kept alive the rancour of many influential people, it rendered the common people passive; for they escaped the oppressions of many petty tyrants, who were kept in check by the one great one. Warbeck's party, therefore, was much disabled. It was now three years since he made his appearance, but, with the exception of his brief visit to Ireland, he had attempted nothing in Henry's dominions. But the Flemings, who were smarting under the restrictions put upon their trade with England, began to murmur loudly, and the Archduke Philip to remonstrate warmly with Margaret on account of the countenance given to the English insurgents.

Under these circumstances it was necessary for Warbeck and his adherents to make an effort of some kind. Taking advantage, therefore, of the absence of Henry on a visit to his mother at Latham House, in Lancashire, Warbeck and a few hundred followers made a descent in July on the coast of Kent, near Deal. It was hoped that Henry's severity would have made numbers ready to join them. The people, indeed, assembled under the guidance of some gentlemen of property, and, professing to favour Warbeck, invited him to come on shore. But he, or those about him, observing that the forces collected had nothing of that tumultuous impetuosity about them which usually characterises insurgents in earnest, kept aloof, and the men of Kent perceiving that they could not draw Warbeck into the snare, fell on his followers already on land, and, besides killing many of them, took 169 prisoners. The rest managed to get on board again, and Warbeck, seeing what sort of a reception England gave him, sailed back with all speed to Flanders. The prisoners were tied together like teams of cattle, and driven to London, where they were all condemned and executed to a man, in various places, some at London and Wapping, some on the coasts of Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Norfolk, where they were gibbeted, as a warning to any fresh adventurers who might appear on those shores.