terms of the peace told strongly for English interests. The restoration of
the towns on the Somme to Burgundy, the cession of Normandy to the king's
brother, Francis, the hostility of Britanny, not only detached the whole
western coast from the hold of Lewis, but forced its possessors to look
for aid to the English king who lay in their rear. Edward himself seemed
at this moment freed from the last danger of revolt at home, for after
some helpless wanderings Henry the Sixth was betrayed into the hands of
his enemies and brought in triumph to London. His feet were tied to the
stirrups, he was led thrice round the pillory, and then sent as a prisoner
to the Tower. But Edward had little time to enjoy his good luck at home
and abroad. No sooner had the army of the League broken up than its work
was undone. The restless genius of Lewis detached prince from prince, won
over the houses of Britanny and Anjou to friendship, snatched back
Normandy in January 1466, and gathered an army in Picardy to meet attack
either from England or Count Charles. From neither however was any serious
danger to be feared. Charles was held at home till the close of the year
by revolts at Liege and Dinant, while a war of factions within Edward's
court distracted the energies of England. The young king had rapidly
followed up the blow of his marriage by raising his wife's family to a
greatness which was meant to balance that of the Nevilles. The queen's
father, Lord Rivers, was made treasurer and constable; her brothers and
sisters were matched with great nobles and heiresses; the heiress of the
Duke of Exeter, Edward's niece, whose hand Warwick sought for his
brother's son, was betrothed to Elizabeth's son by her former marriage.
The king's confidence was given to his new kinsmen, and Warwick saw
himself checked even at the council-board by the influence of the
Woodvilles. Still true to an alliance with France, he was met by their
advocacy of an alliance with Burgundy, where Charles of Charolais through
his father's sickness and age was now supreme. Both powers were equally
eager for English aid. Lewis despatched an envoy to prolong the truce from
his camp on the Somme, and proposed to renew negotiations for a marriage
treaty by seeking the hand of Edward's sister, Margaret, for a French
prince. Though "the thing which Charles hated most," as Commines tells us,
"was the house of York," the stress of politics drew him as irresistibly
to Edward. His wife, Isabella of Bourbon, had died during the war of the
League, and much as such a union was "against his heart," the activity of
Lewis forced him at the close of 1466 to seek to buy English aid by
demanding Margaret's hand in marriage.
[Sidenote: The two Alliances]
It is from this moment that the two great lines of our foreign policy
become settled and defined. In drawing together the states of the Low
Countries into a single political body, the Burgundian Dukes had built up
a power which has ever since served as a barrier against the advance of
France to the north or its mastery of the Rhine. To maintain this power,
whether in the hands of the Dukes or their successors, the Spaniard or the
Emperor, has always been a foremost object of English statesmanship; and
the Burgundian alliance in its earlier or later shapes has been the
constant rival of the alliance with France. At this moment however the
attitude of Burgundy was one rather of attack than of defence. If Charles
did not aim at the direct conquest of France, he looked to such a
weakening of it as would prevent Lewis from hindering the great plan on
which he had set his heart, the plan of uniting his scattered dominions on
the northern and eastern frontier of his rival by the annexation of
Lorraine, and of raising them into a great European power by extending his
dominion along the whole course of the Rhine. His policy was still to
strengthen the great feudatories against the Crown. "I love France so
much," he laughed, "that I had rather it had six kings than one"; and weak
as the league of the Public Weal had proved he was already trying to build
up a new confederacy against Lewis. In this confederacy he strove that
England should take part. Throughout 1466 the English court was the field
for a diplomatic struggle between Charles and Lewis. Warwick pressed
Margaret's marriage with one of the French princes. The marriage with
Charles was backed by the Woodvilles. Edward bore himself between the two
parties with matchless perfidy. Apparently yielding to the counsels of the
Earl, he despatched him in 1467 to treat for peace with Lewis at Rouen.
Warwick was received with honours which marked the importance of his
mission in the French king's eyes. Bishops and clergy went out to meet
him, his attendants received gifts of velvet robes and the rich stuffs of
Rouen, and for twelve days the Earl and Lewis were seen busy in secret
conference. But while the Earl was busy with the French king the Great
Bastard of Burgundy crossed to England, and a sumptuous tourney, in which
he figured with one of the Woodvilles, hardly veiled the progress of
counter-negotiations between Charles and Edward himself. The young king
seized on the honours paid to Warwick as the pretext for an outburst of
jealousy. The seals were suddenly taken from his brother, the Archbishop
of York, and when the Earl himself returned with a draft-treaty,
stipulating a pension from France and a reference of the English claims on
Normandy and Guienne to the Pope's decision, Edward listened coldly and
disavowed his envoy.
[Sidenote: The overthrow of Warwick]
Bitter reproaches on his intrigues with the French king marked even more
vividly the close of Warwick's power. He withdrew from court to his castle
of Middleham, while the conclusion of a marriage-treaty between Charles
and Margaret proved the triumph of his rivals. The death of his father in
the summer of 1467 raised Charles to the Dukedom of Burgundy, and his
diplomatic success in England was followed by preparations for a new
struggle with the French king. In 1468 a formal league bound England,
Burgundy, and Britanny together against Lewis. While Charles gathered an
army in Picardy Edward bound himself to throw a body of troops into the
strong places of Normandy which were held by the Breton Duke; and six
thousand mounted archers under the queen's brother, Anthony, Lord Scales,
were held ready to cross the Channel. Parliament was called together in
May, and the announcement of the Burgundian alliance and of the king's
purpose to recover his heritage over sea was met by a large grant of
supplies from the Commons. In June the pompous marriage of Margaret with
the Burgundian Duke set its seal on Edward's policy. How strongly the
current of national feeling ran in its favour was seen in Warwick's
humiliation. Warwick was helpless. The king's dexterous use of his
conference with Lewis and of the honours he had received from him gave him
the colour of a false Englishman and of a friend to France. Warwick lost
power over the Yorkists. The war party, who formed the bulk of it, went
hotly with the king; the merchants, who were its most powerful support,
leaned to a close connexion with the master of Flanders and the Lower
Rhine. The danger of his position drove Warwick further and further from
his old standing ground; he clung for aid to Lewis; he became the French
king's pensioner and dependent. At the French court he was looked upon
already as a partizan of the House of Lancaster. Edward dexterously seized
on the rumour to cut him off more completely from his old party. He called
on him to confront his accusers; and though Warwick purged himself of the
charge, the stigma remained. The victor of Towton was no longer counted as
a good Yorkist. But, triumphant as he was, Edward had no mind to drive the
Earl into revolt, nor was Warwick ready for revenge. The two subtle
enemies drew together again. The Earl appeared at court; he was formally
reconciled both to the king and to the Woodvilles; as though to announce
his conversion to the Burgundian alliance he rode before the new Duchess
Margaret on her way to the sea. His submission removed the last obstacle
to the king's action, and Edward declared his purpose to take the field in
person against the king of France.
[Sidenote: The Marriage of Clarence]
But at the moment when the danger seemed greatest the quick, hard blows of
Lewis paralyzed the League. He called Margaret from Bar to Harfleur, where
her faithful adherent Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke, prepared to
cross with a small force of French soldiers into Wales. The dread of a
Lancastrian rising should Margaret land in England hindered Lord Scales
from crossing the sea; and marking the slowness with which the Burgundian
troops gathered in Picardy Lewis flung himself in September on the Breton
Duke, reduced him to submission, and exacted the surrender of the Norman
towns which offered an entry for the English troops. His eagerness to
complete his work by persuading Charles to recognize his failure in a
personal interview threw him into the Duke's hands; and though he was
released at the end of the year it was only on humiliating terms. But the
danger from the triple alliance was over; he had bought a fresh peace with
Burgundy, and Edward's hopes of French conquest were utterly foiled. We
can hardly doubt that this failure told on the startling revolution which
marked the following year. Master of Calais, wealthy, powerful as he was,
Warwick had shown by his feigned submission a consciousness that
single-handed he was no match for the king. In detaching from him the
confidence of the Yorkist party which had regarded him as its head, Edward
had robbed him of his strength. But the king was far from having won the
Yorkist party to himself. His marriage with the widow of a slain
Lancastrian, his promotion of a Lancastrian family to the highest honours,
estranged him from the men who had fought his way to the Crown. Warwick
saw that the Yorkists could still be rallied round the elder of Edward's
brothers, the Duke of Clarence; and the temper of Clarence, weak and
greedy of power, hating the Woodvilles, looking on himself as heir to the
crown yet dreading the claims of Edward's daughter Elizabeth, lent itself
to his arts. The spring of 1469 was spent in intrigues to win over
Clarence by offering him the hand of Warwick's elder daughter and
co-heiress, and in preparations for a rising in Lancashire. So secretly
were these conducted that Edward was utterly taken by surprise when
Clarence and the Earl met in July at Calais and the marriage of the Duke
proved the signal for a rising at home.
[Sidenote: Warwick's failure]
The revolt turned out a formidable one. The first force sent against it
was cut to pieces at Edgecote near Banbury, and its leaders, Earl Rivers
and one of the queen's brothers, taken and beheaded. Edward was hurrying
to the support of this advanced body when it was defeated; but on the news
his force melted away and he was driven to fall back upon London. Galled
as he had been by his brother's marriage, the king saw nothing in it save
the greed of Clarence for the Earl's heritage, and it was with little
distrust that he summoned Warwick with the trained troops who formed the
garrison of Calais to his aid. The Duke and Earl at once crossed the
Channel. Gathering troops as they moved, they joined Edward near Oxford,
and the end of their plot was at last revealed. No sooner had the armies
united than Edward found himself virtually a prisoner in Warwick's hands.
But the bold scheme broke down. The Yorkist nobles demanded the king's
liberation. London called for it. The Duke of Burgundy "practised
secretly," says Commines, "that King Edward might escape," and threatened
to break off all trade with Flanders if he were not freed. Warwick could
look for support only to the Lancastrians, but the Lancastrians demanded
Henry's restoration as the price of their aid. Such a demand was fatal to
the plan for placing Clarence on the throne, and Warwick was thrown back
on a formal reconciliation with the king. Edward was freed, and Duke and
Earl withdrew to their estates for the winter. But the impulse which
Warwick had given to his adherents brought about a new rising in the
spring of 1470. A force gathered in Lincolnshire under Sir Robert Welles
with the avowed purpose of setting Clarence on the throne; and Warwick and
the Duke, though summoned to Edward's camp on pain of being held for
traitors, remained sullenly aloof. The king however was now ready for the
strife. A rapid march to the north ended in the rout of the insurgents,
and Edward turned on the instigators of the rising. But Clarence and the
Earl could gather no force to meet him. Yorkist and Lancastrian alike held
aloof, and they were driven to flight. Calais, though held by Warwick's
deputy, repulsed them from its walls, and the Earl's fleet was forced to
take refuge in the harbours of France.
[Sidenote: Warwick in France]
The long struggle seemed at last over. In subtlety as in warlike daring
the young king had proved himself more than a match for the "subtlest man
of men now living." He had driven him to throw himself on "our adversary
of France." Warwick's hold over the Yorkists was all but gone. His own
brothers, the Earl of Northumberland and the Archbishop of York, held with
the king, and Edward counted on the first as a firm friend. Warwick had
lost Calais. Though he still retained his fleet he was forced to support
it by making prizes of Flemish ships, and this involved him in fresh
difficulties. The Duke of Burgundy made the reception of these ships in
French harbours the pretext for a new strife with Lewis; he seized the
goods of French merchants at Bruges and demanded redress. Lewis was in no
humour for risking for so small a matter the peace he had won, and refused
to see or speak with Warwick till the prizes were restored. But he was
soon driven from this neutral position. The violent language of Duke
Charles showed his desire to renew the war with France in the faith that
Warwick's presence at the French court would ensure Edward's support; and
Lewis resolved to prevent such a war by giving Edward work to do at home.
He supplied Warwick with money and men, and pressed him to hasten his
departure for England. "You know," he wrote to an agent, "the desire I
have for Warwick's return to England, as well because I wish to see him
get the better of his enemies as that at least through him the realm of
England may be again thrown into confusion, so as to avoid the questions
which have arisen out of his residence here." But Warwick was too cautious
a statesman to hope to win England with French troops only. His hopes of
Yorkist aid were over with the failure of Clarence; and, covered as he was
with Lancastrian blood, he turned to the House of Lancaster. Margaret was
summoned to the French court; the mediation of Lewis bent her proud spirit
to a reconciliation on Warwick's promise to restore her husband to the
throne, and after a fortnight's struggle she consented at the close of
July to betroth her son to the earl's second daughter, Anne Neville. Such
an alliance shielded Warwick, as he trusted, from Lancastrian vengeance,
but it at once detached Clarence from his cause. Edward had already made
secret overtures to his brother, and though Warwick strove to reconcile
the Duke to his new policy by a provision that in default of heirs to the
son of Margaret Clarence should inherit the throne, the Duke's resentment
drew him back to his brother's side. But whether by Edward's counsel or no
his resentment was concealed; Clarence swore fealty to the house of
Lancaster, and joined in the preparations which Warwick was making for a
landing in England.
[Sidenote: Edward driven out]
What the Earl really counted on was not so much Lancastrian aid as Yorkist
treason. Edward reckoned on the loyalty of Warwick's brothers, the
Archbishop of York and Lord Montagu. The last indeed he "loved," and
Montagu's firm allegiance during his brother's defection seemed to justify
his confidence in him. But in his desire to redress some of the wrongs of
the civil war Edward had utterly estranged the Nevilles. In 1469 he
released Henry Percy from the Tower, and restored to him the title and
estates of his father, the attainted Earl of Northumberland. Montagu had
possessed both as his share of the Yorkist spoil, and though Edward made
him a marquis in amends he had ever since nursed plans of revenge. From
after events it is clear that he had already pledged himself to betray the
king. But his treachery was veiled with consummate art, and in spite of
repeated warnings from Burgundy Edward remained unconcerned at the threats
of invasion. Of the Yorkist party he held himself secure since Warwick's
desertion of their cause; of the Lancastrians he had little fear; and the
powerful fleet of Duke Charles prisoned the Earl's ships in the Norman
harbours. Fortune however was with his foes. A rising called Edward to the
north in September, and while he was engaged in its suppression a storm
swept the Burgundian ships from the Channel. Warwick seized the
opportunity to cross the sea. On the thirteenth of September he landed
with Clarence at Dartmouth, and with an army which grew at every step
pushed rapidly northward to meet the king. Taken as he was by surprise,
Edward felt little dread of the conflict. He relied on the secret promises
of Clarence and on the repeated oaths of the two Nevilles, and called on
Charles of Burgundy to cut off Warwick's retreat by sea after the victory
on which he counted. But the Earl's army no sooner drew near than cries of
"Long live King Henry!" from Montagu's camp announced his treason. Panic
spread through the royal forces; and in the rout that followed Edward
could only fly to the shore, and embarking some eight hundred men who
still clung to him in a few trading vessels which he found there set sail
for the coast of Holland.
[Sidenote: Warwick's triumph]
In a single fortnight Warwick had destroyed a throne. The work of Towton
was undone. The House of Lancaster was restored. Henry the Sixth was drawn
from the Tower to play again the part of king, while his rival could only
appeal as a destitute fugitive to the friendship of Charles the Bold. But
Charles had small friendship to give. His disgust at the sudden overthrow
of his plans for a joint attack on Lewis was quickened by a sense of
danger. England was now at the French king's disposal, and the coalition
of England and Burgundy against France which he had planned seemed likely
to become a coalition of France and England against Burgundy. Lewis indeed
was quick to seize on the new turn of affairs. Thanksgivings were ordered
in every French town. Margaret and her son were feasted royally at Paris.
An embassy crossed the sea to conclude a treaty of alliance, and Warwick
promised that an immediate force of four thousand men should be despatched
to Calais. With English aid the king felt he could become assailant in his
turn; he declared the Duke of Burgundy a rebel, and pushed his army
rapidly to the Somme. How keenly Charles felt his danger was seen in his
refusal to receive Edward at his court, and in his desperate attempts to
conciliate the new English government. His friendship, he said, was not
for this or that English king but for England. He again boasted of his
Lancastrian blood. He despatched the Lancastrian Dukes of Somerset and
Exeter, who had found refuge ever since Towton at his court, to carry fair
words to Margaret. The queen and her son were still at Paris, detained as
it was said by unfavourable winds, but really by the wish of Lewis to hold
a check upon Warwick and by their own distrust of him. Triumphant indeed
as he seemed, the Earl found himself alone in the hour of his triumph. The
marriage of Prince Edward with Anne Neville, which had been promised as
soon as Henry was restored, was his one security against the vengeance of
the Lancastrians, and the continued delays of Margaret showed little
eagerness to redeem her promise. The heads of the Lancastrian party, the
Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, had pledged themselves to Charles the Bold
at their departure from his court to bring about Warwick's ruin. From
Lewis he could look for no further help, for the remonstrances of the
English merchants compelled him in spite of the treaty he had concluded to
keep the troops he had promised against Burgundy at home. Of his own main
supporters Clarence was only waiting for an opportunity of deserting him.
Even his brother Montagu shrank from striking fresh blows to further the
triumph of a party which aimed at the ruin of the Nevilles, and looked
forward with dread to the coming of the queen.
[Sidenote: Fall of Warwick]
The preparations for her departure in March brought matters to a head.
With a French queen on the throne a French alliance became an instant
danger for Burgundy, and Charles was driven to lend a secret ear to
Edward's prayer for aid. Money and ships were placed at his service, and
on the fourteenth of March 1471 the young king landed at Ravenspur on the
estuary of the Humber with a force of two thousand men. In the north all
remained quiet. York opened its gates when Edward professed to be seeking
not the crown but his father's dukedom. Montagu lay motionless at Pomfret
as the little army marched by him to the south. Routing at Newark a force
which had gathered on his flank, Edward pushed straight for Warwick, who
had hurried from London to raise an army in his own county. His forces
were already larger than those of his cousin, but the Earl cautiously
waited within the walls of Coventry for the reinforcements under Clarence
and Montagu which he believed to be hastening to his aid. The arrival of
Clarence however was at once followed by his junction with Edward, and the
offer of "good conditions" shows that Warwick himself was contemplating a
similar treason when the coming of two Lancastrian leaders, the Duke of
Exeter and the Earl of Oxford, put an end to the negotiation. The union of
Montagu with his brother forced Edward to decisive action; he marched upon
London, followed closely by Warwick's army, and found its gates opened by
the perfidy of Archbishop Neville. Again master of Henry of Lancaster who
passed anew to the Tower, Edward sallied afresh from the capital two days
after his arrival with an army strongly reinforced. At early dawn on the
fourteenth of April the two hosts fronted one another at Barnet. A thick
mist covered the field, and beneath its veil Warwick's men fought fiercely
till dread of mutual betrayal ended the strife. Montagu's followers
attacked the Lancastrian soldiers of Lord Oxford, whether as some said
through an error which sprang from the similarity of his cognizance to
that of Edward, or as the Lancastrians alleged while themselves in the act
of deserting to the enemy. Warwick himself was charged with cowardly
flight. In three hours the medley of carnage and treason was over. Four
thousand men lay on the field; and the Earl and his brother were found
among the slain.
[Sidenote: Battle of Tewkesbury]
But the fall of the Nevilles was far from giving rest to Edward. The
restoration of Henry, the return of their old leaders, had revived the
hopes of the Lancastrian party; and in the ruin of Warwick they saw only
the removal of an obstacle to their cause. The great Lancastrian lords had
been looking forward to a struggle with the Earl on Margaret's arrival,
and their jealousy of him was seen in the choice of the queen's
landing-place. Instead of joining her husband and the Nevilles in London
she disembarked from the French fleet at Weymouth, to find the men of the
western counties already flocking to the standards of the Duke of Somerset
and of the Courtenays, the Welsh arming at the call of Jasper Tudor, and
Cheshire and Lancashire only waiting for her presence to rise. A march
upon London with forces such as these would have left Warwick at her mercy
and freed the Lancastrian throne from the supremacy of the Nevilles. The
news of Barnet which followed hard on the queen's landing scattered these
plans to the winds; but the means which had been designed to overawe
Warwick might still be employed against his conqueror. Moving to Exeter to
gather the men of Devonshire and Cornwall, Margaret turned through Taunton
on Bath to hear that Edward was already encamped in her front at
Cirencester. The young king's action showed his genius for war. Barnet was
hardly fought when he was pushing to the west. After a halt at Abingdon to
gain news of Margaret's movements he moved rapidly by Cirencester and
Malmesbury towards the Lancastrians at Bath. But Margaret was as eager to
avoid a battle before her Welsh reinforcements reached her as Edward was
to force one on. Slipping aside to Bristol, and detaching a small body of
troops to amuse the king by a feint upon Sodbury, her army reached
Berkeley by a night-march and hurried forward through the following day to
Tewkesbury. But rapid as their movements had been, they had failed to
outstrip Edward. Marching on an inner line along the open Cotswold country
while his enemy was struggling through the deep and tangled lanes of the
Severn valley, the king was now near enough to bring Margaret to bay; and
the Lancastrian leaders were forced to take their stand on the slopes
south of the town, in a position approachable only through "foul lanes and
deep dykes." Here Edward at once fell on them at daybreak of the fourth of
May. His army, if smaller in numbers, was superior in military quality to
the motley host gathered round the queen, for as at Barnet he had with him
a force of Germans armed with hand-guns, then a new weapon in war, and a
fine train of artillery. It was probably the fire from these that drew
Somerset from the strong position which he held, but his repulse and the
rout of the force he led was followed up with quick decision. A general
advance broke the Lancastrian lines, and all was over. Three thousand were
cut down on the field, and a large number of fugitives were taken in the
town and abbey. To the leaders short shrift was given. Edward was resolute
to make an end of his foes. The fall of the Duke of Somerset extinguished
the male branch of the house of Beaufort. Margaret was a prisoner; and
with the murder of her son after his surrender on the field and the
mysterious death of Henry the Sixth in the Tower which followed the king's
return to the capital the direct line of Lancaster passed away.
[Sidenote: Charles and the Empire]
Edward was at last master of his realm. No noble was likely to measure
swords with the conqueror of the Nevilles. The one rival who could revive
the Lancastrian claims, the last heir of the house of Beaufort, Henry
Tudor, was a boy and an exile. The king was free to display his genius for
war on nobler fields than those of Barnet and Tewkesbury, and for a while
his temper and the passion of his people alike drove him to the strife
with France. But the country was too exhausted to meddle in the attack on
Lewis which Charles, assured at any rate against English hostility,
renewed in 1472 in union with the Dukes of Guienne and Britanny, and which
was foiled as of old through the death of the one ally and the desertion
of the other. The failure aided in giving a turn to his policy, which was
to bring about immense results on the after history of Europe. French as
he was in blood, the nature of his possessions had made Charles from the
first a German prince rather than a French. If he held of Lewis his duchy
of Burgundy, his domain on the Somme, and Flanders west of the Scheldt,
the mass of his dominions was held of the Empire. While he failed too in
extending his power on the one side it widened rapidly on the other. In
war after war he had been unable to gain an inch of French ground beyond
the towns of the Somme. But year after year had seen new gains on his
German frontier. Elsass and the Breisgau passed into his hands as security
for a loan to the Austrian Duke Sigismund; in 1473 he seized Lorraine by
force of arms, and inherited from its Duke Gelderland and the county of
Cleves. Master of the Upper Rhine and Lower Rhine, as well as of a crowd
of German princedoms, Charles was now the mightiest among the princes of
the Empire, and in actual power superior to the Emperor himself. The house
of Austria, in which the Imperial crown seemed to be becoming hereditary,
was weakened by attacks from without as by divisions within, by the loss
of Bohemia and Hungary, by the loss of its hold over German Switzerland,
and still more by the mean and spiritless temper of its Imperial head,
Frederick the Third. But its ambition remained boundless as ever; and in
the Burgundian dominion, destined now to be the heritage of a girl, for
Mary was the Duke's only child, it saw the means of building up a
greatness such as it had never known. Its overtures at once turned the
Duke's ambition from France to Germany. He was ready to give his
daughter's hand to Frederick's son, Maximilian; but his price was that of
succession to the Imperial crown, and his election to the dignity of King
of the Romans. In such an event the Empire and his vast dominions would
pass together at his death to Maximilian, and the aim of the Austrian
House would be realized. It was to negotiate this marriage, a marriage
which in the end was destined to shape the political map of modern Europe,
that Duke and Emperor met in 1473 at Trier.
[Sidenote: Peace with France]
But if Frederick's policy was to strengthen his house the policy of the
princes of the Empire lay in keeping it weak; and their pressure was
backed by suspicions of the Duke's treachery, and of the possibility of a
later marriage whose male progeny might for ever exclude the house of
Austria from the Imperial throne. Frederick's sudden flight broke up the
conference; but Charles was far from relinquishing his plans. To win the
mastery of the whole Rhine valley was the first step in their realization,
and at the opening of 1474 he undertook the siege of Neuss, whose
reduction meant that of Koeln and of the central district which broke his
sway along it. But vast as were the new dreams of ambition which thus
opened before Charles, he had given no open sign of his change of purpose.
Lewis watched his progress on the Rhine almost as jealously as his
attitude on the Somme; and the friendship of England was still of the
highest value as a check on any attempt of France to interrupt his plans.
With this view the Duke maintained his relations with England and fed
Edward's hopes of a joint invasion. In the summer of 1474, on the eve of
his march upon the Rhine, he concluded a treaty for an attack on France
which was to open on his return after the capture of Neuss. Edward was to
recover Normandy and Aquitaine as well as his "kingdom of France";
Champagne and Bar were to be the prizes of Charles. Through the whole of
1474 the English king prepared actively for war. A treaty was concluded
with Britanny. The nation was wild with enthusiasm. Large supplies were
granted by Parliament: and a large army gathered for the coming campaign.
The plan of attack was a masterly one. While Edward moved from Normandy on
Paris, the forces of Burgundy and of Britanny on his right hand and his
left were to converge on the same point. But the aim of Charles in these
negotiations was simply to hold Lewis from any intervention in his
campaign on the Rhine. The siege of Neuss was not opened till the close of
July, and its difficulties soon unfolded themselves. Once master of the
whole Rhineland, the house of Austria saw that Charles would be strong
enough to wrest from it the succession to the Empire; and while Sigismund
paid back his loan and roused Elsass to revolt the Emperor Frederick
brought the whole force of Germany to the relief of the town. From that
moment the siege was a hopeless one, but Charles clung to it with stubborn
pride through autumn, winter, and spring, and it was only at the close of
June 1475 that the menace of new leagues against his dominions on the
upper Rhineland forced him to withdraw. So broken was his army that he
could not, even if he would, have aided in carrying out the schemes of the
preceding year. But an English invasion would secure him from attack by
Lewis till his forces could be reorganized; and with the same unscrupulous
selfishness as of old Charles pledged himself to co-operate and called on
Edward to cross the Channel. In July Edward landed with an army of
twenty-four thousand men at Calais. In numbers and in completeness of
equipment no such force had as yet left English shores. But no Burgundian
force was seen on the Somme; and after long delays Charles proposed that
Edward should advance alone upon Paris on his assurance that the
fortresses of the Somme would open their gates. The English army crossed
the Somme and approached St. Quentin, but it was repulsed from the walls
by a discharge of artillery. It was now the middle of August, and heavy
rains prevented further advance; while only excuses for delay came from
Britanny and it became every day clearer that the Burgundian Duke had no
real purpose to aid. Lewis seized the moment of despair to propose peace
on terms which a conqueror might have accepted, the security of Britanny,
the payment of what the English deemed a tribute of fifty thousand crowns
a year, and the betrothal of Edward's daughter to the Dauphin. A separate
treaty provided for mutual aid in case of revolt among the subjects of
either king; and for mutual shelter should either be driven from his
realm. In spite of remonstrances from the Duke of Burgundy this truce was
signed at the close of August and the English soldiers recrossed the sea.
[Sidenote: Edward's policy]
The desertion of Charles threw Edward, whether he would or no, on the
French alliance; and the ruin of the Duke explains the tenacity with which
he clung to it. Defeated by the Swiss at Morat in the following year,
Charles fell in the opening of 1477 on the field of Nanci, and his vast
dominion was left in his daughter's charge. Lewis seized Picardy and
Artois, the Burgundian duchy and Franche Comte: and strove to gain the
rest by forcing on Mary of Burgundy the hand of the Dauphin. But the
Imperial dreams which had been fatal to Charles had to be carried out
through the very ruin they wrought. Pressed by revolt in Flanders, and by
the French king's greed, Mary gave her hand to the Emperor's son,
Maximilian; and her heritage passed to the Austrian house. Edward took no
part in the war between Lewis and Maximilian which followed on the
marriage. The contest between England and France had drifted into a
mightier European struggle between France and the House of Austria; and
from this struggle the king wisely held aloof. He saw what Henry the
Seventh saw after him, and what Henry the Eighth learned at last to see,
that England could only join in such a contest as the tool of one or other
of the combatants, a tool to be used while the struggle lasted and to be
thrown aside as soon as it was over. With the growth of Austrian power
England was secure from French aggression; and rapidly as Lewis was adding
province after province to his dominions his loyalty to the pledge he had
given of leaving Britanny untouched and his anxiety to conclude a closer
treaty of amity in 1478 showed the price he set on his English alliance.
Nor was Edward's course guided solely by considerations of foreign policy.
A French alliance meant peace; and peace was needful for the plans which
Edward proceeded steadily to carry out. With the closing years of his
reign the Monarchy took a new colour. The introduction of an elaborate spy
system, the use of the rack, and the practice of interference with the
purity of justice gave the first signs of an arbitrary rule which the
Tudors were to develope. It was on his creation of a new financial system
that the king laid the foundation of a despotic rule. Rich, and secure at
home as abroad, Edward had small need to call the Houses together; no
parliament met for five years, and when one was called at last it was
suffered to do little but raise the custom duties, which were now granted
to the king for life. Sums were extorted from the clergy; monopolies were
sold; the confiscations of the civil war filled the royal exchequer;
Edward did not disdain to turn merchant on his own account. The promise of
a French war had not only drawn heavy subsidies from the Commons, much of
which remained in the royal treasury through the abrupt close of the
strife, but enabled the king to deal a deadly blow at the liberty which
the Commons had won. Edward set aside the usage of contracting loans by
authority of parliament; and calling before him the merchants of London,
begged from each a gift or "benevolence" in proportion to the royal needs.
How bitterly this exaction was resented even by the classes with whom the
king had been most popular was seen in the protest which the citizens
addressed to his successor against these "extortions and new impositions
against the laws of God and man and the liberty and laws of this realm."
But for the moment resistance was fruitless, and the "benevolence" of
Edward was suffered to furnish a precedent for the forced loans of Wolsey
and of Charles the First.
[Sidenote: Popularization of knowledge]
In the history of intellectual progress his reign takes a brighter colour.
The founder of a new despotism presents a claim to our regard as the
patron of Caxton. It is in the life of the first English printer that we
see the new upgrowth of larger and more national energies which were to
compensate for the decay of the narrower energies of the Middle Age.
Beneath the mouldering forms of the old world a new world was bursting
into life; if the fifteenth century was an age of death it was an age of
birth as well, of that new birth, that Renascence, from which the after
life of Europe was to flow. The force which till now concentrated itself
in privileged classes was beginning to diffuse itself through nations. The
tendency of the time was to expansion, to diffusion. The smaller gentry
and the merchant class rose in importance as the nobles fell. Religion and
morality passed out of the hands of the priesthood into those of the
laity. Knowledge became vulgarized, it stooped to lower and meaner forms
that it might educate the whole people. England was slow to catch the
intellectual fire which was already burning brightly across the Alps, but
even amidst the turmoil of its wars and revolutions intelligence was being
more widely spread. While the older literary class was dying out, a glance
beneath the surface shows us the stir of a new interest in knowledge
amongst the masses of the people itself. The very character of the
authorship of the time, its love of compendiums and abridgements of such
scientific and historical knowledge as the world believed it possessed,
its dramatic performances or mysteries, the commonplace morality of its
poets, the popularity of its rimed chronicles, are proof that literature
was ceasing to be the possession of a purely intellectual class, and was
beginning to appeal to the nation at large. The correspondence of the
Paston family not only displays a fluency and grammatical correctness
which would have been impossible a few years before, but shows country
squires discussing about books and gathering libraries. The increased use
of linen paper in place of the costlier parchment helped in the
popularization of letters. In no former age had finer copies of books been
produced; in none had so many been transcribed. This increased demand for
their production caused the processes of copying and illuminating
manuscripts to be transferred from the scriptoria of the religious houses
into the hands of trade-gilds like the Gild of St. John at Bruges or the
Brothers of the Pen at Brussels. It was in fact this increase of demand
for books, pamphlets, or fly-sheets, especially of a grammatical or
religious character, in the middle of the fifteenth century that brought
about the introduction of printing. We meet with the first records of the
printer's art in rude sheets struck off from wooden blocks, "block-books"
as they are now called. Later on came the vast advance of printing from
separate and moveable types. Originating at Maintz with the three famous
printers, Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer, this new process travelled
southward to Strassburg, crossed the Alps to Venice, where it lent itself
through the Aldi to the spread of Greek literature in Europe, and then
floated down the Rhine to the towns of Flanders.
[Sidenote: Caxton]
It was probably at the press of Colard Mansion, in a little room over the
porch of St. Donat's at Bruges, that William Caxton learned the art which
he was the first to introduce into England. A Kentish boy by birth, but
apprenticed to a London mercer, Caxton had already spent thirty years of
his manhood in Flanders as Governor of the English gild of Merchant
Adventurers there when we find him engaged as copyist in the service of
Edward's sister, Duchess Margaret of Burgundy. But the tedious process of
copying was soon thrown aside for the new art which Colard Mansion had
introduced into Bruges. "For as much as in the writing of the same,"
Caxton tells us in the preface to his first printed work, the Tales of
Troy, "my pen is worn, my hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyes dimmed
with over much looking on the white paper, and my courage not so prone and
ready to labour as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me daily and
feebleth all the body, and also because I have promised to divers
gentlemen and to my friends to address to them as hastily as I might the
said book, therefore I have practised and learned at my great charge and
dispense to ordain this said book in print after the manner and form as ye
may see, and is not written with pen and ink as other books be, to the end
that every man may have them at once, for all the books of this story here
emprynted as ye see were begun in one day and also finished in one day."
The printing-press was the precious freight he brought back to England in
1476 after an absence of five-and-thirty years. Through the next fifteen,
at an age when other men look for ease and retirement, we see him plunging
with characteristic energy into his new occupation. His "red pale," or
heraldic shield marked with a red bar down the middle, invited buyers to
the press he established in the Almonry at Westminster, a little enclosure
containing a chapel and almshouses near the west front of the church,
where the alms of the abbey were distributed to the poor. "If it please
any man, spiritual or temporal," runs his advertisement, "to buy any pyes
of two or three commemorations of Salisbury use emprynted after the form
of the present letter, which be well and truly correct, let him come to
Westminster into the Almonry at the red pale, and he shall have them good
chepe." Caxton was a practical man of business, as this advertisement
shows, no rival of the Venetian Aldi or of the classical printers of Rome,
but resolved to get a living from his trade, supplying priests with
service books and preachers with sermons, furnishing the clerk with his
"Golden Legend" and knight and baron with "joyous and pleasant histories
of chivalry." But while careful to win his daily bread, he found time to
do much for what of higher literature lay fairly to hand. He printed all
the English poetry of any moment which was then in existence. His
reverence for that "worshipful man, Geoffrey Chaucer," who "ought to be
eternally remembered," is shown not merely by his edition of the
"Canterbury Tales," but by his reprint of them when a purer text of the
poem offered itself. The poems of Lydgate and Gower were added to those of
Chaucer. The Chronicle of Brut and Higden's "Polychronicon" were the only
available works of an historical character then existing in the English
tongue, and Caxton not only printed them but himself continued the latter
up to his own time. A translation of Boethius, a version of the AEneid from
the French, and a tract or two of Cicero, were the stray first-fruits of
the classical press in England.
[Sidenote: Caxton's work]
Busy as was Caxton's printing-press, he was even busier as a translator
than as a printer. More than four thousand of his printed pages are from
works of his own rendering. The need of these translations shows the
popular drift of literature at the time; but, keen as the demand seems to
have been, there is nothing mechanical in the temper with which Caxton
prepared to meet it. A natural, simple-hearted taste and enthusiasm,
especially for the style and forms of language, breaks out in his curious
prefaces. "Having no work in hand," he says in the preface to his AEneid,
"I sitting in my study where as lay many divers pamphlets and books,
happened that to my hand came a little book in French, which late was
translated out of Latin by some noble clerk of France--which book is named
Eneydos, and made in Latin by that noble poet and great clerk Vergyl--in
which book I had great pleasure by reason of the fair and honest termes
and wordes in French which I never saw to-fore-like, none so pleasant nor
so well ordered, which book as me seemed should be much requisite for
noble men to see, as well for the eloquence as the histories; and when I
had advised me to this said book I deliberated and concluded to translate
it into English, and forthwith took a pen and ink and wrote a leaf or
twain." But the work of translation involved a choice of English which
made Caxton's work important in the history of our language. He stood
between two schools of translation, that of French affectation and English
pedantry. It was a moment when the character of our literary tongue was
being settled, and it is curious to see in his own words the struggle over
it which was going on in Caxton's time. "Some honest and great clerks have
been with me and desired me to write the most curious terms that I could
find"; on the other hand, "some gentlemen of late blamed me, saying that
in my translations I had over many curious terms which could not be
understood of common people, and desired me to use old and homely terms in
my translations." "Fain would I please every man," comments the
good-humoured printer, but his sturdy sense saved him alike from the
temptations of the court and the schools. His own taste pointed to
English, but "to the common terms that be daily used" rather than to the
English of his antiquarian advisers. "I took an old book and read therein,
and certainly the English was so rude and broad I could not well
understand it," while the Old-English charters which the Abbot of
Westminster lent as models from the archives of his house seemed "more
like to Dutch than to English." To adopt current phraseology however was
by no means easy at a time when even the speech of common talk was in a
state of rapid flux. "Our language now used varieth far from that which
was used and spoken when I was born." Not only so, but the tongue of each
shire was still peculiar to itself and hardly intelligible to men of
another county. "Common English that is spoken in one shire varieth from
another so much, that in my days happened that certain merchants were in a
ship in Thames for to have sailed over the sea into Zealand, and for lack
of wind they tarried at Foreland and went on land for to refresh them. And
one of them, named Sheffield, a mercer, came into a house and asked for
meat, and especially he asked them after eggs. And the good wife answered
that she could speak no French. And the merchant was angry, for he also
could speak no French, but would have eggs, but she understood him not.
And then at last another said he would have eyren, then the good wife said
she understood him well. Lo! what should a man in these days now write,"
adds the puzzled printer, "eggs or eyren? certainly it is hard to please
every man by cause of diversity and change of language." His own
mother-tongue too was that of "Kent in the Weald, where I doubt not is
spoken as broad and rude English as in any place in England"; and coupling
this with his long absence in Flanders we can hardly wonder at the
confession he makes over his first translation, that "when all these
things came to fore me, after that I had made and written a five or six
quires, I fell in despair of this work, and purposed never to have
continued therein, and the quires laid apart, and in two years after
laboured no more in this work." He was still however busy translating when
he died. All difficulties in fact were lightened by the general interest
which his labours aroused. When the length of the "Golden Legend" makes
him "half desperate to have accomplished it" and ready to "lay it apart,"
the Earl of Arundel solicits him in no wise to leave it and promises a
yearly fee of a buck in summer and a doe in winter, once it were done.
"Many noble and divers gentle men of this realm came and demanded many and
often times wherefore I have not made and imprinted the noble history of
the 'San Graal.'" We see his visitors discussing with the sagacious
printer the historic existence of Arthur. Duchess Margaret of Somerset
lent him her "Blanchardine and Eglantine"; an Archdeacon of Colchester
brought him his translation of the work called "Cato"; a mercer of London
pressed him to undertake the "Royal Book" of Philip le Bel. Earl Rivers
chatted with him over his own translation of the "Sayings of the
Philosophers." Even kings showed their interest in his work; his "Tully"
was printed under the patronage of Edward the Fourth, his "Order of
Chivalry" dedicated to Richard the Third, his "Fayts of Arms" published at
the desire of Henry the Seventh. Caxton profited in fact by the wide
literary interest which was a mark of the time. The fashion of large and
gorgeous libraries had passed from the French to the English princes of
his day: Henry the Sixth had a valuable collection of books; that of the
Louvre was seized by Duke Humphrey of Gloucester and formed the basis of
the fine library which he presented to the University of Oxford. Great
nobles took an active and personal part in the literary revival. The
warrior, Sir John Fastolf, was a well-known lover of books. Earl Rivers
was himself one of the authors of the day; he found leisure in the
intervals of pilgrimages and politics to translate the "Sayings of the
Philosophers" and a couple of religious tracts for Caxton's press. A
friend of far greater intellectual distinction however than these was
found in John Tiptoft Earl of Worcester. He had wandered during the reign
of Henry the Sixth in search of learning to Italy, had studied at her
universities and become a teacher at Padua, where the elegance of his
Latinity drew tears from the most learned of the Popes, Pius the Second,
better known as AEneas Sylvius. Caxton can find no words warm enough to
express his admiration of one "which in his time flowered in virtue and
cunning, to whom I know none like among the lords of the temporality in
science and moral virtue." But the ruthlessness of the Renascence appeared
in Tiptoft side by side with its intellectual vigour, and the fall of one
whose cruelty had earned him the surname of "the Butcher" even amidst the
horrors of civil war was greeted with sorrow by none but the faithful
printer. "What great loss was it," he says in a preface printed long after
his fall, "of that noble, virtuous, and well-disposed lord; when I
remember and advertise his life, his science, and his virtue, me thinketh
(God not displeased) over great the loss of such a man considering his
estate and cunning."
[Sidenote: Richard of Gloucester]
Among the nobles who encouraged the work of Caxton was the king's youngest
brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester. Edward had never forgiven Clarence
his desertion; and his impeachment in 1478 on a charge of treason, a
charge soon followed by his death in the Tower, brought Richard nearer to
the throne. Ruthless and subtle as Edward himself, the Duke was already
renowned as a warrior; his courage and military skill had been shown at
Barnet and Tewkesbury; and at the close of Edward's reign an outbreak of
strife with the Scots enabled him to march in triumph upon Edinburgh in
1482. The sudden death of his brother called Richard at once to the front.
Worn with excesses, though little more than forty years old, Edward died
in the spring of 1483, and his son Edward the Fifth succeeded peacefully
to the throne. The succession of a boy of thirteen woke again the fierce
rivalries of the court. The Woodvilles had the young king in their hands;
but Lord Hastings, the chief adviser of his father, at once joined with
Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham, the heir of Edward the Third's
youngest son and one of the greatest nobles of the realm, to overthrow
them. The efforts of the queen-mother to obtain the regency were foiled,
Lord Rivers and two Woodvilles were seized and sent to the block, and the
king transferred to the charge of Richard, who was proclaimed by a great
council of bishops and nobles Protector of the Realm. But if he hated the
queen's kindred Hastings was as loyal as the Woodvilles themselves to the
children of Edward the Fourth; and the next step of the two Dukes was to
remove this obstacle. Little more than a month had passed after the
overthrow of the Woodvilles when Richard suddenly entered the
Council-chamber and charged Hastings with sorcery and attempts upon his
life. As he dashed his hand upon the table the room filled with soldiery.
"I will not dine," said the Duke, turning to the minister, "till they have
brought me your head." Hastings was hurried to execution in the courtyard
of the Tower, his fellow-counsellors thrown into prison, and the last
check on Richard's ambition was removed. Buckingham lent him his aid in a
claim of the crown; and on the twenty-fifth of June the Duke consented
after some show of reluctance to listen to the prayer of a Parliament
hastily gathered together, which, setting aside Edward's children as the
fruit of an unlawful marriage and those of Clarence as disabled by his
attainder, besought him to take the office and title of king.
[Sidenote: Henry Tudor]
Violent as his acts had been, Richard's career had as yet jarred little
with popular sentiment. The Woodvilles were unpopular, Hastings was
detested as the agent of Edward's despotism, the reign of a child-king was
generally deemed impossible. The country, longing only for peace after all
its storms, called for a vigorous and active ruler; and Richard's vigour
and ability were seen in his encounter with the first danger that
threatened his throne. The new revolution had again roused the hopes of
the Lancastrian party. With the deaths of Henry the Sixth and his son all
the descendants of Henry the Fourth passed away; but the line of John of
Gaunt still survived in the heir of the Beauforts. The legality of the
royal act which barred their claim to the crown was a more than
questionable one; the Beauforts had never admitted it, and the conduct of
Henry the Sixth in his earlier years points to a belief in their right of
succession. Their male line was extinguished by the fall of the last Duke
of Somerset at Tewkesbury, but the claim of the house was still maintained
by the son of Margaret Beaufort, the daughter of Duke John and
great-grand-daughter of John of Gaunt. While still but a girl Margaret had
become both wife and mother. She had wedded the Earl of Richmond, Edmund
Tudor, a son of Henry the Fifth's widow, Katharine of France, by a
marriage with a Welsh squire, Owen Tudor; and had given birth to a son,
the later Henry the Seventh. From very childhood the life of Henry had
been a troubled one. His father died in the year of his birth; his uncle
and guardian, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, was driven from the realm on the
fall of the House of Lancaster; and the boy himself, attainted at five
years old, remained a prisoner till the restoration of Henry the Sixth by
Lord Warwick. But Edward's fresh success drove him from the realm, and
escaping to Britanny he was held there, half-guest, half-prisoner, by its
Duke. The extinction of the direct Lancastrian line had given Henry a new
importance. Edward the Fourth never ceased to strive for his surrender,
and if the Breton Duke refused to give him up, his alliance with the
English king was too valuable to be imperilled by suffering him to go
free. The value of such a check on Richard was seen by Lewis of France;
and his demands for Henry's surrender into his hands drove the Duke of
Britanny, who was now influenced by a minister in Richard's pay, to seek
for aid from England. In June the king sent a thousand archers to
Britanny; but the troubles of the Duchy had done more for Henry than Lewis
could have done. The nobles rose against Duke and minister; and in the
struggle that followed the young Earl was free to set sail as he would.
[Sidenote: Richard's reign]
He found unexpected aid in the Duke of Buckingham, whose support had done
much to put Richard on the throne. Though rewarded with numerous grants
and the post of Constable, Buckingham's greed was still unsated; and on
the refusal of his demand of the lands belonging to the earldom of
Hereford the Duke lent his ear to the counsels of Margaret Beaufort, who
had married his brother, Henry Stafford, but still remained true to the
cause of her boy. Buckingham looked no doubt to the chance of fooling
Yorkist and Lancastrian alike, and of pressing his own claims to the
throne on Richard's fall. But he was in the hands of subtler plotters.
Morton, the exiled Bishop of Ely, had founded a scheme of union on the
disappearance of Edward the Fifth and his brother, who had been imprisoned
in the Tower since Richard's accession to the throne, and were now
believed to have been murdered by his orders. The death of the boys left
their sister Elizabeth, who had taken sanctuary at Westminster with her
mother, the heiress of Edward the Fourth; and the scheme of Morton was to
unite the discontented Yorkists with what remained of the Lancastrian
party by the marriage of Elizabeth with Henry Tudor. The queen-mother and
her kindred gave their consent to this plan, and a wide revolt was
organized under Buckingham's leadership. In October 1483 the Woodvilles
and their adherents rose in Wiltshire, Kent, and Berkshire, the Courtenays
in Devon, while Buckingham marched to their support from Wales. Troubles
in Britanny had at this moment freed Henry Tudor, and on the news of the
rising he sailed with a strong fleet and five thousand soldiers on board.
A proclamation of the new pretender announced to the nation what seems as
yet to have been carefully hidden, the death of the princes in the Tower.
But, whether the story was believed or no, the duration of the revolt was
too short for it to tell upon public opinion. Henry's fleet was driven
back by a storm, Buckingham was delayed by a flood in the Severn, and the
smaller outbreaks were quickly put down. Richard showed little inclination
to deal roughly with the insurgents. Buckingham indeed was beheaded, but
the bulk of his followers were pardoned, and the overthrow of her hopes
reconciled the queen-mother to the king. She quitted the sanctuary with
Elizabeth, and thus broke up the league on which Henry's hopes hung. But
Richard was too wary a statesman to trust for safety to mere force of
arms. He resolved to enlist the nation on his side. During his brother's
reign he had watched the upgrowth of public discontent as the new policy
of the monarchy developed itself, and he now appealed to England as the
restorer of its ancient liberties. "We be determined," said the citizens
of London in a petition to the king, "rather to adventure and to commit us
to the peril of our lives and jeopardy of death than to live in such
thraldom and bondage as we have lived some time heretofore, oppressed and
injured by extortions and new impositions against the laws of God and man
and the liberty and laws of this realm wherein every Englishman is
inherited." Richard met the appeal by convoking Parliament in January
1484, and by sweeping measures of reform. The practice of extorting money
by benevolences was declared illegal, while grants of pardons and
remissions of forfeitures reversed in some measure the policy of terror by
which Edward at once held the country in awe and filled his treasury.
Numerous statutes broke the slumbers of Parliamentary legislation. A
series of mercantile enactments strove to protect the growing interests of
English commerce. The king's love of literature showed itself in a
provision that no statutes should act as a hindrance "to any artificer or
merchant stranger, of what nation or country he be, for bringing into this
realm or selling by retail or otherwise of any manner of books, written or
imprinted." His prohibition of the iniquitous seizure of goods before
conviction of felony which had prevailed during Edward's reign, his
liberation of the bondmen who still remained unenfranchised on the royal
domain, and his religious foundations show Richard's keen anxiety to
purchase a popularity in which the bloody opening of his reign might be
forgotten.
[Sidenote: Bosworth Field]
It was doubtless the same wish to render his throne popular which led
Richard to revive the schemes of a war with France. He had strongly
remonstrated against his brother's withdrawal and alliance in 1475, and it
must have been rather a suspicion of his warlike designs than any horror
at the ruthlessness of his ambition which led Lewis the Eleventh on his
death-bed to refuse to recognize his accession. At the close of Edward the
Fourth's reign the alliance which had bound the two countries together was
brought to an end by the ambition and faithlessness of the French king.
The war between Lewis and Maximilian ended at the close of 1482 through
the sudden death of Mary of Burgundy and the reluctance of the Flemish
towns to own Maximilian's authority as guardian of her son, Philip, the
heir of the Burgundian states. Lewis was able to conclude a treaty at
Arras, by which Philip's sister, Margaret, was betrothed to the Dauphin
Charles, and brought with her as dower the counties of Artois and
Burgundy. By the treaty with England Charles was already betrothed to
Edward's daughter, Elizabeth; and this open breach of treaty was followed
by the cessation of the subsidy which had been punctually paid since 1475.
France in fact had no more need of buying English neutrality. Galled as he
was, Edward's death but a few months later hindered any open quarrel, but
the refusal of Lewis to recognize Richard and his attempts to force from
Britanny the surrender of Henry Tudor added to the estrangement of the two
courts; and we can hardly wonder that on the death of the French king only
a few months after his accession Richard seized the opportunity which the
troubles at the French court afforded him. Charles the Eighth was a minor;
and the control of power was disputed as of old between the Regent, Anne
of Beaujeu, and the Duke of Orleans. Orleans entered into correspondence
with Richard and Maximilian, whom Anne's policy was preventing from
gaining the mastery over the Low Countries, and preparations were making
for a coalition which would have again brought an English army and the
young English king on to the soil of France. It was to provide against
this danger that Anne had received Henry Tudor at the French court when
the threat of delivering him up to Richard forced him to quit Britanny
after the failure of his first expedition; and she met the new coalition
by encouraging the Earl to renew his attack. Had Richard retained his
popularity the attempt must have ended in a failure even more disastrous
than before. But the news of the royal children's murder had slowly spread
through the nation, and even the most pitiless shrank aghast before this
crowning deed of blood. The pretence of a constitutional rule too was soon
thrown off, and in the opening of 1485 a general irritation was caused by
the levy of benevolences in defiance of the statute which had just been
passed. The king felt himself safe; the consent of the queen-mother to his
contemplated marriage with her daughter Elizabeth appeared to secure him
against any danger from the discontented Yorkists; and Henry, alone and in
exile, seemed a small danger. Henry however had no sooner landed at
Milford Haven than a wide conspiracy revealed itself. Lord Stanley had as
yet stood foremost among Richard's adherents; he had supported him in the
rising of 1483 and had been rewarded with Buckingham's post of Constable.
His brother too stood high in the king's confidence. But Margaret
Beaufort, again left a widow, wedded Lord Stanley; and turned her third
marriage, as she had turned her second, to the profit of her boy. A pledge
of support from her husband explains the haste with which Henry pressed
forward to his encounter with the king. The treason however was skilfully
veiled; and though defection after defection warned Richard of his danger
as Henry moved against him, the Stanleys still remained by his side and
held command of a large body of his forces. But the armies no sooner met
on the twenty-second of August at Bosworth Field in Leicestershire than
their treason was declared. The forces under Lord Stanley abandoned the
king when the battle began; a second body of troops under the Earl of
Northumberland drew off as it opened. In the crisis of the fight Sir
William Stanley passed over to Henry's side. With a cry of "Treason!
treason!" Richard flung himself into the thick of the battle, and in the
fury of his despair he had already dashed the Lancastrian standard to the
ground and hewed his way into the presence of his rival when he fell
overpowered with numbers, and the crown which he had worn and which was
found as the struggle ended lying near a hawthorn bush was placed on the
head of the conqueror.