KING EDWARD'S DEATH.
For some years after the treaty of Picquigny, Edward of York, trusting
to the friendship and relying on the pension of King Louis, passed
his time in inglorious ease; and Elizabeth Woodville, elate with the
prospect of her daughter sharing the throne of a Valois, persisted in
pestering the crafty monarch of France with inquiries when she was to
send him her young dauphiness. Meanwhile, Louis, who had no intention
whatever of maintaining faith with the King of England one day longer
than prudence dictated, was looking about for a more advantageous
alliance for the heir to his throne.
After appearing for some time utterly unsuspicious, Edward, in 1480,
resolved on sending an embassador to Paris, and Sir John Howard was
selected as the man to urge a speedy celebration of the marriage.
The plans of Louis were not then quite ripe, but his statecraft did
not desert him; and, at length, after Howard had for some time been
silenced by bribes, and Edward deluded by flattering assurances, he set
the treaty of Picquigny at defiance, and contracted a marriage between
the dauphin and a daughter of the Emperor Maximilian.
Fortunately for Louis, Edward was a much less formidable personage
than of yore. Since returning from his French expedition, the English
king had given himself up to luxury and indolence. He had drunk deep,
kept late hours, sat long over the wine-cup, and gratified his sensual
inclinations with little regard either to his dignity as a king or his
honor as a man. Dissipation and debauchery had ruined his health and
obscured his intellect. Even his appearance was changed for the worse.
His person had become corpulent, and his figure had lost its grace. He
was no longer the Edward of Towton or of Tewkesbury.
On discovering, however, how completely he had been duped, Edward
displayed some sparks of the savage valor which, in other days, had
made him so terrible a foe. Rousing himself to projects of revenge, he
vowed to carry such a war into France as that country had never before
experienced, and commenced preparations for executing his threats. As
his resentment appeared implacable, Louis deemed it prudent to find him
work nearer home; and, with this object, excited the King of Scots to
undertake a war against England.
Some successes achieved by Gloucester in Scotland emboldened Edward
in his projects. It happened, however, that he did not live even to
attempt the execution of his threats. The excess of his rage against
Louis had been such as seriously to affect his health; and, about
Easter, 1483, in his forty-second year, the warlike king was laid
prostrate with a fever in the Palace of Westminster. Stretched on a bed
of sickness, the king found his constitution rapidly giving way; and,
losing faith in the skill of his physicians, he referred his quarrel
with Louis to the judgment of GOD, and summoned the lords of his court
to bid them farewell.
The king, indeed, could not fail to be anxious as to the fortunes of
the family he was leaving. Ever since his ill-starred marriage the
court had been distracted by the feuds of the queen's kindred and the
old nobility of England. The death of Warwick and the judicial murder
of Clarence had by no means restored harmony. At the head of one party
figured the queen's brother, Earl Rivers, and her son, the Marquis of
Dorset; at the head of the other was the Duke of Buckingham, with whom
sided the Lords Stanley and Hastings. Difficult as the task might be,
Edward hoped to reconcile the hostile factions ere going to his grave.
When the lords appeared in the king's chamber, and assembled around his
bed, Edward addressed to them an impressive speech. Having indicated
his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as the fittest person to be
Protector of the realm, he expressed much anxiety about the affairs of
his kingdom and family, pointed out the perils of discord in a state,
and lamented that it had been his lot "to win the courtesy of men's
knees by the fall of so many heads." After thus smoothing the way, as
it were, he put it to his lords, as a last request, that they should
lay aside all variance, and love one another. At this solemn appeal
the lords acted their parts with a decorum which imposed on the dying
man. Two celebrated characters, indeed, were absent, whose talents for
dissimulation could not have failed to distinguish them. Gloucester was
on the borders of Scotland, and Rivers on the marches of Wales; so that
Richard Plantagenet, with his dark guile, and Anthony Woodville, with
his airy pretensions, were wanting to complete the scene. But Hastings,
Dorset, and others, though their hearts were far asunder, shook hands
and embraced with every semblance of friendship; and the king dismissed
them with the idea that he had effected a reconciliation.
His affairs on earth thus settled, as he believed, Edward proceeded
to make his peace with heaven. Having received such consolations as
the Church administers to frail men when they are going to judgment,
and committed his soul to the mercy of GOD, Edward awaited the coming
of the Great Destroyer. On the 9th of April his hour arrived; and,
complaining of drowsiness, he turned on his side. While in that
position he fell into the sleep that knows no breaking; and his spirit,
which had so often luxuriated in carnage and strife, departed in peace.
On the day when the king breathed his last he lay exposed in the
Palace of Westminster, that the lords, temporal and spiritual, and
the municipal functionaries of London might have an opportunity of
ascertaining that he had not been murdered. This ceremony over, the
body was seared and removed to St. Stephen's Chapel, and there watched
by nobles, while masses were sung.
Windsor had been selected as the place of interment. Ere being conveyed
to its last resting-place, however, the corpse, covered with cloth of
gold, was carried to the Abbey of Westminster under a rich canopy of
cloth imperial, supported by four knights, Sir John Howard bearing the
banner in front of the procession, and the officers of arms walking
around. Mass having been again performed at Westminster, the mortal
remains of the warrior-king were placed in a chariot drawn by six
horses, and conveyed, by slow stages, along the banks of the Thames.
Having been met at the gates of Windsor, and perfumed with odors by the
Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester the corpse was borne
in solemn procession to the Chapel of St. George, where, placed in the
choir, on a hearse blazing with lights and surrounded with banners, it
was watched for the night by nobles and esquires. Another mass, more
religious solemnities, a few more ceremonies befitting the rank of the
deceased, and the last Plantagenet whose obsequies were performed with
royal honors was committed to the tomb.