thinking, assumed an air of regret, and said, "It was a thousand pities-it would have been a most charming thing, but, unfortunately, he was afraid it would be very long before it could take place, for he must now proceed to the frontiera to prosecute the necessary resistance to the Duke of Burgundy."

secresy, saying, "It is but just that I should pay the penalty of my talkativeness."

The people were very much of the French Ling's opinion, that their own monarch had been sadly overreached. The army, which on its return was disbanded. promoted this feeling every where. The soldiers camo The treaty being signed, Gloucester, and some other of back disappointed of the plunder of France, and accord. the chief nobility who were averse to the peace, and there-ingly vented their chagrin on the king and his courtiers, foro would not attend the meeting of the kings, now rode who for their private emolument had scld, they said, the into Amiens to pay their court to him, and Louis received honour of the nation. As to the general terms of the them with that air of pleasure which he could so easily peace, the people had good cause to be satisfied. It was put on, entertained them luxuriously, and presented them much better for the nation to be leit at liberty to pursue with rich gifts of plate and horses. its profitable trade, than to be year after year drained of its substance to carry on a useless war. But the real cause of discontent was the annual bribe, which bound the king and his court to wink at any proceedings of France on the Continent, against our allies and commercial connections, and even to suffer intrusions on our own trade and interests, rather than incur the danger of losing the pay of the French king.

Thus was this singular treaty concluded, and each monarch thought most advantageously to himself. Edward had paid off the Duke of Burgundy for his neglecting to fulfil his agreement as to the campaign, and he now sent the duke word, patronisingly, that if he wished, he would get a similar truce for him; to which Burgundy sent an indignant answer. Edward had, moreover, got a good round sum of money to pay his army, and a yearly income of 50,000 crowns for life. Like Charles II. afterwards, he did not trouble himself about the disgrace and disadvantage of having made himself a pensioner on France. Besides this, he had arranged to sc his eldest daughter on the French throne after Louis's decease.

Louis, on his part, was so transported with his management of the affair, that, spite of his habitual caution, he could not avoid laughing and chuckling over it amongst his courtiers. True, he had spent some money, and made some promises. As to the promises, their nature was proverbial; and as to the money, it did not amount to a tithe of what he must have spent in the war, to say nothing of the evil chances which might follow a contention with the English again, and with a king always victorious. That money had cleared France of the English army, broken up the alliance with Burgundy and Brittany, left those princes now very much at his mercy, and, more than all, had tied the hands of the pleasure-loving King of England for life. To make sure work of it, Louis had not only bribed the monarch, but all the influential courtiers round him. He had agreed to pay yearly 16,000 crowns to some of the chief nobility of England. Lord Edward Hastings, Edward's great favourite, was to receive 2,000 crowns annually; the Chancellor 2,000, and the Marquis of Dorset, the Lords Howard and Cheney, Sir Thomas Montgomery, Sir Thomas St. Leger, and a few others, divided amongst them the remaing 12,000 of this really treasonable bounty money. So well aware were they of the odious nature of the payment, that Lord Hastings, though he received it as greedily as the rest, never would commit himself by signing a receipt. Well might that strange monarch, the despicable, truckling, tricky, but cunning Louis, express in private his unbounded contempt of both Edward and his courtiers. He strictly onjoined his own courtiers, however they might laugh at the English dupes in private, they must be careful never to let them perceive any signs of their mockery and derision; and perceiving on one occasion, when his exultation had made him talk too freely, that a boastful Gascon was present, he immediately gave him inost advantageous preferment, to bind him to

Edward endeavoured to silence these murmurs by severity. He sent amongst the people agents who reported any offensive language, and he punished offenders without mercy. At the same time, he extended an equally stern hand towards all disturbers of the peace; the disbanded soldiers having collected into hordes, and spread murder and rapine through several of the counties. Seeing, however, that such was the general discontent, that should some Wat Tyler or Jack Cade ariss, the consequences might be terrible, he determined to case the burdens of the people at the expense of the higher classes. He therefore ordered a rigorous exaction of the customs; laid frequent tenths on the clergy; resumed many of the estates of the crown; and compelled the holders of estates to compound by heavy fines for the omission of any of their duties as feudal tenants. moreover entered boldly into trade. mitting his ships to lie rotting in port, as he had no occasion for them as transport vessels, he sent out in them wool, tin, cloth, and other merchandise, and brought back from the ports of the Levant their products. By all these means Edward became the most wealthy monarch of Europe, and while he grew very soon popular with the people, who felt the weight of taxation annually decreasing, he became equally formidable to those who had more reason to complain.

He Instead of per

But however generally prosperous was the remainder of Edward's reign, it was to himself filled with the deepest causes of grief and remorse. The part which his brother Clarence had taken, his allying himself to Warwick, with the design to depose Edward and secure the crown to himself, could never be forgotten. He Li been named the successor to the Prince of Vales, son of Henry VI., and, should anything happen to Edward, might assert that claim to the prejudice of his own son. Still further, Clarence had given mortal offence to the queen. Her father and her brother had been put to death in Clarence's name. Her brother Antony, afterwards, had narrowly escrd the same fate from the orders of Claronce. He h been forward in the charge of sorcery against her mother, the Duchess Jacquetta Scarcely less had he incensed his brother Richard Gloucester, the vindictive and never-forgiving, by his

the reluctant parties thus forced to disgorge some of his | from his grief for the loss of his wife, and made zealous lands, under the act of resumption, on Edward's return court, on his own account, to this great heiress. Her from France. While brooding over this offence, his wife mother, Margaret, the sister of Clarence, favoured his Isabella of Warwick died, on the 22nd of December, 1476, suit warmly, but the idea of such an alliance struck just after the birth of her third child. Clarence, who was Edward with dismay. Clarence already was far too 30 extremely attached to her that he was almost beside powerful. Should he succeed in placing himself at the himself at the loss, accused, brought to trial, and pro-head of one of the most powerful states on the Continent, cured the condemnation of Ankaret Twynhyo, one of her attendants, on the charge of having poisoned her. Directly after this, January 5th, 1477, the Duke of Burgundy fell at the battle of Narcy, in his vain struggle

and with his avowed claims on the English crown, and his undisguised enmity to Edward's queen and family, the mischief he might do was incalculable. He might form a coalition with France, most disastrous to England and to him.

Edward, therefore, lost no time in putting in his most decided opposition. In this cause he was no doubt zealously seconded by Gloucester. But if ever there was a choice of a rival most unfortunate, and even insulting, it was that put forward by Edward against Clarence, in the person of Sir Anthony Wydville, the queen's brother. This match was rejected by the court of Burgundy with disdain, and only heightened the odium of the queen in England-an odium which fell heavily on her in afteryears-who now was regarded as a woman who, not content with filling all the great houses of England with her kin, was ambitious enough to aim at filling the highest continental thrones with them. The result was, that Edward succeeded in defeating Clarence, without gaining his own, or rather his wife's object.

From this moment Clarence became at deadly feud with Edward and all his family. The king, the queen, and Gloucester united in a league against him, which, where such men were concerned-men never scrupling to destroy those who opposed them-boded him little good. The conduct of Clarence was calculated to exasperate this enmity, and to expose him to its attacks. He vented his wrath against all the parties who had thwarted him, king, queen, and Gloucester, in the bitterest and most public manner; and on the other side, occasions were found to stimulate him to more disloyal conduct. They began with attacking his friends and members of his household. John Stacey, a priest in his service, was charged with having practised sorcery to procure the death of Lord Beauchamp, and being put to the torture, was brought to confess that Thomas Burdett, a gentleman of Arrow, in Warwickshire, also a gentleman of the duke's household, and greatly beloved by Clarence, was an accomplice. It was well understood why this confession was wrung from the poor priest. Thomas Burdett had a fine white stag in his park, on which he set great value. Edward, in hunting, had shot this stag, and Burdett, in his anger at the deed, had been reported to have said that he wished the horns of the deer were in the stomach of the person who had advised the king to insult him by killing it. This speech, real or imaginary, had been carefully conveyed to the king, and he thus took his revenge. Thomas Burdett was accused of high treason, tried, and, by the servile judges and jury, condemned, and beheaded at Tyburn.

Clarence had exerted himself to save the lives of both these persons in vain. They both died protesting their innocence, and the next day Clarence entered the council, bringing Dr. Goddard, a clergyman, who appeared on various occasions in those times, as a popular agitator. | Goddard attested the dying declarations of the sufferers; and Clarence, with an honourable, but imprudent zeal, warmly denounced the destruction of his innocent friends. Edward and the court were at Windsor, and these proceedings were duly carried thither by the enemies of Clarence. Soon it was reported that, having for many days sat sullenly silent at the council-board with folded arms, he had started up and uttered the most disloyal words, accusing the queen of sorcery, which she had learned of her mother; and even implicating the king in the accusatior..

The fate of Clarence was sealed. Gloucester were vehement against him.

The queen and
Edward hurried

to Westminster; Clarence was arrested and conducted by
the king himself to the Tower. On the 16th of January
a Parliament was assembled, and Edward himself ap-
peared as the accuser of his brother at the bar of the
Lords. He charged him with a design to dethrone and
destroy him and his family. He retorted upon him the
charge of sorcery, and of dealing with masters of the
black art for this treasonable purpose; that to raise a
rebellion he had supplied his servants with vast quan-
tities of money, wine, venison, and provisions, to feast
the people, and to fill their minds at such feasts with the
belief that Burdett and Stacey had been wrongfully put
to death; that Clarence had engaged numbers of people
to swear to stand by him and his heirs as rightful claim-
ants of the throne-asserting that Edward was, in truth,
a bastard, and had no right whatever to the crown; that
to gain the throne, and support himself upon it, he had
had constant application to the arts for which his queen
and her mother were famous, and had not hesitated to
poison and destroy in secret. As for himself-Clarence
he pledged himself to restore all the lands and honours
of the Lancastrians, when he gained his own royal rights.
To these monstrous charges Clarence made a vehement
reply, but posterity has no means of judging of the truth
or force of what he said, for the whole of his defence was
omitted in the rolls of Parliament. Not a soul dared to
say a word on his behalf. Edward brought forward
witnesses to swear to everything he alleged; the duke
was condemned to death, and the Commons being sum-
moned to attend, confirmed the sentence. No attempt
was made to put the sentence into execution, but about
ten days later it was announced that Clarence had died
in the Tower. The precise mode of his death has never
been clearly ascertained. The generally received account
is that of Fabyan, a cotemporary, who says that he was
drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. All that is known
is, that he was found dead with his head hanging over a
butt of this wine; but whether he had been drowned in
it and thus placed, or had been allowed to kill himself by
drinking of it to excess, must ever remain a mystery.
It was a fact that since the death of his wife, the defeat
of his attempt to obtain Mary of Burgundy, and the sub-
sequent irritations, he had given himself up to desperate
drinking. He might have been supplied with his favourite
drink, till it had done its work on a mind overwhelmed,
in its solitude, with grief, mortification, and despair; or
he might have had a gentle hoist over the side of the
butt, to facilitate its operations. He was condemned to
die; his brothers and their friends resolved that he should
die in private-how, will never be known. Gloucester,
who has always had the credit of assisting at this as at
sundry other Tower murders, could not have officiated
personally at it, for he was residing in the North at the
time.

The conduct of the court on the occasion was charae terised by the utmost heartlessness, and contempt of public decorum. The festival of the next St. George's Day, but about two months afterwards, was celebrated with extraordinary splendour, as though nothing co terrible had lately occurred: the queen taking the lead and wearing the robes of the chief lady of the order. With the characteristic rapacity of the Wydvilles, soveral of the estates of Clarence were taken from his children and

A.D. 1478.] EDWARD CONTRACTS MATRIMONIAL ALLIANCES FOR HIS DAUGHTERS.

the Electors of Germany and the Emperor Sigismund prevailed; the Netherlands were divided against each other; and Spain was equally disturbed by the conspiracies of the nobles against the crown. Edward of England, as if sensible of the weakness of his position, strove anxiously to strengthen it by foreign alliances. Though his children were far too young to contract actual marriages, he made treaties which should place his daughters on a number of the chief thrones. Some of these contracts were entered into almost as soon as those concerned in them were born. Elizabeth, the eldest, was affianced to the Dauphin of France; Cecilia, the second, to the eldest son and heir of the King of Scotland; Anne, to the infant son of Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, and husband of Mary of Burgundy; Catherine, to the heir of the King of Spain. His eldest son was engaged to the eldest daughter of the Duke of Brittany. On the other hand, all these royal negotiators appear to have been equally impressed with the precarious character of Edward's power, and were ready at the first moment to annul the contract.

They were received at court with coldness and neglect, while they saw there men of science and letters hald in the highest esteem, and admitted to the king's most intimate conversation. Amongst these were architects, painters, musicians, and astrologers, who in that age were ranked with men of science, and were much resorted to by the highest classes. Cochrane, an architect, was in great favour with James; and, on the other hand, styled by the nobles "Cochrane the mason." Bogers, a professor of music, and Dr. Ireland, a man of literary accomplishment acquired in France, were also greatly esteemed by him. Besides these, he also encouraged professors of the arts of gunnery, engineering, and defence. He was greatly interested in improving the casting and using of cannon. Artillerymen and skilful artisans were attracted to his service from the Continent. But what incensed his proud nobles more than all, was to behold his favour to smiths, fencing-masters, and similar low proficients, as they deemed them. To avenge their rude and barbaric dignity, they stirred up the king's two brothers, the Duke of Albany and the Earl of That subtle monarch, Louis of France, never from the Mar, to rebellion. James, however, showed that, though first moment seriously meant to adhere to his engage- pacifically disposed, he did not lack energy. He seized ment; and in a very few years every one of these Mar and Albany, and confined them; Mar in Craiganxiously-planned marriages were blown away like millar Castle, and Albany in that of Edinburgh. Albany summer clouds. Edward was not long in suspecting managed to escape, and made his way, by means of the hollowness of the conduct of Louis XI. Though a French vessel, to France. Mar, who was of a veherepeatedly reminded that the time was come to fetch ment temper, was seized in his prison with fever and the Princess of England, in order to complete her delirium. He was, therefore, removed from Craigmillar education in France, preparatory to her occupying the to a house in the Canongate, at Edinburgh, where, having station assigned to her there, Louis took no measures been bled, he is said, on a return of the paroxysm, to for this purpose; and when Edward remonstrated on have torn off his bandages while in a warm bath, and the subject, threatened to withdraw the payment of died from loss of blood. It was one of those incidents the annual 50,000 crowns. Edward boiled with indig- that, at the least, are suspicious; but public opinion at nation, and vowed, amongst his immediate courtiers, the time, for the most part, exonerated the king from the that he would hunt up the old fox in his own cover charge of any criminal intention; and even when he was if he did not mind. But that wily prince was not so afterwards deposed, no such charge was preferred against easily dealt with. He saw with chagrin the proposed him by the hostile faction. alliances betwixt Edward and his dangerous neighbours, the Duke of Brittany and Maximilian of Austria, now, through his wife, the ruler of Burgundy. Edward, in his resentment at the threat of Louis to withdraw his annual payment, made offers of closer union with Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, and engaged, on condition that they should pay him the 50,000 crowns which he now had from Louis, to assist them against that monarch. But Louis was not to be out-manœuvred in this manner; he was a profounder master in all the arts of diplomatic stratagem than Edward. He, therefore, made secret and tempting advances to Maximilian and Mary, one article of which devoted the Dauphin to their infant daughter, despite of her engagement to the English heir. At the same time he stirred up sufficient trouble in Scotland to engage the attention of Edward for some time.

It was at this crisis that Edward, roused to indignation by the conduct of the French king, who neglected to fetch the Princess of England, and withdrew his annual payment of the 50,000 crowns, and still more by tracing Louis' hand in Scottish affairs, invited over Albany from Paris, promising to set him on the throne of Scotland. Albany, smarting with his brother's treatment, was but too ready to accept the proposal. Edward launched reproaches against the King of Scotland for his perfidy in listening to Louis of France, whilst under the closest engagements with himself. Three years' payments of the dowry of Edward's daughter Cecilia had already been paid to the Scottish monarch, and yet he had thrown constant obstacles in the way of a marriage agreed upon between the sister of James and the Earl Rivers, the brother-in-law of Edward. In reply to Edward's reproaches, James flung at him the epithet of reiver, or robber, alluding to his seizure of the English crown.

Edward dispatched an army to the borders of Scotland, under his brother Gloucester and Albany. He engaged to place Albany on the throne of James, and, in return, Albany, who was believed already to have two wives, was to marry one of Edward's daughters, for he never entered into a treaty without putting in a daughter as one item. With upwards of 22,000 men Gloucester and