The expulsion of the English from both Normandy and Gascony in the days of Henry VI had led naturally to mutual recriminations among the nobility and gentry, who looked upon France as a playground to which they had an obvious right. These feelings mixed themselves with the great dynastic struggle of the Wars of the Roses; and the House of York owed not a little of its popularity to the fact that their party was not responsible for disaster abroad. But when Edward IV taxed his subjects severely for a new invasion of France, which was to revive the glories of the Black Prince and of Henry V, and when, instead of prosecuting his claims in the field, he listened to a seductive offer of an annual tribute from Louis XI and returned home from a bloodless campaign, it was already clear to discerning minds that the reconquest of France was a dream and an impossibility. Edward, indeed, though an excellent soldier when events compelled him to act, was constitutionally indolent; nor did he win the hearts of his people by pocketing what seemed very like a bribe from an enemy, after impoverishing his own subjects for the purpose of making war. But he was anxious to bequeath to his children a quiet succession, untroubled by serious difficulties either abroad or at home. Unhappily, he was no politician, and failed to foresee the clouds which darkened the horizon in both quarters just before his death.
England might have done very well without France, and even the quarrels of the nobility might have been left to settle themselves, had they not shaken the throne itself. But the security of the throne depended on the support of great families with large landed possessions, who could put large forces of their retainers into the field at need. Warwick the King-maker had been the great ally of Edward IV and of his father, and it was to him more than any other man in England that Edward owed his kingdom. It was by Warwick also that he was afterwards driven out of it, and that Henry VI was reinstated there for a time. Edward’s own brother Clarence was won over by Warwick to assist in driving him out; and, though afterwards he changed sides again and helped in his brother’s restoration, mutual distrust still remained, and Clarence was ultimately put to death as a traitor. Strange to say, Edward seems to have retained his confidence in his younger brother Richard, who after his death proved a worse traitor still; for he supplanted Edward’s two sons, and then murdered them after getting himself proclaimed King as Richard III. But a conspiracy was formed between confederates both in England and in Britanny, where Henry, Earl of Richmond, lived in exile, by which it was arranged that he should invade the kingdom, and after winning the Crown by the defeat of Richard in battle, should marry Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV, thereby uniting the claims of the House of York to those of the House of Lancaster.
I.
HENRY VII. (1485-1509.)
It was thus that the Earl of Richmond after the victory of Bos-worth became King Henry the Seventh. He indeed claimed the throne in his own right by a Lancastrian title; but, as that title seemed open to some objections, he could not have hoped to win it apart from the pledge he had given to marry the heiress of York; still less could he have retained it without actually marrying her. During nearly the whole of his reign he was troubled with Yorkist conspiracies; and it was with great wisdom that, in his second Parliament, he procured the institution of the Court of the Star Chamber-a Court of evil repute in later times, but of great value in that day for the correction of irregularities in the administration of justice, caused by the excessive power of local magnates, partial sheriffs, and corrupt juries. The name of this Court was derived from the chamber in which the Privy Council had been accustomed to sit at Westminster, and the Act only delegated to a Committee of that Council powers which had been always exercised, when thought fit, by the Council as a whole. An Act was also passed to make murderers always amenable to prosecution by the Crown, without waiting, as had been usual, a year and a day during which the next of kin might prosecute. The responsibility of coroners and townships was also increased in all cases of slaughter. The King, moreover, with the Pope’s assent, imposed some restrictions on the privileges of sanctuaries, especially in cases of treason, and on those of the clergy when convicted of crime.
But faction at home was unhappily reinforced by movements outside the country; for foreign princes joined continually in the game, and Ireland afforded, especially at the commencement of Henry’s reign, a basis of operations against England of which these princes were not slow to take advantage. For Ireland had been a stronghold of the Yorkist party, where in past days Richard, Duke of York, proscribed in England, had ruled as the King’s lieutenant in defiance of the very authority he professed to represent. It was not a country which a Lancastrian King could hope to reduce very speedily to obedience; and yet we shall see that, notwithstanding the most unpromising commencement, Henry’s success in this matter was far beyond expectation.
The first rumour of disturbances after his accession arose out of the escape of Viscount Lovel and the two brothers Stafford from sanctuary at Colchester in the spring of 1486. The leaders, however, still lay hid, and it was not till the beginning of 1487 that some far-reaching plots developed themselves. Lovel fled to Flanders-a hotbed of conspiracy against Henry-and a boy named Lambert Simnel was set up in Ireland, first as a son of Edward IV (the murder of the two young princes in the Tower being held doubtful by some), afterwards as the Earl of Warwick, son of the ill-fated Duke of Clarence, whom Henry, just after his accession, had lodged in the Tower to prevent any rising in his favour. Then John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, who had attended a meeting of the Privy Council at Sheen on February 2, escaped to Flanders also. He was probably the originator of the whole conspiracy; for he was the eldest son of the Duke of Suffolk by Elizabeth, sister of Edward IV, and had been nominated by Richard III as his successor on the throne. His hopes had thus been blighted by Henry’s accession; and, having prepared a fleet, he now took counsel in Flanders with his aunt, Margaret, Duchess Dowager of Burgundy (another sister of Edward IV), how to dis- possess Henry of the kingdom. He then went to Simnel in Ireland, whose pretensions he recognised, though he had the best reason to know their falsehood, as a means of clearing the ground for himself. Simnel was crowned in Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, in the presence of the Earl of Kildare, then Deputy of Ireland, and of his brother the Lord Chancellor, and of nearly all the judges, nobility, and bishops of the land. Supported by Lincoln, Kildare, and a body of German mercenaries under one Martin Swart, the pretender invaded England. But he was defeated at Stoke-upon-Trent (June 16, 1487); his leaders, including Lincoln and Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, were slain, and he was himself taken prisoner.
So ended the first great crisis in Henry’s reign. And he was stronger now than he had been, not only by the death of Lincoln and the overthrow of the conspiracy, but because his Queen Elizabeth in the year preceding had borne him a son, to whom, in respect of his old British descent, he gave the name of the fabled King Arthur. As a further counterpoise to faction he now caused the Queen to be crowned (November 25). But at this very time he had also to appeal urgently to Parliament (it was his second Parliament) for aid in the shape of taxation for the defence of the realm. The continual danger of invasion made it an object of supreme importance to him to study carefully the aims and policy of foreign princes; for his own security upon the throne depended quite as much on what was done abroad as on anything that he could do at home. The Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabel, were anxious to draw him into a war with France; and the marriage of Prince Arthur to their daughter, Katharine of Aragon, was already arranged in 1488. Henry was unwilling to make war upon a country whose government had really assisted him to obtain the Crown; but he had been scarcely less indebted, as an exile, to the Duke of Britanny, and France was menacing the independence of that duchy. Henry endeavoured to mediate, while a band of volunteers under Lord Woodville crossed the Channel unauthorised, and shared the disastrous defeat of the Bretons