Even this interval was full of wonder. A report was circulated, which soon reached the palace, that the earl of Warwick, in endeavouring to escape from the Tower in a boat, had fallen into the river, and was drowned before assistance could be afforded. Such was the current tale; but many suspected that the king was privy to a more guilty termination of his unhappy prisoner, of whose death none entertained a doubt. This circumstance added to the queen's impatience—life was bound up in the event of the next few hours.
The time arrived—all was quiet in the palace (the queen inhabited Tower Royal); and the royal dowager and her friend prepared for their visitor. At the signal given, the door was opened; but Simon came not alone; the earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovel, Sir Thomas Broughton, and an unknown youth—it was Edmund Plantagenet—entered. The tale of the imposture of Lambert Simnel was disclosed, and with it a change of plan, the result of the death of Warwick. Simnel's age and appearance accorded better with this prince than with his younger cousin. It were easy to spread abroad that the report of his death was a fiction contrived by the king; that he had escaped, in fact, and was in arms. If a more sinister fate had befallen him, guilt would impose silence on his murderer; if the attempt failed, no evil would occur; if successful, he would give instant place to the superior claims of the duke of York.
Lincoln unfolded these schemes with sagacity and deliberation, and the queen eagerly adopted his ideas as he disclosed them. It was also the earl's suggestion that Simnel should first appear in Ireland. The duke of Clarence had been lieutenant there, and was much beloved throughout the island. Through neglect and forgetfulness all the counsellors and officers appointed by Clarence had been unremoved by the new government, and might easily be induced to favour his persecuted son. The duchess of Burgundy was also to be applied to; and counsel was held as to who should be informed of the truth—who deceived in this hazardous attempt. Night wore away, while still the conspirators were in deliberation; they separated at last, each full of hope—each teeming with gallant resolution. Henceforth the false smile or ill-concealed frown of their enemy was indifferent to them; their good swords were their sure allies; the very victory gained by Henry at Bosworth raised their expectations; one other battle might give them again all that then they lost.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BATTLE OF NEWARK.
Within these ten days take a monastery;
A most strict house; a house where none may whisper,
Where no more light is known but what may make you
Believe there is a day; where no hope dwells,
Nor comfort but in tears.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
With the consciousness of this plot weighing on her mind, Elizabeth Woodville continued her usual routine of life, and made a part of the court of Henry the Seventh. She had long been accustomed to pass from one evil to the other, and to find that when one cause for unhappiness died away, it gave instant place to another. She felt, with all the poignancy of a mother's disappointed pride, the situation of her daughter. Neglect was the lightest term that could be applied to the systematized and cold-hearted tyranny of Henry towards his wife. For not only he treated her like an unfavoured child, whose duty it was to obey without a murmur, and to endeavour to please, though sure of being repulsed. At the same time that he refused to raise her above this state of degradation, lie reproached her with the faults of maturity, and stung her womanly feelings with studied barbarity. He taunted her with her attachment, to her family and its partizans; spoke with triumph of its overthrow; and detailed with malignant pleasure every severe enactment passed by himself against the vanquished Yorkists. Then, again, he accused her of participating in her parent's intrigues; and though proud of the son she had given him, as the heir of his crown, he divided, as much as possible, the infant from the mother, under the avowed though ridiculous pretence of preventing her from inculcating principles of rebellion towards his liege and father.
This last blow sunk deep. She had hitherto borne his harshness meekly, sustained by the hope of overcoming his flinty nature by softness and yielding. She had anticipated that the fresh enmity conceived against her on the event of Lord Lovel's rebellion would be entirely allayed by her pretty Arthur, whose birth was solemnized by many rejoicings. But when she found this last hope fail, every expectation of good died away with it. Among other acts of duty, she had for a long time pursued a system of self-denial, deeming it a breach of duty to complain of her husband, even to her mother. But this mother, acquainted with the secrets of the human heart, and desirous of detaching her entirely from her husband, exerted all the influence that one experienced and firm can exercise over the young and vacillating: she brought her to lament her situation, and to complain of each fresh token of the king's disregard. The barrier of self-restraint once broken through, the sympathy and remonstrances of her parent emboldened her to such a change of conduct towards Henry, as at first excited his surprise, then his contempt. The many rumours afloat concerning the existence of the duke of York served also to rouse his angry mood. If at first he appeared somewhat complaisant towards his mother-in-law, it was from an endeavour to put her off her guard, and to attract or surprise her confidence on the point which lay nearest his heart; but when he found that his attacks were vain, his undisguised arrogance and her ill-concealed resentment produced scenes, disgraceful in themselves, and agonizing to the wife and daughter who was their witness.
At this moment, when suspicion was abroad—the Lancastrians fearful, the Yorkists erect with renewed hopes—like the bursting of a thunderstorm came the intelligence of the appearance of the earl of Warwick in Dublin, his enthusiastic reception there, the rising of the people in his favour, and the menaces held out by him of his intention to wrench the sceptre of England from the hand of him who held it.
Henry alone heard these momentous tidings with contempt. The earl of Kildare, lord-lieutenant of the kingdom, had received the pretender with princely honours; yet the very circumstance of a false son of Clarence being supported by the Yorkists was the occasion of satisfaction to him; his only fear arose from the probable mystery covered by these designs. He was angry at the disloyalty manifested; but it was in a distant province, and so came not home to him. There appeared no falling off, no disturbance among his English subjects. Still caution and policy were the weapons he best loved to wield; and he despatched several spies to Ireland, to endeavour to fathom the extent and nature of the rebellion. The chief among them was his own secretary, Frion, a Frenchman—a crafty and experienced implement. He succeeded in bringing back irrefragable proof that the dowager queen mingled deeply in the plot.
Henry hated Elizabeth Woodville. He considered that it was principally through her restless scheming that he had been forced to marry the portionless (her detested claim to his crown her only dower) daughter of York, instead of forming an union with a foreign princess; perhaps Mary of Burgundy, or Anne of Britanny, either of whom would have brought gold to his coffers, or extensive domains to his empire. He hated her, because he deeply suspected that she was privy to the existence of a formidable rival to his state. He knew that the young duke of York had not died in the Tower. In every way she was his enemy; besides that linked to her ruin was the sweet idea of confiscation, one ever entertained with delight by the money-loving king.
He assembled a council in his palace at Shene, which stood near where Richmond now stands. The chiefs of the English nobility were his counsellors. The duke of Buckingham, son of him who first favoured, and then rose against Richard the Third. The lords Dawbeny and Broke, who had been raised to the peerage for their services in the same cause. Lord and Sir William Stanley, men to whom Henry principally owed his crown. Others there were of high rank and note; but the king paid most attention to two priests: John Morton, bishop of Ely, and Richard Fox, bishop of Exeter, were his private advisors and friends,