61

III.

HEN. VII.

As his partisans had no force in England, sufficient CHAP. to make a safe point for the assembling of those who were to support him, the pretended prince was first REIGN OF exhibited in Ireland, in Lent, with all the success that could be expected from warm hearts and excited imaginations. The Irish nobility believed all his tales. Even the lord chancellor received him into his castle. Thus patronized, the duchess Margaret added her impressive sanction, and he prepared to land in England.62

Alarmed at the popular favor that began to befriend this unexpected competitor, Henry drew the real earl of Warwick out of the Tower, paraded him thro the streets of London; and satisfied the great body of the nobility and gentry, that the other was an impostor. To allay, as far as possible, all resentful feelings against himself, he had a general amnesty

Hearne, 209, Graft. 862–5. Pol. V. 570. He was crowned with a diadem, taken from a statue of the Virgin. The viceroy, chancellor and treasurer, sanctioned the coronation; and the bishop of Meath preached at it. Ware Hib.

62 This lady, who seconded every plot to dethrone the man that had driven her own family from the sovereignty of England, was, in Henry VII's time by a classical allusion, occasioned by her pertinacious enmity to him, called his persecuting Juno. B. Andreas, MS. Dom. A. 18. She had her brother Edward's taste for martial romances. Caxton says, he translated his Destruction of Troy, out of French into English, at her commandment and request, and called her his lady and mistress. If printing circulates books, let us recollect, that it was the demand for them which chiefly created printing. It was the demand, exceeding what copyists could supply, that led the mind to the invention of the typographic art, far more than any accident. Caxton shews this, in his own confession as to this work: Forasmuch as I am weary of tedious writing, and worn in years, being not able to write out several books for all gentlemen, and such others as are desirous of the same, I have caused this book to be printed; that, being published the more plenteously, men's turns may be more easily served.' Dest. Troy, p. 120, 3d book. He says of the two first books, that, by her commandment, he began the translation at Bruges, continued it in Ghent, and finished it in Cologne, in 1471; and that he was at Cologne, when he began the third book for her contemplation. 2d book, p. 134. Here we see the places that connected him with the art of printing.

V.

REIGN OF
HEN. VII.

1487.

BOOK of all offences proclaimed, without any exception. This had a salutary effect; but did not suit the interests of the York party, nor reconcile its general friends. The earl of Lincoln, his queen's nephew, and the next male heir of York, after Warwick, determined to take advantage of the insurrection of the Irish; and left England to join Margaret in Flanders, where he met lord Lovel. It was settled, that they should foment the rebellion in Ireland, land in England, release the real earl of Warwick, and make him their Yorkist king. The impostor was only to be used as a convenient instrument for exciting the opposing spirit of the English nation into an effective co-operation.

63

Henry, endangered and angered by this serious plot, dispossessed his queen's mother, the widow of Edward IV. of all her possessions. Her residence had been the seed-bed of the conspiracies in his own favor, and would naturally be the centre of all that would attack him. To prevent this again, he confined her to a residence in Bermondsey abbey." Then, uneasy at Lincoln's flight, and fearful that others would follow him, and make Flanders and Brussels to be a scene of conspiracy against him, as Bretagne and Paris had been for him, against Richard, the king went to Essex and Suffolk, but could not gain any certainty where his enemies would land.65 He caused the eastern ports to be closed, and the coast

63 Graft. 864, 5.

64 Where,' says Grafton,' she lived a miserable and wretched life.' p. 864. So Hall, 431. There is an account of her funeral, and of her many daughters' last attentions to her, in a MS. in the library of the Royal Society. This lady, in her prosperity, had the merit of completing the foundation of Queen's College, Cambridge, (Pol. V. 571.) which queen Margaret had begun.

65 Hearne, 209.

III.

HEN. VII.

to be guarded; sent the former queen's son Dorset to CHAP. the Tower; and prepared to encounter the invasion that he was certain would take place. These measures REIGN OF of energy were of the same character of violence which Richard had used against Rivers, and others. But Henry avoided his most revolting error, by abstaining from their blood.

Lincoln and Lovel sailed to Ireland, with 2000 able German soldiers, under a commander of high birth, and great talent and experience, Martin Swart; and landed at Dublin on the 24th of May, where the boy was again proclaimed king. This select force, accompanied by a multitude of savage Irishmen, armed only with "skaynes and mantels," under lord Gerardine, arrived on the 4th of June at Furnes, near Lancaster; projecting to pass into Yorkshire, and there concenter all the friends of the York dynasty.

67

68

1487.

May.

Battle of

The king assembled at Kennilworth castle his army, which lord Oxford petitioned to command and, issuing a judicious proclamation, marched thro Coventry and Loughborough," to Nottingham, where lord Strange brought him a powerful body. Swart 16th June. moved toward Newark. The king, after hearing Stoke divine service, intercepted them at Stoke, a mile beyond Newark." Lincoln, by Swart's advice, drew up his men in an advantageous station on the brow of a hill. Henry made three divisions, but filled the

66 Graft. 866. Pol. V. 572.

67 Rolls Parl. 6. p. 397. Pol. V. 573. Graft.

68 It forbad any to rob churches or individuals, or to molest any one; or to take provisions without paying for them, on pain of death; or to lodge themselves but as the king's officers directed; or to make any quarrel; or to impede the bringing of supplies to the army. Hearne, 210, 211. All vagabonds and common women were driven from the army, and those who remained were put into the stocks and prisons of Loughborough. Ib. 212.

70 Hearne, 213–215.

VOL. IV.

F

V.

REIGN OF

HEN. VII.

1487.

BOOK foremost with his best troops, and placed the others as their supporting wings. After an address to his army, the battle began. It lasted three hours, and was at one time doubtful." The skill and valor of Swart deserved a better cause. He fell with Lincoln, Lovel, and Gerardine; and their deaths, with 4000 others," ended the only conflict that seriously endangered Henry after his accession. The impostor, Capture of and the priest who had taught and moved him, were taken. The latter was committed to "perpetual prison and miserable captivity." The former was too insignificant a puppet to be any longer dangerous; and, as the wisest depreciation of his claims and of his followers, he was made the king's falconer, and afterwards sent to turn the spits in his kitchen.

Lambert

Simnel.

73

Happily for Henry, this dangerous invasion was made too precipitately by Lincoln and Lovel. Much national feeling was with their enterprise; but the evils of attainder and confiscation were too great to be risked, without a greater probability of success than they presented. If they had won this their first battle, they might have been numerously joined, but their defeat extinguished all hopes of any present change of dynasty. Henry had again an interval of tranquillity; he made a truce of seven years with Scotland; received ambassadors from the French king, and endeavored to mediate between him and Bretagne. He released the marquis Dorset from the Tower, and received him into his friendship; and perceiving how deeply the nation was interested in

71 Bernard Andreas says, that, at one time, Henry's friends were thought to be defeated. Dum preliarentur, nostri qui putabantur superati, illos denique subjecerunt.' MSS. Dom. p. 189. 72 Hearne, 214. Bern. And. Pol. V. 574. Hall, 434. 73 Pol. V. 574. Graft. 867. Bern. And. MS. 189.

the house of York, he gratified the public feeling by CHAP. a coronation of his queen."4

III.

HEN. VII.

The imposition of a tax which the parliament REIGN OF enacted to defray the expense of the king's aid to Bretagne, excited the northern counties into a revolt. The king directed the earl of Northumberland to enforce the payment of the assessment; and the people, who had borne this lord a continual grudge for his treachery to Richard in the battle of Bosworth, vindictively attacked and killed him ;75 and then assembled in rebellion under sir John Egremont. Henry intrusted the earl of Surrey with an army to suppress it; and as it was not otherwise supported, he discomfited them with ease. Their popular leader was beheaded; and Egremont fled to the court of Margaret in Flanders.76

Warbeck's

The next great ebullition of discontent appeared in Perkin the countenance given to the youth, who pretended pretento be the young duke of York, brother of Edward v. sions. It was hoped, or believed by many, that this prince had not been put to death by Richard, but had escaped; and a young man of his age, who had

74 Graft. 871, 2. Hall, 438. The admirers of grand ceremonials may see a detailed account of her splendid coronation, 4 Lel. Coll. 216-33She is thus described, in her procession, the day before: She had a kirtle of white cloth of gold of Damascus, and a mantle of the same suit, furred with ermine, fastened before her breast with a great lace, curiously wrought of gold and silk, and rich knobs of gold, tasselled at the end. Her fair yellow hair hung down, plain, behind her back, with a calle of pipes over it. She had a circlet of gold, richly garnished with precious stones, on her head.' p. 219. At her coronation, she wore a kirtle and mantle of purple velvet, furred with ermine, with a lace for the mantle. p. 222. Her sister Cecil bore her train.

75 Graft. 877. Hall, 443. Bern. And. MSS. 183. Pol. Virg. 579. Sir John Savage, who had also deserted Richard, just before the battle, did not long survive the earl. Riding out of his pavilion at Boulogne, he was suddenly trapped and taken; and, disdaining to be taken of such vileyne,' he endeavored to defend himself, and was killed. Graft. p. 8957 Graft. 878. Pol. V. 580.