III. HEN. VII. the church. But the spirit of improvement had CHAP. awakened; and another instance of it was the papal limitation of the power of making saints. By his REIGN OF. bull on this subject, in 1494, the Pope confines it to the pontifical chair alone; and specifies the regulations under which they were from that time to be created 118 cross. 120 119 Yet Henry found it necessary not to prevent the church from occasional persecutions of heresy. In April 1494, he suffered an old woman to be burnt for heresy ; and two years afterwards we read, that many lollards stood with faggots at St. Paul's As it is not said that they were destroyed, the king may have compromised with the establishment to permit this exhibition, to deter, without allowing them to be killed. This ceremony of menace was repeated in 1498, with twelve persons accused of heresy ; 121 but in the next year," an old heretic" was, in Smithfield, consumed by the flames.122 the Lent of 1505, a prior, with five other heretics, were exposed, with indignity, at St. Paul's.123. In The two great objects of foreign policy which oc- His foreign politics. cupied the anxious attention of Henry, were, the preservation of Flanders and Bretagne from being united with France. The French government pressed zealously forwards to both these objects; and the hostilities maintained by the towns of Ghent and Bruges, against their duke Maximilian, assisted this ambition. Charles VIII. sent an army of 8000 men from France, under the lord Cordes, to assist the 118 See all the rules laid down by the Pope, in the document printed in Wilkins, v. 3. p. 636–9. 119- Fabian, 529. 121 Ib. 532. VOL. IV. -120-Ib. 531. 122 Ib. G 123 Ib. 535. V. REIGN OF 1497. BOOK revolting towns, and to conquer Flanders. Henry reinforced lord Daubeny, his governor at Calais, with 1000 archers and soldiers, who, with the flower of the garrison, joined the troops of Maximilian at Newport. Their united force, not 3000 men, marched towards the French intrenchments at Dixmude, which 4000 of the disaffected Flemings had reinforced. The English were conducted, unperceived, to one point of the fortified encampment; and moving rapidly to the part where the artillery was posted, immediately attacked it. This policy was to discharge, with a steady effect, their arrows, and then fall prostrate while the ordnance fired over them; to rise again, and shoot while the cannon was re-loading; and then to charge before the foe recovered from the fatal effects of the arrows. Another division of the English waded the ditch, which the Germans leapt over with their Moorish pikes; and after suffering a loss of 8000 men, the French party abandoned their guns and camp. Cordes, to balance this defeat, with 20,000 troops, attempted Newport, and carried the tower; but a bark, with eighty fresh English archers arriving at a critical moment, the besieged rallied, and recovered the tower; and the French believing that a great English army had landed, abandoned their enterprise in despair. 124 As Maximilian was the son of the emperor of Germany, the policy of Henry was enabled, in this quarter, to counteract effectually the French ambition. By sir Edward Pownings, he took Sluys, "the den of thieves to those who traversed the seas towards the east parts," or the German ocean, and the Baltic; and by his co-operation, the 124 Graft, 880-2. Hall, 446. Pol. V. province of Flanders was reduced to the authority of CHAP. Maximilian, 125 III. HEN. VII. The efforts of Henry to prevent Bretagne from REign of being incorporated with the French monarchy, were less successful. When Charles VIII. with whom Henry had made friendly truces, 126 in 1487, pursued his quarrel with this duchy, with the hope of mastering it, Henry endeavored to act as the mediator; 127 and unwilling, as well from gratitude to Charles, as from his wise system of peace with other countries, to plunge into a serious war with France, he discountenanced sir Edward, now lord Woodville, the valiant and chivalric brother of lord Rivers, who attempted, unauthorized, with 400 men, to assist the Breton duke, by whom, in his necessities, he had been so kindly entertained.128 Losing this opportunity of securing the attachment of the Bretons, and of defeating the French project, he left the forces of Bretagne to fight, unsupported by him, an unequal battle with the power of Charles, and to be defeated. 129 The duke dying, Henry perceived his error, and resolved to assist the young duchess, his daughter, now the sovereign of Bretagne, with troops; but not 130 125 Graf. 890. Hall, 452. Pol. V. On Henry's transactions with France and Maximilian, see B. Andreas' contemporary account. MS. Dom, 193-202. For a minute detail of all the circumstances, I would refer the reader to Rapin's History of England; and for a more succinct and correct one, to his Abrégé Historique des Actes Publics, v. 2. p. 516-20. 126 See them in Rymer's Fœd. 12. pp. 277. 281. 344, dated 12 Oct. 1485, and 17 Jan. 1486, and 14 July 1488. The last extended to 17 Jan. 1490. 127 Henry's mediatorial commissions are dated 7 March and 11 December 1488. Rymer, 12. pp. 337. 347. 128 Hall, 439. Pol. Vir. 129 This was the battle of St. Aubin du Cormier, fought 27 July 1488, in which lord Woodville fell. Hall, 441. 130 On 23d December 1488, Henry issued the order to raise troops for her succor, which is in Rymer, v. 12, p. 355; and on 10 Feb. 1489, he cove V. BOOK really pledging the force and vigor of England in the effort, he preferred negotiations,131 to defer what he could not prevent; and amid this hesitating defence, the French obtained an ascendency in the country, which they never lost. 132 Charles amused REIGN OF 1497. Henry with ambassadors; and the Pope's legate, by attempting a mediation, paralyzed the arm of England. The French king was, in the meantime, bribing the Breton nobility, and paying assiduous attentions to Anne, the heiress of the province.133 Maximilian also wooed, and was privately contracted or married to her by proxy; 134 but after some vacillations she decided the competition, by annulling her engagement with Maximilian, and giving her hand, and with that, the duchy, to Charles.135 Henry nanted, by a treaty, to send her 6000 men, for which she was to pay, and to give two towns as a pledge for their payment. She was not to make peace without his consent, nor he to renew a peace with France, without comprising her in it. See the treaty in Rym. p. 362. 131 See the commissions and documents on these, during 1490, 1491, in Rymer, v. 12. pp. 449. 453 431.435. 132 There seems to have been too much anxiety in Henry to be repaid his expenses, and too much caution in the government of Bretagne against him. Before his troops were admitted into Nantz, an oath was exacted from him, that they should go out at the first request, Rym. p. 452; and she agreed to deliver to him Morlaix, but to have its revenues, on paying him 6000 gold crowns a year. p. 488. 133 Graft. 872-6. Hall, 449. 134 This was in November 1489. It was not communicated to Henry till the ensuing February 1491, on which he issued new commissions of negotiation. Rym. 12. p. 435-8. In the last she is called queen of the Romans; so that there was too much Machiavelian politics used on all sides. I suspect, that the Breton government thought Henry wanted to ally the duchy to England, as much as Charles sought to add it to France; while Maximilian wished to annex it to his dominions. All the four parties were finessing with each other, till Charles VIII. won both the golden apple and the Venus.. 135 Graft. 885-8. Hall, 451. He married her 16 Dec. 1491. The only effectual means by which Henry could have defeated Charles VIII.'s annexation of Bretagne to France, was by marrying the heiress himself; and Bernard Andreas says, that before he left Bretagne, Frances had often proposed this to him; sepius orando contendisset.'-MSS. Dom. A. 18. p. 168. But on this subject Henry's hand was tied. His nuptials with Elizabeth were the price of his English crown; and the nation called upon him to sacrifice all foreign interest to their domestic policy. III. attempted in vain, to prevent its absorption into the CHAP. French monarchy. In 1491 he raised an army, expecting a coinciding force from Maximilian; but this REIGN OF prince was unable to raise one. Disappointed of his HEN. VII. concurrence, Henry resolved to make a descent on France himself; and on the 6th of October passed over with his army to Calais, and there encamped. Charles again had recourse to embassies and negotiations. Henry put on a warlike semblance, and besieged Boulogne; but the prize was gone. The marriage of the heiress had united it irrecoverably with the French crown. Nothing could sever them, but battles like those of Poitiers and Agincourt, and campaigns as successful afterwards as those of Henry V.; and what he could accomplish, with the aid of Burgundy, against discontented France, in its then inferior state, was impracticable now, in her palmy state of strength, union, valor, and compact dominion,136 and with the Breton nobility favoring the annexation. Henry, but unfirmly seated for some time on his own throne, felt himself unequal to dissolve an union which he might at one time have prevented; and making a peace with Charles, who agreed to reimburse his expenses, he retired from the contest; 137 leaving France to consolidate its 136 Graft. 890-5. 137 One document in Rymer intimates that Charles VIII. was to pay Henry 620,000 gold crowns, which the duchess owed him for his army, and 125,000 for the arrears of the pension of Louis XI. Rym. p. 490. The actual treaty d'Etaples, between Charles and Henry, dated 3 Sept. 1492, does not mention these payments. Its chief articles are, that the peace should last to the death of both the kings; and that it should coinprise the king of the Romans and his son. p. 497. But by the conven tions of the 3d November and of 10th December, Charles became bound to pay the above sums by 25,000 livres every half year. p. 506. He submitted to be excommunicated, if he failed. p. 509. There are receipts for these payments every half year, till Charles died. Ib. p. 527, &c. There are also receipts for them from Louis XII. up to Henry's death. p. 700, &c. G 3 Pope |