Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/631

A.D. 1461.] Bona of Savoy, the sister of the Queen of France. The proposal had been accepted; the King of France had given his consent; the treaty of marriage was actually drawn; and there lacked nothing but the ratification of the terms agreed upon, and the bringing over of the princess to England. At this moment came the order to pause in the proceedings, and the mystery was soon cleared up by the confident rumour of this sudden matrimonial caprice of the king. Warwick returned in high dudgeon; to Edward he did not endeavour to conceal it; but the time for revenge of his injured honour was not yet come; and therefore, after the royal announcement in the council, Clarence and Warwick took Elizabeth by the hand, and introduced her to the rest of the peers. A second council was held at Westminster, in December, and the income of the new queen was settled at 4,000 marks a year.

It was not to be expected that this sudden elevation of a simple knight's daughter to the throne would pass without much murmuring and discontent, which was probably the more fully expressed as it was shared by the all-powerful Warwick and the king's brothers. There were busy rumours that the politic old duchess, Jacquetta, and her daughter, had practised magical arts upon the king, and administered philters; and that, recovering from their effect, he had grievously repented, and endeavoured to free himself. But Edward's whole conduct towards the queen showed the falsity of this jealous gossip; and to make it obvious that she was of no mean parentage, he invited to the coronation her mother's brother, James of Luxembourg, with a retinue of a hundred knights and gentlemen. On the feast of Ascension he created, in honour of the queen, thirty-eight knights of the Bath, selecting four of them from the city of London. In return for this compliment, the lord mayor, aldermen, and the different companies met the queen at Shooter's-hill, and conducted her in state to the Tower. On Saturday, to please the people, she was conducted in a horse-litter through the principal streets, preceded by the new knights. The next day, Sunday, she was crowned with much splendour, and the following week was devoted to tournaments and public festivities.

But if the king had made apparent her noble birth and his continued affection for her, it became speedily as apparent that the marriage of a subject was to be followed by all its inconveniences. Elizabeth, though raised to the throne, might still be said to be on her knees, imploring the favour of the king. There was nothing which she thought too much for her numerous relations, and the king displayed a marvellous facility in complying with her requests. Her father was created Earl Rivers, and soon after the Lord Mountjoy, a partisan of the Nevilles, was removed to make way for him as treasurer of England; and again, on the resignation of the Earl of Worcester, the office of Lord High Constable was conferred on him. That was very well for a beginning, but it was nothing to what followed; every branch of the queen's family must be aggrandised without delay. She had five sisters, and every one of these was married to one of the highest noblemen in the realm: one to the Duke of Buckingham; one to the heir of their Earl of Essex; a third to the Earl of Arundel; a fourth to Lord Gray de Ruthyn, who was made Earl of Kent; and the fifth to Lord William Herbert, created Earl of Huntingdon. Her brother Anthony was married to the heiress of the late Lord Scales, and endowed with her estate and title. Her younger brother John, in his twentieth year, was married to the wealthy old dowager Duchess of Norfolk, in her eightieth year; such was the shameless greed of this family. The queen's son, Thomas Gray, was married to the king's niece, the daughter and heiress of the Duke of Exeter.

The great family of the Nevilles looked on all this with ominous gloom. Hitherto it had enjoyed all the favour and emolument which were now turned so lavishly upon the Wydvillos. Of the three sons of the Earl of Salisbury, one was now Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York, the other was created Lord Montacute, and then Earl of Northumberland, with the ample estates of the Percies. But far above them all soared Warwick. He had put down Henry VI., and set up Edward. He had hitherto been the king's chief minister and general; he held the wardenship of the west marches towards Scotland, waa Lord Chamberlain, and Governor of Calais, the most important and lucrative appointment in the king's gift, worth 15,000 crowns per annum. The value of royal grants alone, which he held independent of his patrimonial estates, was 80,000 crowns a year. The magnificence and liberality of his style of living was in full accord with his wealth and rank. No less than 30,000 people are said to have lived daily at his board, at his different manors and castles. When we add to the power of Warwick that of the house of Montacute and of Westmoreland, all Nevilles; and when we add that Warwick was as much worshipped by all military men for his bravery as for his frankness and princely profusion, we perceive the peril which the thoughtless Edward ran in wounding the pride and irritating the jealousy of the most potent of English nobles.

Fresh causes of disunion arose betwixt the king and Warwick. A marriage had for some time been in agitation between Margaret, the king's sister, and Count Charolais, the son and heir of the Duke of Burgundy. The count was sprung from the house of Lancaster, and even when his father showed the most settled coolness towards Henry VI. and Margaret, had displayed a warm sympathy for them. It was a good stroke of policy, therefore, to win him over by this marriage to the reigning dynasty. But Warwick, who in his former intercourse with Burgundy in France, had conceived a deep dislike to him, opposed this match, and represented one with a son of Louis XI. of France -as far more advantageous. To Warwick's arguments were opposed the evident policy of maintaining our commercial intercourse with the Netherlands, and of posses.sing so efficient an ally on the borders of France against the deep and selfish schemes of Louis. But in the end Warwick prevailed. He was sent over to France to negotiate the affair with Louis. Warwick went attended with a princely train, and with all the magnificence which distinguished him at home, more like that of a great sovereign than of a subject. Louis, who never lost an opportunity of sowing jealousies amongst his enemies, even while he appeared to be honouring them, met Warwick at Rouen, attended by the queen and princesses. The inhabitants, obeying royal orders, went out and escorted Warwick into the city with banners and processions of priests, who conducted