Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/119

] rest, and for that reason Henry determined to destroy his captive. It was a judicial murder of a kind which excited in the public mind a just and deep abhorrence; and Henry, with his usual trick of cunning, endeavoured to shift the odium to other shoulders. Henry was negotiating for the marriage of his son Prince Arthur and Catherine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and he circulated a report that Ferdinand would not consent to the alliance so long as the Earl of Warwick lived. Nay, he would appear to have got the King of Spain to write so for this end. "For," says Bacon, "these two kings understanding each other at half a word, so it was that there were letters showed out of Spain, whereby in the passages concerning the treaty of marriage, Ferdinand had written to the king in plain terms, that he saw no assurance of his succession so long as the Earl of Warwick lived, and that he was loath to send his daughter to troubles and dangers.

"But hereby," adds Bacon, "as the king did in some part remove the envy from himself, so he did not observe that he did withal bring a kind of malediction and in-fausting on the marriage, as an ill prognostic, which in event so far proved true, as both Prince Arthur enjoyed a very small time after the marriage, and the Lady Catherine herself, a sad and religious woman, long after, when King Henry VIII.'s resolution of divorce from her was first made known to her, used some words—' That she had not offended: but it was a judgment of God, for that her former marriage was made in blood' —meaning that of the Earl of Warwick."

With the execution of these two rivals, Henry VII. put an end to the long catalogue of pretenders to the crown, but for many a long year was the story of the lives and deaths of Warbeck and the young Warwick discussed at thousands of English hearths, with strange comments and significant looks. The one was a narrative of harsh injustice to a princely youth scarcely less exciting than that of the murder of his two still younger cousins in the Tower. The other was that of a strange, daring, and able adventurer, sanctioned by kings, and by princesses of the house of York nearest in blood to the throne, adorned with all princely qualities and graces, and surrounded by mysteries which not all the arts and the prepared confessions of the Tudor had availed to dissipate.

A few months after these tragic events, a plague broke out in London, which the people considered as a direct judgment from Heaven for such wicked bloodshed. Henry got out of town, but not feeling himself safe, after several changes of residence, he went over to Calais, and whilst there he had an interview with the Archduke Philip of Burgundy. Henry invited the archduke to take up his quarters in Calais, but it is a proof of the distrust which even his own allies entertained of the politic Henry, that the archduke declined putting himself into his power, and agreed to meet him at St. Pierre, near that city. What the archduke was particularly anxious to see Henry for, was to excite his jealousy of France, and secure his co-operation in counteracting its ambition.

Charles VIII. of France, as we have seen, had made a grand expedition into Italy to seize on the two Sicilies, having contrived to make out a claim upon them, which, though empty in itself, was good enough for an excuse for conquest. He had passed over the Alps with an army of upwards of 30,000 men. At first all gave way before him, but an extensive league was soon formed against the French encroachment, including Ferdinand of Spain, Maximilian, the King of the Romans, the father of Philip, the Duke of Milan, and the Doge of Venice. Charles, who had led a most dissipated life, died suddenly in 1498 at the Castle of Amboise, and the Duke of Orleans succeeded as Louis XII. Louis was as fully bent as Charles had been to prosecute the conquest of Naples and Sicily, and in 1499 marched with a fresh army into the south of Italy.

It was to secure Henry's assistance in the league against the aggression of France, which alarmed all Europe, that Philip used his most eloquent persuasives but the only persuasives with him were moneys, and these Louis had already extended. He renewed the peace of Estaples, paid up the arrears of Henry's pension, and secured the interest of the Pope, with whom Henry was desirous to stand well, by paying him 20,000 ducats for a dispensation enabling him to divorce his wife, and marry Anne of Brittany, the widow of Charles VIII., and an old flame of his. He had also made over the Valentinois, in Dauphiny, with a pension of 20,000 livres, to the Pope's son, the vile Cæsar Borgia. The Pope, moreover, was coquoting with Henry, inviting him, by an express nuncio, to join a league for an imaginary crusade to the Holy Land, which Henry was ready to do for the cession of some real ports in Italy as places for the retreat and security of his fleet in those seas.

It was not likely that Philip of Burgundy would make much progress with Henry, except so far as he could serve him by keeping certain matters, well known at the Courts of Burgundy and Flanders, concerning the real history of Perkin Warbeck, secret; and his anxiety on this head more and more convinced people that Warbeck was something more than the son of a Jew.

Henry VII. having succeeded in ridding himself of all the pretenders to his crown, now set himself to complete the marriages of his children, and to make money with redoubled ardour. Negotiations had been going on with James of Scotland for the marriage of Henry's eldest daughter, Margaret. In 1490 James, who had previously declined the match, now in communication with Fox, Bishop of Durham, offered to enter into that contract. Henry gladly assented, and, when some of his council suggested that in case of the failure of the male line in England, a Scottish prince, born of this marriage, would become the heir, and England a mere appendage of Scotland, "No," replied Henry, "Scotland will become an appendage of England, for the smaller must follow the larger kingdom." And, no doubt, this idea had from the first actuated the calculating mind of the Tudor. That he was right the event has shown, for, though ultimately the failure of the male line in England took place, and James VI. of Scotland, the descendant of this very marriage, became King of England, yet England became the leading state. In fact, this marriage was by far the most beneficial act of the reign of Henry VII. next to his own marriage with the heiress of York. That marriage united the two rival houses; this united the two kingdoms, the most auspicious event for both countries which