Page:The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.djvu/133

Rh celebrate a marriage—now to grace the entrance of some noble gentleman into the order of knighthood. Charles was an amiable prince—his queen a beautiful and spirited lady—the duke of Orleans an accomplished and adventurous cavalier. They all vied in acts of courtesy and kindness towards their royal visitor. There was an innocence in Richard's vivacity, an ingenuousness in his reliance on their protection, that particularly captivated the chivalrous Orleans and the fair Queen Anne. How changed the scene from the wilds of Ireland and the semi-barbarous halls of the Desmond! The courtly and soft grace of the French, different from the dignity of the Spaniard, was irresistible to the inexperienced youth. It seemed to him that his standard was set up here for ever. No change could sully the fair favour of these illustrious friends. All young as he was, to be treated as rightful king of England by this potent government satisfied for the moment his ambition. He and his English friends welcome everywhere, all honoured—himself beloved—were the ascendant star in Paris. O'Maurice of Desmond! O'Barry, and good, honest-hearted O'Water!—though still he acknowledged your kindness, how did your uncivilized hospitalities fade before the golden splendour of King Charles's court!

York might by the sober be blamed for yielding to the current, for setting his swelling canvas with the favouring wind—exulting. It was a boy's blindness; the unsuspiciousness of inexperience; the fault lay in the falsehood; and that was not his.

On the sixth of October Henry the Seventh landed at Calais; on the nineteenth he sat down before Boulogne, with sixteen hundred men-at-arms, and twenty-five thousand infantry. Charles could not much fear the tardy operations of his foe; but the name of an English invasion, so associated with defeat and disaster, was portentous to the French: besides, Charles was eager to prepare for his Italian wars. Thus disposed, peace was easily brought about. One only obstableobstacle [sic] presented itself. Henry insisted that the newly-arrived duke of York should be delivered up to him; Charles rejected the proposition with disdain: the negotiations were suspended, and the French king grew uneasy: it was no pleasant thing to have thirty or forty thousand of those English in the kingdom, who had disputed it inch by inch, at the expense of so much misery and slaughter, with his grandfather. Their king was averse to war; but the body of the army, the nobles, and leaders, ardently desired it: some intrigue, some accident, might light up a train to be quenched only by seas of blood; and all this for a prince, in whom, except that he was gallant and unfortunate, Charles took no concern.