'Nay, give me my battle-axe in my hand, and the crown of England on my helm so high, For by Him that made both sea and land, King of England this One foot I will never flee, whilst the breath is my heart within!' For when he saw that the day was lost he spurred his steed, White Surrey, straight at the St. George standard of Richmond, crying, "Treason, treason!" In his furious charge he cut down Henry's banner-bearer, Brandon, and unhorsed another strong knight. But he was almost alone, and before he could kill Henry he was overpowered and slain. Lord Stanley picked up the crown which had been stricken from the fallen king's helmet, and had fallen in a hawthorn bush, and taking Richmond to a little hillock close by, set it on his head amid shouts of "King Harry, King Harry! The body of Richard was stripped and borne across a herald's horse, like a dead calf, to Leicester, where it was buried in the Grey Friars church. Brackenbury, Ratcliffe, Lord Ferrers, and Theobald, King Richard's standardbearer (who clung to his banner when he could no longer stand for his wounds), died with their master. Henry lost scarce one man of note. Richard was one of the most able kings that ever reigned in England, and so far as can be seen his rule deserves high praise. With all the talents and far more perseverance than his brother Edward, he took especial care of police, justice, and trade. The one parliament of his reign did more to better the laws than any since the death of Edward III. He was never tired of looking into his subjects' grievances himself, and in redressing these he showed uprightness and kindliness. He had a higher sense of the royal honour than his brother, and he had been angry when Edward had taken bribes from the French king at Peronne rather than fight for his claims on France. He had never changed sides like the "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," but had shown such a strong and unyielding party-feeling, that his foes set down to him the harshest measures that had been taken against the Red Rose. Whether he really did the deeds of which he is accused is not certain, but there is nothing in what is known of him to render his guilt unlikely. Unbounded selfishness and keen ambition, careful of the end but careless of the means to gain that end, appear in the character of many princes of his day, and might and often did exist along with the personal good-nature, gallantry, In his generosity, high ability and outward strictness of life which Richard undoubtedly showed. He was a persuasive speaker, a lover of music, and art, and learning, and delighted in rich clothes, shows, and ceremonies, though his own dress was simple and good. He was, like all his family, handsome of face, and in spite of having one shoulder slightly higher than the other, and the left arm weaker and smaller than the right, he is said by those who knew him to have been a singularly active, agile, and powerful man. plan of governing by men such as Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Lovel, whom he could put up and set down as he liked, in his determination to quell the turbulence of his nobles by strict laws against men keeping large numbers of armed retainers or making partisans by the giving of badges, in the plans of finance by which he strove to lighten the burdens of the merchant, yeoman, and artisan, he improved upon his brother's policy, and laid down the lines upon which the Tudors ruled England for sixscore years to the people's liking and their own good-fortune-yet he has left his own name to become a by-word and a reproach. CHAPTER VI. Henry VII., 1485-1509. 1. Henry's first act was to send the Lady Bessy, his betrothed, and her cousin Edward of Warwick, Clarence's son, from the north, where they had been living in safe custody, to the Tower. He himself soon followed them to London, which he entered in great state amid much rejoicing on a Saturday, a day he always fancied brought him good fortune. But he was not able to be crowned for some weeks, because of the sweating sickness, which was raging very badly at the time in the city. After the coronation, when he made his father's brother Jasper Duke of Bedford, his step-father Stanley Earl of Derby, and his friend Sir Edward Courtnay Earl of Devon, he called a parliament. It met and reversed the attainders of the new king's mother, kinsmen, and friends, annulled the Acts which and married, declared Henry IV., V., and VI. usurpers and Edward IV.'s children base born, and passed a bill attainting King Richard and his chief counsellors. It Henry crowned 1485-1486. was also settled "that the inheritance of the crown should rest, remain, and abide in King Henry VII. and the heirs of his body," and both Houses prayed the new king to marry the Lady Elizabeth of York. To this he agreed, and after proclaiming a pardon to all who had offended him, he wedded the Lady Bessy on the 18th January. Knowing that Richard had been well liked in the north, he now resolved to follow his example and make a progress through his kingdom from London to York, redressing grievances, and meeting all who wished to see him or speak with him. On the road he was annoyed by the first of the many risings which made his reign almost as troublesome as that of Henry IV. Lord Lovel broke out of sanctuary, raised a band of soldiers, and was about to waylay the king on his road, while the Staffords (cousins of the late Duke of Buckingham) seized Worcester. But Bedford and the northern levies scattered Lovel's men, though he himself escaped to Flanders to Edward IV.'s sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, Henry's deadliest foe. The Staffords were easily put down. In England the Yorkists were too disheartened by their late defeats to risk further misfortune; but in Ireland, where they had not suffered for the cause, and where the government was wholly in their hands, there were many eager to strike another blow for the White Rose. The Fitzgeralds had been put into power by Richard of York, and his son Richard, in 1484, had named their head, the Earl of Kildare, Lord-Deputy for life. Henry VII. naturally leant towards the rival house, that of the Butlers, who were staunch Lancastrians; and though he dared not overthrow the Fitzgeralds, he at once sent over his uncle Jasper as Lord-Lieutenant to look after his interests. Kildare accordingly fell readily into a scheme formed at the court of Burgundy for the new king's overthrow. 2. In February 1487 there came to Waterford a priest, Richard Symons, with a handsome boy of ten years old, who he said was Edward of Warwick, son of Clarence, and heir of the English crown. They were welcomed and acknowledged by the Fitzgeralds, and the news sent to the Yorkists in England. John Earl of Lincoln, who had his own claims to the crown, travelled secretly to Flanders, and thence, by the help of the duchess, soon sailed to Dublin with Lord Lovel and a number of German arcbusiers under Martin Swart, a veteran captain. The plot was now ripe on May 15; the boy was crowned in Dublin Cathedral with a The Lambert Simnel rebellion crushed at 1487. circle of silver taken from the head of the Virgin's image, and borne through the streets after the Irish fashion on the shoulders of the chief of the Darcies. They then resolved to cross into Stoke, June 15, England and attack King Henry there, and on June 4 landed at Foudray. Meanwhile Henry had made ready to resist his enemies; he brought the real Edward of Warwick out of the Tower, so that people might see for themselves that the boy the Irish crowned was a counterfeit ; he levied troops, and he went a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham to pray for help in his troubles. The earls got as far south as Stoke, though their snowball did not gather as it went, and few Englishmen joined them. Here the king met them, and after three hours' hard fighting won the day. Martin Swart and his "merry men," Kildare and his Irish gallow-glasses, Lincoln and the English Yorkists, were all killed on the field. Lovel swam the Trent and reached his home, where he hid in a secret chamber underground for some time, till of wounds or want of food he died. The priest and the pretended Edward were taken. The former was sent to prison, but the latter Henry pardoned and made a turnspit in his kitchen, whence he afterwards rose to be a falconer in the Royal Mews. It was found out that his real name was Lambert, and that he was the son of Thomas Simnel, organ-maker, of Oxford. He was taken and trained to act as he did, because the Yorkists feared that if they chose Edward as king while he was in Henry's hands, the king would at once put him to death; whereas, if they set up a false Edward (whom they could easily get rid of if they were able to overthrow Henry), the king would be obliged, in his own interest, to keep the true Edward alive, to show the people that he was not with the rebels. Henry punished those whom he found to have been in the secret of the plot by heavy fines; and to show the Yorkists that he did not mean to persecute them, he had his queen crowned with much show of state, and sent to Ireland to pardon the Fitzgeralds on condition of their swearing to be faithful to him. 3. Henry now busied himself with foreign affairs, and especially with those of Scotland and Brittany. With James III. of Scotland he was good friends, and there was even some talk of the Scottish king marrying Elizabeth, widow of Edward IV., and of two of the Scottish princes wedding two of her unmarried daughters. But the Scottish nobles of the party of Albany rebelled, and seized the king's Henry's treaties eldest son (still a boy), pretending to be upholding his rights against his father's counsellors. On June 11, 1488, the royal army was utterly defeated, and James III. killed as he fled from the battle. The new king was under the sway of men who disliked Henry heartily, as was soon to be seen, but the old friends of James III., who took refuge in England, were always ready and wars abroad, to forward the schemes of the English 1487-1492. king, by whom they hoped to regain power some day in their own land. As for Brittany, Duke Francis was now old, and the young French king, Charles VIII., the Duke of Orleans, and Maximilian, King of the Romans, were all hoping to succeed to his heritage, since he had no heir-male. Henry was called upon by both Francis and Charles for help, but he did not wish to risk his troops abroad, or to spend money on other people's behalf. He therefore made the war a pretext for getting Parliament to give him a large subsidy, and sent Edward Earl Rivers with a few men to Brittany, promising further help later. But his craft overreached itself and brought him trouble, for the people in Yorkshire and Durham said openly that they had endured of late years a thousand miseries, and neither could nor would pay the subsidy. But the king answered them that he would not bate a penny of what had been granted him by Parliament. Thereupon they rose under Sir John Egremont and John a' Chamber and killed the Earl of Northumberland, whom they hated both for his harshness to them in levying the tax and his treachery to their old favourite King Richard III. However, this rising was soon put down by Thomas, Earl of Surrey (son to the Duke of Norfolk, who died at Bosworth), who took and hanged John a' Chamber and many of his followers. In Brittany too things fell out ill, for the Bretons were badly beaten at S. Aubin, where Rivers was killed, and on Francis' death a few weeks later the French overran the greater part of his duchy. So angry were the English that Henry was obliged to send an army under Sir Robert Willoby to Brittany to help the heiress Anne, and another under Lords d'Aubigny and Morley to Flanders to aid Maximilian.—At Dixmude the English archers gained a splendid victory, storming the French camp and killing 8000 men, for they would give no quarter, as their leader, the young Lord Morley, had been killed. One archer, John Pearson, who was lamed by a cannon-shot, shot his arrows as he lay till the Frenchmen fled, and then he cried to one of his fellows, |
