III. liation. 1468. Jan. 8. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. clared to be groundless, the king selected a body guard of two hundred archers, who were ordered to attend always on his person. Every Reconci- thing seemed to threaten a rupture, when their common friends interfered, by whose means the archbishop of York and the earl Rivers met at Nottingham, and settled the terms of reconciliation. The prelate conducted his brother to Coventry, where he was graciously received by the king all subjects of offence between him and the lords Herbert, Stafford, and Audeley were reciprocally forgiven; and the archbishop, as the reward of his services, recovered the possession of his two manors.38 During the next year Warwick publicly appeared at court: when Edward conducted his sister to the coast, on her way to Flanders, she rode behind the earl through the streets of the metropolis:39 and on the discovery of a conspiracy in favour of Henry, he sate among the judges on the trial of the accused. But these outward appearances of harmony and confidence did not deceive the people: they foresaw the storm which was gathering; and while they pitied the real or imaginary wrongs of their favourite, laid the blame on the ambition of the queen and her relatives." 38 The grant of the manors is dated 1469 in Rymer (x. 642), which proves that Wyrcester is wrong, unless it be a second grant for greater security. 39 She was married to Charles, now duke of Burgundy, at Damme on the 3d of June, at five in the morning. Fenn, ii. 4. "See in particular Wyrcester, 510–515. I have been the more particular in these details, that the reader might observe the origin and progress of the jealousies and dissensions, which dissolved the friendship between Warwick and Edward, led to the flight of the latter, and the restoration of Henry.* 41 But with respect to most of the events which follow, he must be content with a bare and very imperfect narrative. For though they were extraordinary in their nature, and most important in their re 11 Many writers tell us that the enmity of Warwick arose from his disappointment, caused by Edward's clandestine marriage with Elizabeth. If we may believe them, the earl was at the very time in France negotiating on the part of the king a marriage with Bona of Savoy, sister to the queen of France; and having succeeded in his mission, brought back with him the count of Dampmartin as ambassador from Louis. To me the whole story appears a fiction. 1. It is not to be found in the more ancient historians. 2. Warwick was not at the time in France. On the 20th of April, ten days before the marriage, he was employed in negociating a truce with the French envoys in London (Rym. xi. 521), and on the 26th of May, about three weeks after it, was appointed to treat of another truce with the king of Scots (Rym. xi. 424). 3. Nor could he bring Dampmartin with him to England. For that nobleman was committed a prisoner to the Bastile in September, 1463, and remained there till May, 1465. Monstrel. iii. 97. 109. Three contemporary and well informed writers, the two continuators of the history of Croyland, and Wyrcester, attribute his discontent to the marriages and honours granted to the Wydeviles, and the marriage. of the princess Elizabeth with the duke of Burgundy and a fourth tells us from the mouth of Edward himself, that the king's suspicion of Warwick's fidelity arose from the secret conferences of that nobleman with Louis at Rouen. See Cont. Hist. Croyl. 542. 55. Wyrcester, 504-510. Fragment, 299. Wyrcester's annals end in 1468: from a letter in Fenn, ii. 112, it is probable that he died in 1472. CHAP. III. CHAP. Clarence married to ter of Warwick. sults, yet in the confused and mutilated records of the time, it is impossible to discover the immediate causes by which they were produced, or the secret relations, which connected them with each other. 1. George, the elder of the surviving brothers the daugh- of Edward, had received with the title of duke of Clarence, a proportionate income, and had been named to the lieutenancy of Ireland, which office on account of his age he was permitted to execute by his deputy, the earl of Worcester. This young prince, dissatisfied at the ascendancy of the Wydeviles, absented himself frequently from court, and preferred to the company of his brother that of the earl of Warwick. Another cause for this preference may, perhaps, be found in the attachment which he had formed for Isabella, the daughter of that nobleman. Clarence was yet the next male heir to the throne: and Edward, aware of the ambition of Warwick, earnestly laboured to prevent the marriage of the parties. His efforts were ineffectual: and the ceremony was performed without his consent, in the church of St. Nicholas at Calais, by the uncle of the bride, the archbishop of York. 1469. July 11. Insurrec tion in 2. It is a singular circumstance that at the Yorkshire. very time, when this prelate and his brother met at Calais to celebrate the marriage in defiance of the king, an insurrection should burst forth in that part of the realm, where they possessed the principal influence. Its ostensible cause was the determination of the farmers of Yorkshire to resist the demand of a thrave of corn from every plough-land, made by the warden of the hospital of St. Leonard's. The thrave had been always paid since the time of king Athelstan of late it had been refused; and when the officers attempted to levy its value by distress, the peasants flew to arms, chose for their leader Robert Hilyard, commonly called Robin of Redesdale, and threatened to march to the south, and reform the abuses of government. The citizens of York were alarmed by the approach of fifteen thousand insurgents: but the earl of Northumberland, Warwick's brother, to prevent the destruction of the city, attacked and defeated them with considerable slaughter. Their leader was executed on the field of battle. 3. This circumstance seems to acquit one of the Nevils from all share in the insurrection: yet his subsequent inactivity, and the conduct of his two brothers prove, that whatever were its original cause, they were willing at least to convert it to their own purposes. Northumberland could, if he had pleased, have instantly extinguished the flame: he carelessly looked on, till it grew into a general conflagration. The rebels, though repulsed, were neither dispersed nor followed: and in the place of the leader whom they had lost, found two others of more illustrious name, and more powerful con CHAP. III. Edward is in distress. III. CHAP. nexions, the sons of the lords Fitz-hugh and men, though nominally at the head of the 42 During this insurrection reports of witchcraft were circulated against Jacquetta, the king's mother-in-law. She afterwards exhibited the following complaint to Edward: "To the king our "sovereign lord sheweth and lamentably complaineth unto your highness your humble and true liege-woman Jacquetta, dutchess "of Bedford....that when she at all time hath and yet doth truly believe on God according to the faith of holy church, as a "true christian woman ought to do, yet Thomas Wake, esq..... "hath caused her to be brought in a common noise and disclander "of witchcraft throughout a great part of your realm, surmising "that she should have used witchcraft and sorcery, insomuch as "the said Wake caused to be brought to Warwick at your last "being there, sovereign lord (he was then in the custody of Clarence, Warwick, and the archbishop), to divers of the lords being "there present, an image of lead made like a man of arms containing the length of a man's finger, and broken in the middle, "and made fast with a wire, saying that it was made by your "said oratrice, to use with the said witchcraft and sorcery: where "she, nor none for her or by her ever saw it, God knoweth." Of |