III..

1474. Feb. 15.

he made repeated inroads into the neighbouring CHAP. counties, receiving supplies from the friends of the house of Lancaster, and wreaking his vengeance on those of the house of York. By Edward's command, sir Henry Bodrugan besieged the mount: but his fidelity was suspected; and he was in a short time superseded by sir John Fortescue. The new commander had been a Lancastrian and a friend: he had recourse to promises and persuasion: and the earl, apprehensive of the treachery of his own men, surrendered the place on condition that his life and the lives of his followers should be spared, with the exception of the lord Beaumont and sir Richard Laumarth. During the next eleven years he was confined a close prisoner in the castle of Ham; while his countess, the sister to the great Warwick, was compelled to support herself by the profits of her needle and the secret presents of her friends.82 4. Though the archbishop of York had rendered The archthe king many services, Edward did not feel easy York bishop of on his throne, as long as a Nevil remained at liberty. They had hunted together at Windsor; and the king in return promised to hunt with the prelate at the Moor in Hertfordshire. The most magnificent preparations were made for his reception: all the plate which the archbishop

92 Stow, 426. Lel. Coll. ii. 508, 509. Fenn, ii. 133. 139. 142. 156. Rot. Parl. vi. 149. We shall meet with him again fighting victoriously for the house of Lancaster.

1473.

III.

The earls of Pem

CHAP. had secreted since the death of his brothers, had been collected: and the principal nobility of the neighbourhood were invited to partake of the entertainment. But Edward sent for him to Windsor, and arrested him on a charge of having lent money to the earl of Oxford. The revenue of his bishopric was seized; his plate confiscated; his mitre converted into a crown; and his jewels divided between the king and the prince of Wales. The prelate lingered in prison for three years, partly in England and partly at Guisnes and did not recover his liberty till a few weeks before his death in the year 1476.83 5. The earl of Pembroke, the uterine brother of broke and Henry, with his nephew the young earl of RichRichmond. mond, left Wales, and was driven by a storm on the coast of Bretagne. The king, as if he had foreseen the severe revenge which that young prince was destined to inflict on the house of York, employed solicitations and promises to have both the uncle and nephew delivered into his hands. But the duke Francis, though he stood in need of the assistance of Edward, resolutely refused to betray the suppliants. He engaged to watch them so, that they should give no reasonable cause of disquietude; but would not expose the exiles, to whom he had promised protection, to the vengeance or policy of their enemy. They remained in a kind of

€3 Lel. Coll. ii, 508. Stow, 426. Rym. xii. 28.

III.

honourable confinement during the reign of Ed- CHAP. ward the reader will see them again in England under that of his successor.84

6. Of the other

partisans of the house of Lancaster, the principal, as soon as their hopes were extinguished by the death of Henry and his son, condescended to implore the clemency of Edward; and that prince, having no longer a competitor to fear, listened with greater attention to their petitions. Hence in the next parliament several attainders were reversed in favour of persons, whose services might prove useful, or whose influence was

too inconsiderable to make them subjects of Morton jealousy. Of these I may mention two, Dr. Mor- and Forton, parson of Blokesworth, and sir John For- tesoue. tescue lord chief justice, who had both been present in the field. of Towton, and both been attainted by act of parliament. In their petitions to Edward they use nearly the same expressions. "They are as sorrowful and repentant, as any "creatures may be, for whatever they have done "to the displeasure of the king's highness and

protest that they are and ever will be true liegemen and obeissant subjects to him their sovereign lord." Acquainted with the talents of Morton, Edward had already granted him his pardon, and made him keeper of the rolls. Soon afterwards he preferred him to the bishopric of Ely. His attachment to the sons of his

84 Com, v. 18. Stow, 426, 429.

III.

CHAP. benefactor earned for him the enmity of RicharXIII.: and to his councils were afterwards ascribed the deposition of that usurper, and the termination of civil discord, by the union of the two roses in the marriage of Henry VII. with the princess Elizabeth. Sir John Fortescue accompanied Margaret and her son during their exile, and with the title of chancellor was intrusted with the education of the young prince. While he was with Henry in Scotland, he had written a treatise in proof of the claim of the house of Lancaster, against that of the house of York. But he could support with equal ability either side of the question: and after the death of Henry wrote a second treatise in proof of the claim of the house of York, against the claim of that of Lancaster. The latter seems to have been required as the price of his pardon. In his petition he assures the king, “that he "hath so clearly disproved all the arguments "that have been made against his right and "title, that now there remaineth no colour or "matter of argument to the hurt or infamy of "the same right or title by reason of any such

66

writing, but the same right and title stand "now the more clear and open by that any such

66

writings have been made against them."85

85 See Rot. Parl. vi. 26. 69. He maintained in his first work that Philippa, daughter of Lionel duke of Clarence, through whom the house of York claimed, had never been acknowledged by her father; in the second that she was his legitimate child and heir.

III.

Thus, after many a bloody field, and the most CHAP. surprising vicissitudes of fortune, was the head of the house of York seated on the throne of Quarrel · between England, apparently without a competitor. His Clarence eldest son, who had been born in the sanctuary cester. during his exile, and had also been named Edward, was now created prince of Wales and earl June 26.

:

See extracts from both treatises in "The Hereditary Right Assert. “ed,” p. 234, 235, and App. i. ii. taken from the Cotton MS. Otho, B. 1.-But the most important of the works of this learned judge, is his tract De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, which he wrote in exile for the instruction of the young prince, who was murdered after the battle of Tewksbury. He informs his royal pupil that the English is not an absolute but a limited monarchy. In the former, which is the offspring of force and conquest, the will of the prince is the law in the latter, which arises from the free election of men for their own safety and convenience, the king can neither make laws, nor take the goods of his subjects, without their consent (c. 9. 12, 13, 14.). Of the superior advantages of the latter the prince could have no doubt, if he would contrast the situation of the lower classes in his own country, with that of similar classes in France. He would find that the English were better clothed, better fed, and enjoyed in greater abundance the comforts of life (c. 35, 36.). He then proceeds to give the preference to the English before the Roman law: 1o. Because the trial by jury is superior to that by witnesses; and to a question from the young Edward, why then other nations do not adopt it, he replies, that they cannot, because in no other country are there to be found such number of substantial yeoman, qualified to serve as jurors: 2o. Because it bastardizes the issue born before wedlock, whereas the civil law legitimates it: 3°. Because it makes the child of the same condition as the father, not as the mother: 4°. Because it refuses the guardianship of orphans to those who by law would succeed to their estates, &c. This treatise is deserving of attention, because it shews what notions prevailed at that period respecting the nature of the English constitution, and the liberties of the subject.

and Glo