Vi. CHAP. the dutchess of Burgundy. James received the adventurer with kindness; paid him the honours due to the prince, whose character he had assumed; and to evince the sincerity of his friendship, gave to him in marriage his near relation, the lady Catharine Gordon, daughter to the earl of Huntley.78 He invades Dec, This sudden improvement in the fortune of the adventurer renewed the jealousy and apprehensions of the king, who had good reason to suspect the enmity of James. That prince had been placed on the throne by the murderers of his father, a faction hostile to the interests of England and Henry had in consequence entered into engagements with a party of the Scottish nobles, who undertook to seize the person of their young sovereign, and to conduct him to London.79 Now, however, Fox bishop of Durham, was commissioned to open a negociation, and to tempt the fidelity of James, with the offer of an English princess in marriage. But he listened rather to the suggestions of resentment or ambition; and demanded as the price of his forbearance terms to which the king refused his assent. Fox was followed by Concressault, as ambassador from the French monarch, who proposed, that all subjects of dispute between the two kings should be referred to the decision of 7 Polydore, 593. Hall, 38, 39. Stow, 479. Speed, 977, HENRY VII. VI. his sovereign: and when that was refused, of- CHAP. fered one hundred thousand crowns for the person of the adventurer, to be sent a captive into France. The bribe was indignantly rejected by James, who coined his plate into money, obtained a small supply from the dutchess of Burgundy, and engaged to place the pretender on the throne, on condition that he should receive as the reward of his services the town of Berwick, and the sum of fifty thousand marks in two years.81 Warbeck had mustered under his standard fourteen hundred men, outlaws from all nations: to these James added all the forces it was in his power to raise; and the combined army crossed the borders in the depth of winter, and when no preparation had been made to oppose them. They were preceded by a proclamation, in which the adventurer styled himself Richard by the grace of God, king of England and France, lord of Ireland, and prince of Wales. It narrated in general terms his escape from the Tower, his wanderings in foreign countries, the usurpation of " Henry Tyd"der," the attempts to debauch the fidelity of his confidents, the execution and attainder of his friends in England, and the protection which Was it Charles, who wished to get possession of Warbeck, or Henry, who made the offer through Charles? It is certain that the ambassador was sent at the instance of Henry, Pinkert, Scot. ii, App. 1. ibid. 81 All these particulars are taken from a letter of lord Bothwell, ibid. Ellis, Original letters, i, 25, 32. VI. CHAP. he had received from the king of Scots. He was now in England, accompanied by that monarch, for the purpose of reclaiming his right and James, whose only object was to assist him, had engaged to retire the moment that he should be joined by a competent number of natives. He therefore called on every true Englishman to arm in his cause; and promised to the man who should " take or distress Henry Tydder," a reward proportioned to his condition, "so as the most low and simplest of degree should have for his labour one thousand Insurrec tion in 1497. pounds in money, and lands to the yearly "value of one hundred marks to him and his "heirs for ever."982 But the proclamation had no effect. The novelty of the thing had worn away, and not a sword was unsheathed in favour of the white rose. The Scots, to console their disappointment, and to repay themselves for their trouble, pillaged the country without mercy. As soon as the intelligence of this invasion Cornwall. reached Henry, he ordered Dawbeney, the lord Feb. 13. chamberlain, to raise forces, summoned a great council, and afterwards a parliament, and obtained a grant of two tenths and two fifteenths.83 In most counties the tax was levied without opposition in Cornwall the people, inflamed by the harangues of Flammock an attorney, and of 2 This proclamation is printed in Henry, xii. App. i. p. 387. It is much altered by Bacon, 87. $3 Rot. Parl. vi. 513-519. VI. Joseph a farrier, flew to arms; refused to pay CHAP. their money for an object which, it was pretended, did not concern them, but the natives of the northern counties; and resolved, to the number of sixteen thousand men, to demand of the king the punishment of Archbishop Morton, and of sir Reginald Gray, the supposed authors of this unjustifiable impost. The misguided multitude commenced their march: at Wells they were joined by the lord Audely, who placed himself at their head, and conducted them through Salisbury and Winchester into Kent. Opposed by the gentlemen of the county, he turned towards London, and encamped on Black- June 22. heath in sight of the capital. But Henry had by this time been joined by most of the southern nobility, and by the troops that had been pre viously raised against the Scots. On a Saturday (the king superstitiously believed that Saturday was his fortunate day,) the lord chamberlain marched to attack the insurgents: the earl of Oxford made a circuit to fall on their rear: and Henry with the artillery waited in St. George's fields the event of the battle. The Cornish archers defended with obstinacy the bridge at Deptford strand: but the moment it was forced, the insurgents fled in despair. Two thousand were killed: fifteen hundred were taken. Lord Audely lost his head: Flammock and Joseph were hanged: the rest obtained a pardon from the king, and were allowed to compound for VI. CHAP. their liberty with their captors, on the best terms in their power. This lenity, so unusual in Henry, was attributed by some to policy, and a desire to attach to his cause the men of Cornwall; by others to gratitude for the life of the lord chamberlain, whom the insurgents had made prisoner at the commencement of the action, and had restored to liberty without ran Peace with While the attention of the king was occupied by the Cornish insurgents, James again crossed the borders, and laid siege to the castle of Norham, while his light troops scoured the country as far as the Tees. But the earl of Surrey with twenty thousand men, was now hastening towards the north. The plunderers cautiously retired as he advanced: James abandoned the siege; and Surrey retaliated on the Scottish borderers the injuries which they had inflicted on their English neighbours. The failure of this second expedition, with the news of the defeat of the Cornishmen, induced the king of Scots to listen to the suggestions of don Pedro Ayala, the Spanish ambassador, 'who laboured with earnestness to reconcile the two monarchs. Commissioners met at Aytown in Scotland: Ayala presented himself as mediator; and a Sept. 30. truce was concluded for seven years. James was so satisfied with the impartiality of the Rym. xii. 696. Hall, 41, 42, 43. Fab. 531. Rot. Parl, vi. 544. |