when the friends of Henry were assembling their forces in Northumberland, he repaired to Stony Stratford, whence, early on the morning of the first of May, he stole in great secrecy to Grafton. The marriage May 1. ceremony was performed by a priest in the presence of his clerk, of the dutchess of Bedford, and of two female attendants. After an hour or two Edward returned to Stony Stratford, and, pretending lassitude from hunting, shut himself up in his chamber. Two May 3. days afterwards he invited himself to Grafton. To divert the attention of the courtiers, their time was wholly occupied with the pleasures of the chace, nor did the king and Elizabeth ever meet in private, till the dutchess had ascertained that the whole family had retired to rest. Thus he spent four days; and then returning to London, issued orders for his army to join him in Yorkshire. But before his arrival in the May 10. north the war had been ended by the two victories of Hedgley moor and Hexham : and after his return it became the principal subject of his solicitude, to open the matter to his counsellors, and to obtain their approbation.

1

1 By all our ancient historians, with the exception of the unknown author of the Fragment, published by Hearne at the end of Sprot, the marriage of Edward has been fixed on the 1st of May, 1464. That writer dates it in the preceding year (p. 293.): and it has been urged in favour of the earlier date, that Edward in 1464 was too much occupied with the war to think of marriage, and that the anonymous writer expressly refutes from his own knowledge those, who place it later. Carte, ii. 770. But it may be observed that, according to the dates in Rymer, the king did not summon his army till the ninth day after that on which the marriage is said to have taken place, and that the anonymous writer refutes, not those who place the marriage in a different year from himself, but those who say the king was to have married the dowager queen of

May 7.

The queen

is acknow

crowned. Sept. 29.

Dec.

For this purpose he summoned at Michaelmas a ledged and general council of the peers to meet in the abbey of Reading and the duke of Clarence and the earl of Warwick, though they are supposed to have disapproved of the marriage, taking Elizabeth by the hand, introduced her to the rest of the lords, by whom, in the presence of the king, she was acknowledged and complimented as queen. Soon afterwards a second council was held at Westminster: and an income was settled on her of four thousand marks a year'. But, notwithstanding this outward shew of approbation, there are many who murmured in private, and could ill disguise their jealousy at the elevation to the throne of a woman, whose father a few years ago was no more than a simple knight. To excuse the king, his friends circulated reports, that his inexperience had been deceived by the arts of the dutchess and her daughter that philtres and magic had been employed to extort his consent: and that he had since repented of his precipitancy, and struggled, but in vain, to dissolve the marriage. But Edward himself, that he might silence those who objected the meanness of her birth, invited her maternal uncle, James of Luxemburgh, who with a retinue of one hundred knights and gentlemen attended her coronation 3. On the feast of the Ascension the king created thirty-eight knights of the bath, of whom four were prudently selected Scotland, p. 293, 294. Indeed he is at variance with himself. For though he places the marriage in 1463, he says it was in the same year as the battle of Hexham (292), which certainly took place in 1464. For the particulars of the marriage see that writer, and Fabian, p. 494, 495.

1465. May 22.

from the citizens of London. The next day the mayor, aldermen and different companies met the queen at Shooter's hill, and conducted her in state to the Tower. On the Saturday, to gratify the curiosity of the populace, she rode in a horse litter through the principal streets, preceded by the newly created knights. Her May 25. coronation followed on the Sunday, and the rest of the week was devoted to feasting, tournaments, and public rejoicings.

The elevation of Elizabeth was the elevation of her family. By the influence of the king her five sisters were married to the young duke of Buckingham, and to the heirs of the earl of Essex, the earl of Arundel, the earl of Kent, and the lord Herbert: her brother Anthony to the daughter of the late lord Scales, with whom he obtained the estate and title: her younger brother John in his twentieth year to Catharine, the dowager but opulent dutchess of Norfolk, in her eightieth and her son Thomas by her former husband to Anne, the king's niece, and daughter and heiress to the duke of Exeter. We are assured by a contemporary that these marriages were viewed with jealousy by most of the nobility. Many saw those projects disconcerted which they had formed for the advancement of their own children, particularly the earl of Warwick, who had previously solicited the hand of the heiress of Exeter for his own nephew; all considered the sudden rise of the new family as an

I

Wyrcest. 501-503. Fragment ad fin. Sprot, 294, 295.

2 Juvencula fere 80 annorum. Wyrcest. 501. On account of the disparity of their ages, Wyrcester calls this maritagium diabolicum. But adds, vindicta Bernardi inter eosdem postea patuit. Ibid. What was the vindicta Bernardi?

All her relations pro

vided for.

Discontent

of the Nevils.

injury offered to themselves. To add to their discontent, the lord Mountjoy, treasurer of England, was removed to make place for the queen's father, who was created earl Rivers, and soon afterwards, at the resignation of the earl of Worcester, lord high constable. '

Of the three Nevils, George the youngest brother, bishop of Exeter, had received the seals on Edward's accession, and had lately been transferred to the archiepiscopal see of York 2. The next, the lord Montague, was warden of the east marches of Scotland, and with the title of earl of Northumberland had obtained the estates of the Percies. The earl of Warwick, the third, had hitherto been the king's chief minister and general. He held the wardenship of the west marches, the office of chamberlain, and the government of Calais, the most lucrative and important appointment in the gift of the sovereign3. Hitherto they had governed the king and the kingdom: now they foresaw the diminution of their influence by the ascendancy of a rival family. Edward had grown weary of the state of tutelage in which they detained

Wyrcest. 500, 501. 505, 506, 507.

2 The reader may see the particulars of the feast at his installation, and the names of the guests in Lel. Coll. vi. 1—14.

3 Commines, who was often at Calais, tells us on the authority of the chief officer of the staple, that the government of that town was worth 15,000 crowns a year. Com. 1. iii. c. 4. — Stow adds that Warwick was a great favourite with the people, on account of his hospitality. When he came to London, he held such an house, << that six oxen were eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full << of his meat; for who that had any acquaintance in that house, he

«

should have had as much sodden (boiled) and roast, as he might carry upon a long dagger. » Stow, 421.

:

him the Wydeviles urged him to emancipate himself from the control of his own servants; and his affec tions were insensibly transferred from the men, who had given him the title, to those who exhorted him to exercise the authority, of a king. This coldness was first made public in the year 1467, when a marriage was suggested between Margaret the king's sister, and Charles count of Charolois, son to the duke of Burgundy, who, as he was sprung from the house of Lancaster, had always favoured the friends of Henry, but now from motives of policy sought an alliance with Edward to protect himself against his adversary the king of France. Warwick, who had long a vowed himself the enemy of Charles', condemned the project, and advised a marriage with one of the French princes. To his objections were opposed the advantages which would result from the intended alliance to the king, by converting the enemy of his family into a friend, and to the nation, by affording greater facility to the commercial intercourse between England and the Netherlands. Edward, perhaps to free himself from an imperious counsellor, commissioned Warwick to treat with the king of France, who received him at Rouen with all the respect due to a sovereign prince, gave him for his residence the house next to his own, and by a private door repeatedly visited him in secret for the space of twelve days. During the earl's absence, the bastard of Burgundy arrived in London under the pretence of performing feats of arms with the lord Scales, but at the same time to negociate the intended

'Cont. Hist. Croyl. 551. Capitali odio prosecutus est hominem illum, scilicet Carolum. Ibid.

1469.

May 6,