Prolonga tion of Scotland. however, a new institution. The king had always been acknowledged as the fountain of justice and though he generally administered the laws by his delegates in the ordinary courts, yet in matters of high import to the state, he was accustomed to call causes before himself in council, which, if they were of a criminal description, were decided in a room called from its decorations the star, if of a civil nature, in another denominated the white, chamber. ' Henry was careful to cultivate the friendship which peace with subsisted between him and the king of Scots. To cement it the more firmly, Fox bishop of Durham had been sent during the summer to Edinburgh : and a mutual agreement had been made, that James, who had lost his Nov. 28. consort, the daughter of the king of Denmark, should marry Elizabeth, the queen dowager of England, and that his two sons should also marry two of her daughters 2. Days were even appointed for the meeting of Stat. at large, 3 Hen. VII. c. 1. Bacon, 38. On the 15th of December, during this parliament, a conspiracy was formed among the servants of his household to murder some of the superior officers. Six of the ringleaders were attainted of felony by parliament, and an act was passed which made it felony without benefit of clergy for any person under the rank of a lord, if he were entered on the chequeroll of the household, to conspire the death of the king, of any peer, of any privy counsellor, or of the steward, treasurer, or comptroller of the household. Before this act they could not be so punished for the conspiracy itself, unless the act followed. Rot. Parl. vi. 402. Stat. 3 Hen. VII. c. 14. 2 Rym. xii. 329. This fact deserves particular notice, as it invincibly disproves the hypothesis of those writers, who maintain that Henry knew that one of the sons of Edward IV. was still living, and had confined their mother Elizabeth, that she might not divulge the secret. If this were true, it is incredible that he could have wished to marry Elizabeth to the king of Scots, and her two ambassadors to fix the marriage setlements: but the project was interrupted by the rebellion of the Scottish lords, and finally defeated by the death of James, who, daughters to two Scottish princes. Such marriages would have placed her in a situation, where she might have published the truth without fear, have secured an asylum for her son, and have seconded his claim with all the power of Scotland. Indeed I think the whole story of Elizabeth's punishment extremely doubtful. That she was high in the king's favour just before the rebellion of Lincoln, appears from his having chosen her to be godmother to his son that she was equally so after, may be inferred from his wish to marry her the same year to his friend the king of Scots. Polydore, indeed (p. 571), and Bacon (p. 16), who transcribes Hall (p. 3), tell us that the king, on the rebellion of Lincoln, deprived her of all her lands and estates. If they mean her dower as queen, the only property which she had, their assertion is undoubtedly false. She had been deprived of that by Richard III. : nor was it restored by Henry's parliament, when it repealed so much of the act as deprived her « of the name, estate, and dignity of queen » (Rot. Parl. vi. 288). In lieu of it the king granted her a compensation. See the collection of unpublished acts by Rymer, Hen. VII. tom. 1. No. 29. 39. Again Polydore (ibid.) assures us that she ever after led a miserable life, Carte (p. 827), and Laing (p. 433), that she was kept in the strictest confinement. But this too must be in a great measure, if not entirely, false. For we accidentally learn from the journal of the herald (Lel. Coll. iv. 249), that when the French ambassadors were introduced to the queen at Westminster in November 1489, ther was with her hir moder quene Elizabeth, and my lady the kinge's moder : » and we find her the next year receiving an annuity from the king (Rym. ibid. N°. 75). Hence I am inclined to believe that if she were confined at all in 1487, it was only as a measure of precaution, during the time of the insurrection. Her son the Marquess of Dorset was then in the Tower, but was released soon afterwards at the coronation of his sister. The reader will recollect that Elizabeth had formerly tampered with him, to draw him from the party of Henry to that of Richard. On this account perhaps the king might distrust them both, and secure them till the danger was past. « Affairs of after losing the battle of Canglor in June 1488, was murdered at the mill of Beton during his flight. Though Henry grieved for the death of his friend, he was anxious to maintain the relations of amity with his successor and therefore, as the truce might be said to have terminated at the death of James, he ratified it anew in the following month. Thus was peace continued between the two crowns for the space of eleven years; an unusual duration, preparative of that harmony which, after centuries of rapine and bloodshed, was at last happily established. ' As soon as the king was relieved from domestic enemies, he was compelled to direct his attention to the continent. By force, or policy, or good fortune, the French monarchs had gradually obtained possession of the other great fiefs of the crown: Bretagne alone retained its own prince, and its ancient constitution. But the duke Francis was advanced in age, and equally weak both in mind and body. His family consisted of two daughters, the elder of whom, named Anne, had reached her twelfth year. So rich an heiress attracted a number of suitors, among whom the most distinguished were, Maximilian king of the Romans, the duke of Orleans first prince of the blood in France, and the lord d'Albret, a powerful chieftain near the foot of the Pyrenees. Each of these might flatter himself with the hope of obtaining with the princess her ample patrimony: but they had all a dangerous enemy in the king of France, who, though he was prevented from soliciting the hand of Anne by a previous contract with the daughter of Maximilian, had determined at the death of the duke to take possession of the dutchy in Rym. xii. 328-331. 346. I virtue of some ancient aud unintelligible claim, which had lain dormant for centuries. affected Charles VIII. had ascended the throne in 1483, at Henry's the age of fourteen, an age at which the law presumed delays. that the heir to the throne must be possessed of sufficient capacity and experience to govern the kingdom. But his father Louis XI. had thought otherwise and in obedience to the instructions of that monarch, the states placed the young king under the tutelage of his elder sister, Anne of France, who had married Pierre de Bourbon, lord of Beaujeu. The duke of Orleans, though he had not reached his twenty-fourth year, was offended with the choice: he raised forces against the regent, and was compelled to seek the protection of the duke of Bretagne. It so chanced that at the same time several Breton nobles, who had incurred the resentment of Francis by the murder of his favourite minister Pierre de Landois, had fled to the court of Charles. The regency declared war, for the apparent purpose of compelling the duke to pardon the exiles, and give up the French prince, but with the real view of preventing the marriage of Anne, and of annexing Bretagne to the crown. Both parties applied to Henry. The king of France deprecated his interference: the duke solicited immediate assistance. Charles, to lull his jealousy, represented the war as an unimportant quarrel between himself and the protector of a rebellious vassal: Francis endeavoured to awaken his fears, by describing the accession of power which France would derive from the conquest of the dutchy. Each appealed to his gratitude. The former reminded him of the French auxiliaries who fought under his banner at the battle of Bosworth the latter of the protection 1488. July 14. which he had experienced during his long exile in : |