Death of Henry VI. From Tewkesbury Edward marched to London, and the day of his entry saw the death of Henry. Whether he died a natural death or was murdered, is uncertain. In after-times Gloucester was blamed for the death of both father and son. Margaret was, after a time, handed over to the King of France. In 1475 Edward, in alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, crossed to Calais and invaded France. Louis XI., however, was anxious Invasion of not to involve France in war, and made a treaty with Edward at the bridge of Pecquigny. For a large sum of money and a yearly pension, Edward agreed to release Margaret and to retire to England, while Louis promised that the dauphin should marry Edward's daughter Elizabeth. France. Three years later, in 1478, Edward took an opportunity to execute his brother Clarence, whom he had never trusted since his Deaths of Clarence and Edward. Policy of Edward IV. defection to Warwick; and in 1483 Edward died somewhat unexpectedly, at the age of forty-two. On the whole, Edward gained for the country most of the results at which the Yorkists aimed. During the first ten years of his reign there was not much improvement, but after the fall of Warwick, and the attainders and forfeiture of Lancastrian property that followed the battle of Tewkesbury, the nobles, who had been the great causes of disorder, were either killed off, or were so much impoverished that the difficulty of keeping order became much less. Edward's strong rule was a great advantage to the merchants and industrial classes who wanted peace and order, and had therefore supported the Yorkists; its opponents were the old nobility who looked back regretfully to the old state of things. Edward established a spy system by which he well knew what was going on; he saw himself to the administration of justice, tried, by his affability, to make friends with the middle classes, and, in short, began the system which was continued by the Tudors, in which the sovereigns were the patrons of the commons but the enemies of the nobility. For this, however, the wealthy had to pay; and Edward invented the system of benevolences, by which men of means were asked of their goodness to contribute to the needs of the government. As they did not dare to refuse, the plan was a distinct violation of the principle that supplies should be voted by Parliament only, but it did not meet with any active resistance. CHAPTER V. EDWARD V., 1483 (2 months, April to June). Chief Characters of the Reign.—Richard, Duke of Gloucester; Anthony Dangers of a minority. THE death of Edward gave the throne to his son, now thirteen years of age. Nothing could be more alarming to the country than the prospect of another minority like that of Richard II., or more recently that of Henry VI. "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child," was a proverb well impressed by hard experience on the English mind, and there is no wonder that an attempt was soon made to depose him. Hardly was Edward dead than a struggle began for the possession of the reins of power. Of the competitors the most important were, first, the family of Woodville, the relations of the Struggle for power. queen, who had been promoted by Edward, to the disgust of Warwick and the old nobility. Their leaders were the queen, her brother Anthony Lord Rivers, and her son Sir Richard Grey. Then came the old nobility, of whom the most important were Stafford, Duke of Buckingham,1 a descendant of Thomas of Wood1 GENEALOGY OF THE STAFFORDS. stock, youngest son of Edward III.; Percy, Earl of Northumberland; and Lord Stanley, husband of Margaret, daughter of John, Duke of Somerset. Next to them stood the lords of the Council faithful to the house of York, but opposed to the Woodvilles, the most notable of whom were Lord Hastings and John, Lord Howard. Last came Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the younger brother of the late king. Richard had been a faithful friend to his brother. A mere boy during the early wars, he had, as a young man of twenty, gone with his brother into exile, and had distinguished himself by his valour at Barnet and Tewkesbury. Since then he had been to France in 1475, and had lately been acting as governor of the north of England, in which capacity he had carried on a war with Scotland in 1478. His rule in the north had been good, and there he seems to have been deservedly popular. He was a man of great ability, but, like most of the men of his time, quite unscrupulous as to his means. The charge that he had had a hand in the death of both Henry VI. and his son was made when Richard's name was a butt for abuse, and it cannot be either proved or disproved. Character of Gloucester made protector. When the king died, Rivers and his friends were in London with Hastings, the Prince of Wales was at Ludlow, Gloucester was at York, and Buckingham, Howard, and Stanley were in the country. The Woodvilles were the first to move. They sent to Ludlow, and were escorting the young king to London, when they were met at Stony Stratford by Gloucester and Buckingham, who were making common cause. These noblemen seized Lord Rivers and Sir Richard Grey, and sent them prisoners to the north, while they themselves marched with the young king to London. There Gloucester was proclaimed protector of the kingdom, so that he had the chief power in his own hands. His next step was to get rid of Hastings, whom he caused to be suddenly executed on a false charge of conspiracy. He then boldly claimed the crown on the absurd ground that Edward's marriage with Elizabeth Woodville was illegal, because he had already been betrothed to another lady, Edward V. and that the right of Clarence's children was barred by their father's attainder. However, as in the case of Henry IV. only a pretext was wanted, and as Richard had already secured the Fall of power, he had little difficulty in getting the title, of king. Before the end of June, a body of lords and others took upon themselves to offer the crown to Richard, which he accepted; and at the same time Rivers and Grey were executed at Pontefract Castle, in Yorkshire. RICHARD III., 1483-1485 (2 years). Born 1450; married, 1473, Anne Neville. Chief Characters of the Reign.—Henry of Richmond; the Duke of Buckingham; Bishop Morton; Lord Stanley. Richard's RICHARD'S accession seems to have been received by the nation without surprise. It was a relief from the dangers of a long minority, and his good reputation in Yorkshire promised that he would make a successful king. He began his popularity. reign by making a progress through the south, where he was well received, and he won popularity by refusing offers of money which were made to him by some of the citizens. It was, however, during this progress that a crime which in the end lost him his throne was committed; for it is certain that during his absence the two young princes, Edward and his Murder of the brother, Richard Duke of York, who were living in princes. the Tower, disappeared, and it was generally believed that they had been murdered. Lancastrian plots. Those who thought that the princes had been murdered now turned their hopes to Henry of Richmond, the son of Margaret Beaufort, great granddaughter of John of Gaunt, and her first husband, Edmund Tudor, the son of Katharine of France and her Welsh husband, Owen Tudor. His chief supporter was Morton, Bishop of Ely, who had been a friend of Hastings, and since his death had been living in the custody of Buckingham. That nobleman was much disappointed with Richard, because he had not received the post of constable of England, to which he thought he had a claim; and he was, therefore, won over by his prisoner, Morton, to join in a movement for placing Henry of Richmond on the throne. The plan included a rebellion of Buckingham in Wales, and a landing in Devonshire of Henry, who was now an exile in Brittany. It failed, however, because heavy rains flooded the Severn so much that Buckingham could not ford it, and the bridges were held for the king. Consequently, when Henry reached Plymouth, he found no one to help him, so retired; and Buckingham's forces having dispersed, he himself was taken, and executed at Salisbury 1483. Richard now seemed more secure than ever. He held a Parliament, in which he passed two very good laws, one forbidding Difficulty of the the collection of benevolences, the other the keeping succession. of retainers; but he did not live to see them enforced. Unfortunately for him, his only son Edward died in 1484, and as he had declared the children of the late king to be illegitimate, and as those of Clarence were debarred from the succession by the attainder of their father, he appointed as his heir John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, the son of his sister Elizabeth by a son of the Duke of Suffolk, the murdered minister of Henry VI. Proposed union of the rival houses. Morton now formed a plan for marrying Henry of Richmond to Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV., and so uniting the claims of the houses of York and Beaufort. This scheme frightened Richard so much that he for a time, as his wife was dead, thought of marrying Elizabeth himself. He even seems to have won the favour of the late queen, but the suggestion came to nothing. Meanwhile Richmond had not been idle. With the aid of the Earl of Oxford, he had collected forces in France, and in August, Richmond's 1485, he landed at Milford Haven, in Wales. invasion. Thence he marched to Stafford, where he was assured of the support of the Lord Stanley, who was, however, unable to join him openly, because Richard had seized his eldest son as a hostage. Meanwhile Richard was joined by John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and the Earl of Northumberland, and collected his forces at Leicester. Thence he marched to fight Richmond at Bosworth Field. In the battle that followed Norfolk fought bravely, but Stanley |