to receive him, he charged them with fury. Though they were brave men, and 16,000 strong, thus taken at advantage, and naturally ill-disciplined, ill-armed, and destitute of cavalry and artillery, they were soon broken and compelled to fly. Two thousand of them were slain, and 1,500 made prisoners. The prisoners Henry gave up to the captors, who allowed them to ransom themselves for a few shillings each. Lord Audley, Flammock, and Joseph only were executed. The peer was beheaded, the commoners were hanged; and Joseph seemed to glory in the distinction, saying he should figure in history. Henry on this occasion displayed great clemency, which some have ascribed to his desire to make a good impression on the Cornish people; others for joy that Lord Daubeney had escaped, for at one time he was surrounded by the enemy but was soon rescued. But the most probable reason was that assigned by Lord Bacon:-"That the harmless behaviour of this people that came from the west of England to the east, without mischief almost, or spoil of the country, did somewhat mollify him, and move him to compassion; or, lastly, that he made a great difference between people that did rebel upon wantonness, and them that did rebel upon want." 101 Bishop of Durham, on the part of England, a truce was agreed upon to last for the lives of the two kings, and a year after the death of the longer liver. Though agreed upon, this important truce was not ratified for some years afterwards. Meantime, James privately admonished Warbeck to quit the kingdom, as he could no longer assist him, and his presence would only tend to endanger the truce. Warbeck is said to have received this intimation with much true dignity and good feeling. He thanked the king for the great effort he had made on his account, for all the honours and favours that he had conferred upon him, and for which he declared he should ever remain deeply grateful. A vessel was prepared for his departure at Ayr, and every comfort was provided for his accommodation which James could have offered to the true prince. His beautiful and accomplished wife would not be left behind-a proof that she was really attached to him, whatever she might think of his pretensions. She quitted rank, fortune, a high position in the Scottish Court, to embrace with him a homeless life and a dark prospect. Flanders was closed to Perkin by the fresh league betwixt that country and England. Ireland was a more than dubious resort, yet thither he turned his prow, and landed at Cork on the 30th of July, 1497, with about 100 followers. The attempt to rouse again the enthusiasm of Ireland was vain; but at this juncture the last gleam of Warbeck's waning fortune seemed to fall upon him. James of Scotland seized on the opportunity created by the Cornish insurrection to make a fresh inroad into England. He laid siege to the castle of Norham, and plundered the country round. Henry dispatched the Earl of Surrey, with an army of 20,000 men, to drive back the Scots, and punish them by carrying the war of devastation into their country. As Surrey advanced, James retired, and Surrey, following him across the Tweed, took and demolished the little castle of Ayton, ravaged the borders, and returned to Berwick. These useless and worse than useless raids, with no hope of permanent advantage on either side, but only of mischief to the unoffending inhabitants on both, were worthy only of the most savage and unenlightened times. The spies of Henry, however, soon informed him that James was really sick of the war, and he repeated the offer made before of the hand of his daughter Margaret. This he made through the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro d'Ayala, who came forward as a friendly mediator, thus sparing both kings the humiliation of making the first move. D'Ayala found James quite disposed for peace, but in a somewhat cavalier humour as to the terms. Henry demanded first of all that Perkin War-lations in the bloody battle of Blackheath, joined him on beck should be given up to him, but this James resented as an attack upon his honour, and refused. He had even melted down his plate and sold the gold chain from his neck to assist Perkin, and he now spurned the idea of betraying him; but there is little doubt that he signified his assent to his departure from Scotland. Henry then called for compensation for the ravages committed in the late inroads; but the Scotch commissioners replied that Henry had already taken his revenge. Again, Henry proposed that the two monarchs should meet at Newcastle, and settle all matters between them; but as Newcastle was in England, James proudly replied that though he was ready to treat for peace, he was not going a-begging for it. By the advice of D'Ayala, Henry conceded these points, and commissioners were appointed to meet at Ayton, where, under the management of Fox, The Cornish rebels, let off so easily by Henry, had returned to their own county, proclaiming by the way that the king had not dared to put them to death because the whole of his subjects were in the same state of discontent. The people of Cornwall and Devon, reassured by this, again took up arms against the commissioners, who were still collecting the tax with great severity, and, it is said, dispatched a message to Warbeck to come over and head them. On the 7th of September, 1497, he accordingly landed at Whitsand Bay, with four or five small barques, and his 100 fighting men. Being joined by 3,000 of the insurgents at Bodmin, he issued a proclamation similar to his former one. Bodmin was the native place of Michael Joseph, their great orator and leader, and the people there were burning to revenge his death. Warbeck set out on his march towards Devonshire, and thousands of those who had lost friends and re the way. He sent his wife to Mount St. Michael for security, and directing his course towards Exeter, he invested that city on the 17th of September with a rude, wild force of about 10,000 men. He announced himself as Richard IV. of England, and called on the inhabitants to surrender; but, having sent notification of his approach to King Henry, they determined to defend themselves, if needful, till succour arrived. Warbeck had no artillery or engines of any kind to carry on a siege, he therefore attempted to break down the gates. At the one he was repulsed with considerable loss, the other he managed to burn down, but the citizens availed themselves of the fire, feeding it as it failed, till they had dug a deep trench behind the flames. When, the next morning, Warbeck returned to force a passage by that gate, the citizens received him with such spirit that they slew 200 of his men, and daunted the rest. Assistance was now also flowing in from the country to the city, and Warbeck was in danger of being attacked both in front and rear. Seeing this, he demanded a suspension of hostilities, and, depressed by this failure, his Devonshire followers began rapidly to fall away, and steal home as quickly as they could. His Cornish adherents, however, more intrepid, encouraged him to persevere, and vowed that they would perish in his cause. In this state of desperation the pretender marched on towards Taunton, where he arrived on the 20th of September. The country people on their way, smarting under the infliction of the hated tax, wished them success, but did not attempt to help them. At Taunton, instead of any encouragement, they met the vanguard of the royal army, under the command of Lord Daubeney, the lord chamberlain, and Lord Broke, the steward of the household. The Duke of Buckingham Henry sent a number of horsemen, in all haste, to St. Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, to obtain possession of the Lady Catherine Gordon, the wife of Warbeck. This they easily accomplished, and brought her to the king, on entering whose presence she blushed and burst into tears. Henry received her kindly-touched, for once in his life, with tenderness, by beauty in distress; or, probably, bearing in mind that the lady was the near kinswoman of the King of Scots, with whom he was desirous to stand well. He sent her to the queen, by whom she was most cordially received, and in whose court she remained attached to her service. She was still called the White Rose of Scotland, on account of her beauty. Lady Gordon was afterwards, it appears, three times married, but lies buried by the side of her second husband, Sir Matthew Cradock, in Swansea church. Henry proceeded to Exeter, where he had the ringleaders of the Cornish insurrection brought in procession was just behind with a second division, and Henry was declared to be following with a still larger force. The brave Cornish men, scarcely clothed, and still worse armed, shrunk not a moment from the hopeless combat. They vowed to perish to a man in behalf of their newlyadopted king, and Warbeck, with an air as if he would lead them into battle in the morning, rode along their lines encouraging them, and made all ready for the attack. But Warbeck, who had never shown any want of courage, perceived the utter madness of contending with his undisciplined followers against such overwhelming odds, and in the night he mounted a fleet steed and rode off. In the morning the Cornish men, seeing themselves without a leader, submitted to the king, and, with the exception of a few of the ringleaders, they were dismissed and returned homewards as best they might. Meanwhile, Lord Daubeney dispatched 500 horsemen in pursuit of Warbeck, to prevent, if possible, his entrance into sanctuary; but the fugitive succeeded in reaching the monastery of Beaulieu, in the New Forest. before him, with halters round their necks. Some of them he hanged, the rest he pardoned; but he, at the same time, appointed commissioners to proceed into the country through which Perkin had passed, and to fine all such people of property as had furnished him with aid or refreshment. They did not confine their scrutiny to those who had assisted Perkin in his march, but extended it to all who had relieved the famishing fugitives; "so that," says Bacon, "their severity did much obscure the king's mercy in sparing of blood, with the bleeding of so much treasure." They extorted altogether £10,000. The next business was to get Warbeck out of his sanctuary and into the hands of the king. Beaulieu was surrounded by an armed force, and all attempts at escape made impossible. Some of Henry's council urged him to omit all ceremony, and take the pretender from the sanctuary by force; but this he declined, preferring to lure him thence by fair promises. After hesitating for some time, Warbeck at length threw himself upon the king's mercy. Henry then set out to London with his captive in his train. Warbeck rode in the king's suito surrendered himself to the Prior of Shene, near Richmond. and most intelligent persons whenever he had access to The prior exercised the right of sanctuary possessed by them. To the Tower he carried his active spirit of the house, and refused to give him up to the king, except intrigue and adventure, and we soon find him in the under pledge that his life should be spared. Henry enjoyment of extraordinary liberty and range in that agreed, but he confirmed the public opinion, which, ex-state prison for so dangerous a character. He had not cited by the mystery of the Court, fully believed Warbeck only completely won over the Earl of Warwick, but their a son of Edward's, by now endeavouring to degrade him, keepers, Strangways, Astwood, Long Roger, and Blewet. and to fix upon him the old story. For this purpose he These men engaged to murder their master, Sir John compelled him to sit in the stocks two whole days, on the Digby, the Governor of the Tower, to get possession of 14th of June at Westminster Hall, and on the 15th in the keys, and to conduct Warbeck and Warwick to the Cheapside, and there to read aloud to the people a confes- Yorkist partisans, by whom Warbeck was to be proclaimed sion made up of the account of him published in Henry's King Richard IV., and Warwick to be restored to his titles former proclamation, but with some very contradictory and estates. additions. This confession was then printed and circulated amongst the people, but failed entirely to satisfy any one. When this bitter purgatory had been passed through, the bitterest conceivable to a man of Warbeck's character, pretensions, and superior mind, he was committed to the Tower. Warbeck had not been long in the Tower when there was an attempt to liberate the Earl of Warwick, who was still in confinement there; and it failed only through the conspirators not having properly informed themselves of the real quarter in which he was kept. Soon after that a fresh plot was set on foot for the same object. In this the King of France was said to be concerned. He was reported to have declared his regret for ever having countenanced the usurpation of Henry Tudor, and that he offered money, ships, and even troops, to the friends of Warwick to enable them to release him, and place him on the throne. The Yorkist malcontents were once more active. They wrote to the retainers of the late Duke of Clarence, the father of Warwick, and to Lady Warwick, to come forward and see justice done to the oppressed prince; and an invitation was sent from the Court of France to a distinguished leader of the house of York, to go over to that country and assume the command of the expedition. This also failing, a report was then spread of the death of the Earl of Warwick; then it was said that he had escaped, and a person of the name of Ralph Wulford, or Wilford, the son of a shoemaker in Sussex, was taught by one Patrick, an Augustinian friar, to personate the earl. Whether the Yorkists were determined to give Henry no repose, but to haunt and harass him with a perpetual succession of impostors, or whether Henry himself planned this latter improbable scheme as a pretext for getting rid of the Earl of Warwick altogether, seems never to have been satisfactorily cleared up. All that is known is, that Wulford and the friar were speedily arrested, Wulford put to death, and the friar consigned to prison for life. Scarcely had this blown over, when it was reported that Warbeck and Warwick had endeavoured to escape from the Tower together. Warbeck must have been permitted to have free access to Warwick after he was sent to the Tower-a circumstance not likely to have been permitted by the cautious and vigilant Henry VII. had he not had some ulterior purpose in it. Once together, however, Warbeck won the favour of the simple and inexperienced Warwick, who was as ignorant of the world as a child, having passed nearly all his life in prison. Warbeck, however, exercised the same fascination over the highest This plot, it is said, was discovered in time; and this was another circumstance which caused the public to suspect that the whole thing had been of the contriving, or, at least, of the permission of Henry, to rid him of these troublesome aspirants. The two offenders were immediately confined in separate cells. The servants of the governor were brought to trial, and Blewet and Astwood were condemned and hanged. On the 16th of November, Warbeck was arraigned in Westminster Hall for sundry acts of high treason, since as a foreigner he had come into these kingdoms. They were, in fact, the attempts on the crown which we have related. He was condemned and hanged at Tyburn on the 23rd of the month, with O'Water, the mayor of Cork, who had been the first to join him in Ireland. On the scaffold his confession was read, and he declared it, on the word of a dying man, to be wholly true. Both he and O'Water asked pardon of the king for their attempts against him. Such was the end of this extraordinary adventurer. Bacon describes his enterprise as "one of the largest plays of the kind that hath been in memory; and might, perhaps, have had another end if he had not met with a king both wise, stout, and fortunate." On the 21st of November, the Earl of Warwick was brought to trial before the peers, though he had been attainted from his birth, and had never taken his oath and seat as a peer of the realm. The charge against him was his conspiracy with Warbeck to dethrone the king. The poor youth pleaded guilty, either as weary of a life which had been but one long injury and wrong, in consequence of his birth, or because he was destitute, from his perpetual confinement, of the activity of mind to comprehend his situation. Probably he imagined that if he confessed himself guilty, he would be pardoned, and returned to his cell. But Henry had no such intention. The Earl of Oxford, as lord steward, pronounced judgment, and three days afterwards he was beheaded on Tower Hill. Thus perished the last legitimate descendant of the Plantagenets who could alarm the fears of Henry Tudor. There are many cases of royal oppression in history more bloodily atrocious, but none more criminal than this of Henry VII. For fourteen years he had kept this innocent youth in close confinement, for no other cause than that he was of royal blood. Though there is no reason to believe him an idiot, as some have pretended, yet his mind appeared to have suffered by his constant confinement and exclusion from society, till it was too feeble and ill-informed to be capable of real mischief. The partisans of the cause, however, were not inclined to A.D. 1301.] THE MARRIAGE OF MARGARET AND JAMES OF SCOTLAND. rest, and for that reason Henry determined to destroy his captive. It was a judicial murder of a kind which excited in the public mind a just and deep abhorrence; and Henry, with his usual trick of cunning, endeavoured to shift the odium to other shoulders. Henry was negotiating for the marriage of his son Prince Arthur and Catherine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and he circulated a report that Ferdinand would not consent to the alliance so long as the Earl of Warwick lived. Nay, he would appear to have got the King of Spain to write so for this end. "For," says Bacon, "these two kings understanding each other at half a word, so it was that there were letters showed out of Spain, whereby in the passages concerning the treaty of marriage, Ferdinand had written to the king in plain terms, that he saw no assurance of his succession so long as the Earl of Warwick lived, and that he was loath to send his daughter to troubles and dangers. "But hereby," adds Bacon, "as the king did in some part remove the envy from himself, so he did not observe that he did withal bring a kind of malediction and infausting on the marriage, as an ill prognostic, which in event so far proved true, as both Prince Arthur enjoyed a very small time after the marriage, and the Lady Catherine herself, a sad and religious woman, long after, when King Henry VIII.'s resolution of divorce from her was first made known to her, used some words-' That she had not offended: but it was a judgment of God, for that her former marriage was made in blood'—meaning that of the Earl of Warwick." With the execution of these two rivals, Henry VII. put an end to the long catalogue of pretenders to the crown, but for many a long year was the story of the lives and deaths of Warbeck and the young Warwick discussed at thousands of English hearths, with strange comments and significant looks. The one was a narrative of harsh injustice to a princely youth scarcely less exciting than that of the murder of his two still younger cousins in the Tower. The other was that of a strange, daring, and able adventurer, sanctioned by kings, and by princesses of the house of York nearest in blood to the throne, adorned with all princely qualities and graces, and surrounded by mysteries which not all the arts and the prepared confessions of the Tudor had availed to dissipate. A few months after these tragic events, a plague broke out in London, which the people considered as a direct judgment from Heaven for such wicked bloodshed. Henry got out of town, but not feeling himself safe, after several changes of residence, he went over to Calais, and whilst there he had an interview with the Archduke Philip of Burgundy. Henry invited the archduke to take up his quarters in Calais, but it is a proof of the distrust which even his own allies entertained of the politic Henry, that the archduke declined putting himself into his power, and agreed to meet him at St. Pierre, near that city. What the archduke was particularly anxious to see Henry for, was to excite his jealousy of France, and secure his co-operation in counteracting its ambition. Charles VIII. of France, as we have seen, had made a grand expedition into Italy to seize on the two Sicilies, having contrived to make out a claim upon them, which, though empty in itself, was good enough for an excuse for conquest, He had passed over the Alps with an army of 105 upwards of 30,000 men. At first all gave way before him, but an extensive league was soon formed against the French encroachment, including Ferdinand of Spain, Maximilian, the King of the Romans, the father of Philip, the Duke of Milan, and the Doge of Venice. Charles, who had led a most dissipated life, died suddenly in 1498 at the Castle of Amboise, and the Duke of Orleans succeeded as Louis XII. Louis was as fully bent as Charles had been to prosecute the conquest of Naples and Sicily, and in 1499 marched with a fresh army into the south of Italy. It was to secure Henry's assistance in the league against the aggression of France, which alarmed all Europe, that Philip used his most eloquent persuasives but the only persuasives with him were moneys, and these Louis had already extended. He renewed the peace of Estaples, paid up the arrears of Henry's pension, and secured the interest of the Pope, with whom Henry was desirous to stand well, by paying him 20,000 ducats for a dispensation enabling him to divorce his wife, and marry Anne of Brittany, the widow of Charles VIII., and an old flame of his. He had also made over the Valentinois, in Dauphiny, with a pension of 20,000 livres, to the Pope's son, the vile Cæsar Borgia. The Pope, moreover, was coqueting with Henry, inviting him, by an express nuncio, to join a league for an imaginary crusade to the Holy Land, which Henry was ready to do for the cession of some real ports in Italy as places for the retreat and security of his fleet in those seas. It was not likely that Philip of Burgundy would make much progress with Henry, except so far as he could serve him by keeping certain matters, well known at the Courts of Burgundy and Flanders, concerning the real history of Perkin Warbeck, secret; and his anxiety on this head more and more convinced people that Warbeck was something more than the son of a Jew. Henry VII. having succeeded in ridding himself of all the pretenders to his crown, now set himself to complete the marriages of his children, and to make money with redoubled ardour. Negotiations had been going on with James of Scotland for the marriage of Henry's eldest daughter, Margaret. In 1496 James, who had previously declined the match, now in communication with Fox, Bishop of Durham, offered to enter into that contract. Henry gladly assented, and, when some of his council suggested that in case of the failure of the male line in England, a Scottish prince, born of this marriage, would become the heir, and England a mere appendage of Scotland, "No," replied Henry, "Scotland will become an appendage of England, for the smaller must follow the larger kingdom." And, no doubt, this idea had from the first actuated the calculating mind of the Tudor. That he was right the event has shown, for, though ultimately the failure of the male line in England took place, and James VI. of Scotland, the descendant of this very marriage, became King of England, yet England became the leading state. In fact, this marriage was by far the most beneficial act of the reign of Henry VII. next to his own marriage with the heiress of York. That marriage united the two rival houses; this united the two kingdoms, the most auspicious event for both countries which |