the best of English kings, at Westminster Abbey. He offered offerings at St. Edward's shrine, "while the monks sang Te Deum with a faint courage." His wife was crowned with him, and her train was borne by the Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry, who was biding his time in Brittany. We do not know what she might be thinking as she walked behind the new queen, but we know that there was trouble in store for Richard already. The Duke of Buckingham, his most fast friend and ally, had begun to turn against him in secret, whether from jealousy or some personal grudges. He appeared at the coronation gorgeously apparelled, but he "rode with an evil will, and worse heart." He rules well. 26. Richard, however, began his reign very well. He really seemed for a time to deserve those high praises which the Frenchman gives him. After his coronation he sent the nobles who had attended it back into their own countries, giving them "strait charge and commandment to see their countries well ordered, and that no wrong nor extortion should be done to his subjects." He summoned a parliament; he declared he would restore the old liberties of England, and abolish all oppression such as his brother had practised, especially those "benevolences," which were so heartily disliked. He protected and helped the merchants; he encouraged literature, and the printing and selling of books. He set free a few bondmen who were still living on the royal estates (for though it might be said broadly there were no serfs or villeins left, strictly speaking, there lingered yet a few, though hardly enough to be noticed). He did, in short, all he could to win popularity. 27. But not all this could make people forget his crimes. And now he added one more, the most horrible of all, and the one which makes his name to be shuddered at to this hour-the murder of the innocent children in the Death of the princes. Tower. Of course, like all the rest of those murders, it could never be exactly proved, but every one believed that the two little princes were smothered in their bed, and every one believes it now. 66 After that no one any longer cared for his just government, or his abolishing the benevolences. Every one loathed and abhorred him as a fiend in human shape. "When the fame of this detestable fact," says More, was revealed and divulged through the whole realm, there fell generally such a dolour and inward sorrow into the hearts of all the people, that they in every town, street, and place openly wept and piteously sobbed." Whenever there was a great thunderstorm, or a tempestuous wind, "they did openly cry and make vociferation that God would take vengeance, and punish the pour Englishmen for the crime and offence of their ungracious king." forward. 28. And now what had been threatened in a sort of jest, when Richard and Buckingham had acted their play together, began to be thought of in earnest. People began to look out for another king. The royal houses of York and Lancaster were all but extinct; of Lancaster not one legitimate member Henry Tudor remained; but there was still that Henry Tudor of comes whom we have already heard, and who had begun to be looked on as the representative of the Red Rose. Henry VI., who was now regarded as a saint, was said to have prophesied of him that he should be king, and “England's bliss," and the enemies of Richard set all their hearts and hopes upon him. To make his title better, it was proposed that he should marry the Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV.; thus both the rival houses, the Red and the White Roses, I would be at last united. Elizabeth of 29. But Richard thought to be beforehand with them there. His first plan was to marry the princess to his own only son, but he died just about this time. Richard had shown The Princess before now that he would stop at nothing; and though York. he had a wife already, he determined to put her out of the way, and marry his own niece Elizabeth sooner than let Henry Tudor win her. He expected to gain the Pope's consent to this marriage, though it was contrary to all the laws of the Church and the country; but the Popes, who, as we have seen, professed to have the power of dispensing men from keeping their oaths and promises, considered themselves also entitled to dispense them from obeying the most sacred laws in other matters, and in this of marriage more particularly. He would perhaps have succeeded in gaining the Pope's permission, since he gained what we should have thought far more difficult, the consent of the princess and her mother Elizabeth. But though poor Queen Anne died just at the convenient season, yet the whole country was so disgusted and so averse to this unnatural marriage that it had to be given up, and in due time Henry Tudor got the princess for himself. 30. Meanwhile nearly all the most important people in the tountry were joining Henry's party; amongst them Morton, the Bishop of Ely, who had been imprisoned by Richard, but had made his escape. The Duke of Buckingham also revolted openly. He perceived that Richard was "disdained of the lords temporal, execrate and accursed of all the lords spiritual, detested of all gentlemen, and despised of all the commonalty." Well might he say, as Shakespeare makes him do, "There is no creature loves me." 1485. Battle of 31. Henry's first attempt at invasion failed, and after it the Duke of Buckingham was captured and beheaded; but the prince soon came again, landing in Wales, where he had many friends, being partly a Welshman himself. On his march forward more and more adherents joined him. He and Richard met at Bosworth Field, near Leicester. Richard, with all his faults, was very courageous, and he fought bravely now, but all in vain. It was perhaps quite true, as Henry says in the play "Richard except, those whom we fight against Bosworth Field. This was the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, and it was quite characteristic of those wars that its fate was decided by treachery, or, if we can hardly call it treachery, by one of the principal leaders of Richard's army going over to Henry's side. This was Lord Derby or Stanley, who was stepfather to Henry; for though his mother was always called Countess of Richmond, she had, after the death of Henry's father, married the Earl of Derby. Richard was therefore very suspicious of him; so much so that he kept his son George as a hostage, and when he saw that Derby had deserted him he instantly exclaimed, “Off with George Stanley's head." But the rest, not knowing yet how the battle might turn, thought it more prudent to wait a little before obeying, and so the young man's life was saved. Richard was defeated and killed; his crown was found hanging on a hawthorn bush on the battle-field, and was placed by Lord Derby on the head of the victorious Henry. In the stained glass windows of Henry VII.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, besides the union of the Red and White Roses, which appears over and over again, we may see also the picture of the hawthorn tree of Bosworth Field, with the golden crown above it. LECTURE XXXIX.-THE RENAISSANCE. Peace after war. of the nobles. of learning. 1. Henry VII. His character. He suppresses the power "FROM town to town, from tower to tower, The Red Rose is a gladsome flower. Her thirty years of winter past, The Red Rose is revived at last. She lifts her head for endless spring, For everlasting blossoming; Both Roses flourish, Red and White, In love and sisterly delight; The two that were at strife are blended, He was So sang, or so might sing, the minstrels after this victory which brought again peace to England. But, though the time. was such a joyful one, there is not much very interest1485. ing to be said about Henry VII. himself. Henry VII. not like any of the kings we have had to do with lately; not a hero like Henry V., nor a saint like Henry VI., nor a murdering fiend like Richard III. He was what we may call commonplace. "As his face was neither strange nor dark, so neither was it winning nor pleasing," says his biographer; and much the same might be said of his character. He was very prudent and sensible. He married Elizabeth of York, though he does not seem to have been very fond of her. He was formally accepted as king by the parliament, and he took care not to get embroiled with it at any future time. 2. All the Tudor sovereigns were noted for having what we call "a will of their own," and had a great inclination to be despotic. Henry VII. had this too, but he contrived to gratify it without openly breaking the laws. He by no means liked to be shackled and controlled by parliament, and very seldom allowed it to meet. Of course the great difficulty about this was the money; but as Henry loved money just as well as he loved his own will, he contrived, without exactly breaking the law, to get a great deal. 3. At one time he professed to be going to war with France. Then he summoned parliament, and induced them to vote him large supplies, after which he did not go to war at all, but kept the money. He followed Edward IV.'s example in raising "benevolences," which Richard III. had abolished; but, as the rich citizens liked paying them no better than before, they soon came to be called "malevolences." His principal minister and prime counsellor for a long time was Morton, the Bishop of Ely, the same who grew such fine strawberries in Holborn, and who was afterwards promoted to be archbishop, cardinal, and legate. He aided his master very cleverly in the matter of "benevolences." For if a man lived handsomely, in a fine house, with plenty of servants, the bishop would say it was evident he was a wealthy man, and had money to spend; and "there is no reason," said he, "but for your prince's service you should do so much more, and therefore you must pay." But if a man lived humbly and frugally, making no show at all, then it was evident that he must have saved up a good deal, as he spent so little; "therefore, be content, you must pay." This was called "Morton's fork," because if a man could slip off one prong he got caught on the other. Morton's fork. 4. Towards the end of his reign the king got two griping, cunning lawyers, Empson and Dudley, to help him. They raked up all sorts of old statutes and pretexts for screwing money out of people, by fair means or unfair, and made themselves hated and dreaded by all the people in the land. Power of the nobles 5. In all these ways Henry contrived to get a large hoard of money, and was able to go on year after year without summoning parliament, and to rule just as he and his friends and counsellors chose. Besides keeping the parliament down in this way, he took great pains to lessen the power of the nobles, and enforced a very stern law against diminished. their keeping such bands of retainers and armed followers as made them formidable. Edward IV. had already tried to break down this power, and Henry did so still more; they were determined to have no more noblemen like the Earl of Warwick, who could make or unmake kings at his pleasure. 6. Henry once went to pay a visit to the Earl of Oxford, who had been one of the greatest supporters of the House of Lancaster (as we may read in 'Anne of Geierstein'). The Earl received him with great honour, and two long lines of retainers, wearing his livery, were drawn up to receive him. These |