The Wars of the Roses

Having returned to Bruges, and been joined by the Prince of Wales, Margaret paid a visit to the Count of Charolois. Never were royal exiles more royally treated. The count exhibited a degree of delicacy and generosity worthy of an earlier era; and, indeed, was so deferential, that the Prince of Wales, who had known little of royalty but its perils and misfortunes, could not refrain from expressing his surprise.

"These honors," said the boy, "are not due from you to us; neither in your father's dominions should precedence be given to persons so destitute as we are."

"Unfortunate though you be," answered the count, "you are the son of the King of England, while I am only the son of a ducal sovereign; and that is not so high a rank."

Leaving Bruges with her son, Margaret was escorted to Barr with all the honor due to the royal rank. At Barr, the exiled queen was met and welcomed by her father, King René, who gave her an old castle in Verdun as a residence till better days should come. Thither Margaret went to establish her little court; and thither, to be educated in the accomplishments in fashion at the period, she carried the young prince around whom all her hopes now clustered.

Two hundred Lancastrians of name and reputation shared the exile of Margaret of Anjou. Among these were Lord Kendal, a Gascon; the Bishop of St. Asaph, the young Lord De Roos and his kinsman, Sir Henry; John Courtenay, younger brother of Devon's Earl; Edmund Beaufort, the new Duke of Somerset, and his brother John, whom the Lancastrians called Marquis of Dorset; Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter – always, notwithstanding his relationship to Edward, faithful to the Red Rose; Jasper Tudor, who clung to Lancaster as if with a prophetic notion that with the fortunes of the house were associated those of his own family; John Morton, Parson of Blokesworth, whose talents subsequently made him a cardinal and an archbishop; and Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice of England, one of the most upright judges who ever wore the ermine. Such men, when the fortunes of the house of Lancaster were at their worst, were prepared to suffer poverty and want in Henry's cause.

The banished queen could ill brook the obscurity of Verdun. It soon appeared that, notwithstanding so many disheartening reverses, Margaret retained her courage unimpaired; and that want, disappointment, mortification, had been unable to break her spirit or conquer her ambition. Hardly had the court of the exiles been formed at Verdun, when the queen renewed her efforts to regain the crown which she had already found so thorny.

At that time Alphonso the Fifth reigned in Portugal; and Portugal was rich, owing to the quantity of gold yearly brought from Guinea. Moreover, King Alphonso was a remarkable man. In his fiery nature were blended all the elements of love, chivalry, and religion; and though living in the fifteenth century he resembled a paladin of the age of Roland and Oliver. Through his grandmother, Philippa of Lancaster, Alphonso inherited the blood of John of Gaunt; and it was supposed that he would naturally feel much of that sympathy for the house of Lancaster which had been ever expressed by the Count of Charolois.

Accordingly, Margaret turned her eyes toward Portugal for aid, and employed John Butler, Earl of Ormond, to enlist Alphonso in her cause. Ormond, who, upon the execution of his brother, the Earl of Wiltshire, after Towton, had become the chief of the Butlers, was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of his age, and a master of the various languages then spoken in Europe. No fitter embassador could have been found; but he was not successful. In fact, although Alphonso was all his life engaged in chimerical enterprises, he could hardly have indulged in the delusion of being able to wrest a crown from Edward Plantagenet and Richard Neville. Not even that knight-errant would risk reputation against such odds. At all events the negotiation appears to have come to naught; and Ormond, doubtless, convinced that the fortunes of Lancaster were hopeless, returned to England, and made his submission. Edward restored the accomplished nobleman to the honors and estates of the Butlers, with a complimentary remark. "If good-breeding and liberal qualities," said the king, "were lost in all the world, they would still be found in the Earl of Ormond."

About the time when Ormond's mission failed, Margaret received intelligence that her husband had fallen into the hands of her enemies. Finding, perhaps, that Scottish hospitality was hard to bear, Henry, about a year after Hexham, removed to the north of England, and in July, 1465, while sitting at dinner in Waddington Hall, he was seized by Sir John Harrington, and sent prisoner to London. At Islington the captive king was met by Warwick, who lodged him securely in the Tower; and Henry, treated with humanity, forgot, in the practice of a monkish devotion, the crown he had lost and the world he had left.

The captivity of their king was not the only misfortune which, at this period, befell the Lancastrians. In 1467, Harleck Castle, their last strong-hold, was under the necessity of yielding. Davydd ap Jefan ap Einion held out to the last; but when the garrison was on the point of starvation, the brave Welsh captain listened to the dictates of humanity, and surrendered with honor.

Even after the fall of Harleck, Margaret's high spirit sustained her hopes. In 1467, she is understood to have come to London, disguised as a priest, to rouse her partisans to action, and even to have had an interview with her husband in the Tower. Next year she sent Jasper Tudor to Wales; and he laid siege to Denbigh. King Edward himself was in the castle, and the utmost peril of being taken prisoner. He contrived to escape, however; and the fortress surrendered. But a Yorkist named William Herbert went with an army, and inflicted such a defeat on Jasper that he was fain to escape to the Continent. Nevertheless, in October, Margaret lay at Harfleur threatening an invasion. Edward, however, sent his brother-in-law, Anthony Woodville, who now, in right of his wife, figured as Lord Scales, to attack the fleet of his old patroness; and the exiled queen, seeing no chance of success, abandoned her expedition in despair.

But even in despair Margaret could show herself heroic and sublime. Thus, when some of her Continental kinsfolk were, in a vulgar spirit, lamenting her unfortunate marriage, and describing her union with the unhappy Henry as the cause of all her misfortune, she raised her head with regal pride, and contemptuously rebuked their foolish talk. "On the day of my betrothal," exclaimed she, with poetic eloquence, "when I accepted the Rose of England, I knew that I must wear the rose entire and with all its thorns."

In the midst of adversity the exiled queen had one consolation. Edward, Prince of Wales, was a son of whom any mother might have been proud, and day by day he grew more accomplished in the warlike exercises of the age. Nor, though in almost hopeless adversity, did the prince lack instruction in weightier matters; for Fortescue undertook the task of educating the banished heir of Lancaster, endeavored so to form the mind of the royal boy as to enable him to enact in after years the part of a patriot-king, and compiled for his pupil the "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ;" a work explaining the laws of England, and suggesting the improvements that might with advantage be introduced.

Five years of exile passed over; and during that time every attempt of the Lancastrians to better their position proved disastrous. It was when matters were at the worst – when the Red Rose had disappeared, and the Red Rose-tree had withered from England – that circumstances occurred which inspired the despairing adherents of the captive king with high hopes, diverted the thoughts of the exiled queen from reminiscences of the past to speculations on the future, and opened up to her son the prospect of a throne, only to conduct him to an untimely grave.

CHAPTER XX

WARWICK AND THE WOODVILLES

At a court, over which Elizabeth Woodville exercised all the influence derived from her rank as a queen and her fascination as a woman, the Earl of Warwick was somewhat out of place. By Woodvilles, Herberts, and Howards, he was regarded with awe and envy as the haughtiest representative of England's patricians. Especially to the queen and her kinsmen his presence was irksome; and, knowing that any attempt to make "The Stout Earl" a courtier after the Woodville pattern was hopeless as to convert a bird of prey into a barn-door fowl, they were at no pains to conceal the pleasure they felt in mortifying his pride and destroying his influence. One possibility does not seem to have struck them. The Woodvilles themselves, to receive benefits, had been suddenly converted from the Red Rose to the White; Warwick, to avenge the nation's injuries and his own, might as suddenly be converted from the White Rose to the Red.

Notwithstanding the exile of Lancastrians and the discontent of Yorkists, no court in Christendom was more brilliant than that of King Edward. Indeed, foreign embassadors confessed, with mingled envy and admiration, that their eyes were dazzled by the surpassing loveliness of the damsels who appeared at state balls in the Palace of Westminster; and among these fair beings, perhaps, none was more interesting than the king's sister, Margaret, youngest daughter of Richard Plantagenet and Cicely Neville.

Two daughters of the Duke of York were already wives. Both had been married to English dukes – one to Exeter, another to Suffolk; and it was known that Edward, having, by his union with Elizabeth Woodville, lost the opportunity of allying himself with the Continental dynasties, contemplated for his remaining sister a marriage with some foreign prince capable of aiding him in case of a change of fortune.

Suitors were not, of course, wanting when so fair a princess as Margaret Plantagenet was to be won; and it happened that while Warwick was at feud with the Woodvilles – while the populace were clamoring against the new men with whom the king's court swarmed – her hand was contended for by Louis of France, for a prince of the blood royal, and by Louis of Bruges for the Count of Charolois, who, since his interview with Margaret of Anjou, had taken up arms against Louis and defeated him in the battle of Montlhéry. The choice was a matter of some difficulty; for the Woodvilles and Warwick took different sides of the question. The queen's kindred favored the suit of the Count of Charolois; while "The Stout Earl," between whom and the Burgundian no amity existed, declared decidedly for an alliance with France. Edward was in some perplexity, but at length he yielded to the earl's arguments; and, in 1467, the frank, unsuspecting king-maker departed to negotiate a marriage with that celebrated master of kingcraft, whose maxim was, that he who knew not how to dissemble knew not how to reign.

When Louis heard of Warwick's embassy he could not help thinking the occasion favorable for the exercise of his craft. He resolved to give the earl such a reception as might stir the jealousy of Edward, and acted in such a manner as to create in the breast of the English king suspicions of the powerful noble who had placed him on a throne. Having landed at Harfleur, Warwick was, on the 7th of June, conveyed in a barge to the village of La Bouille, on the Seine. On arriving at La Bouille, he found a magnificent banquet prepared for him, and the king ready to act as host. After having been sumptuously feasted, Warwick embarked in his boat for Rouen, whither the king and his attendants went by land; and the inhabitants of the town met the earl at the gate of the Quay St. Eloy, where the king had ordered a most honorable reception. Banners, crosses, and holy water were then presented to Warwick by priests in their copes; and he was conducted in procession to the cathedral, where he made his oblation, and thence to lodgings prepared for him at the monastery of the Jacobins.

Having thus received Warwick with the honors usually paid to royalty, Louis entertained the great earl in a style corresponding with the reception; and even ordered the queen and princesses to come to Rouen to testify their respect. The crafty king, meantime, did not refrain from those mischievous tricks at which he was such an adept. While Warwick staid at Rouen Louis lodged in the next house, and visited the earl at all hours, passing through a private door with such an air of mystery, as might, when reported to Edward, raise suspicions that some conspiracy had been hatching.

After the conference at Rouen had lasted for twelve days, Louis departed for Chartres, and Warwick set sail for England. The earl had been quite successful in the object of his mission; and he was accompanied home by the Archbishop of Narbonne, charged by Louis to put the finishing stroke to the treaty which was to detach the French king forever from the Lancastrian alliance.

Meanwhile, the Woodvilles had not been idle. Far from submitting patiently to the earl's triumph, they had labored resolutely to mortify his pride and frustrate his mission. The business was artfully managed. Anthony Woodville, in the name of the ladies of England, revived an old challenge to Anthony, Count de la Roche, an illegitimate son of the Duke of Burgundy; and the count, commonly called "The Bastard of Burgundy," having accepted the challenge, with the usual forms, intimated his intention to come to England without delay.

The news crept abroad that a great passage of arms was to take place; and the highest expectations were excited by the prospect. The king himself entered into the spirit of the business, consented to act as umpire, and made such arrangements as, it was conceived, would render the tournament memorable. Several months were spent in adjusting the preliminaries; and the noblest knights of France and Scotland were invited to honor the tournament with their presence.

At length the Bastard of Burgundy arrived in London with a splendid retinue; and lists were erected in Smithfield, with pavilions for the combatants, and galleries around for the ladies of Edward's court and other noble personages who had been invited to witness the pageant. On the 11th of June, all the ceremonies prescribed by the laws of chivalry having been performed, the combatants prepared for the encounter, and advanced on horseback from their pavilions into the middle of the inclosed space. After having answered the usual questions, they took their places in the lists, and, at the sound of trumpet, spurred their steeds and charged each other with sharp spears. Both champions, however, bore themselves fairly in the encounter, and parted with equal honor.

On the second day of the Smithfield tournament, the result was somewhat less gratifying to the Burgundian. On this occasion the champions again fought on horseback; and, as it happened, the steed of Anthony Woodville had a long and sharp pike of steel on his chaffron. This weapon was destined to have great influence on the fortunes of the day; for, while the combatants were engaged hand to hand, the pike's point entered the nostrils of the Bastard's steed, and the animal, infuriated by the pain, reared and plunged till he fell on his side. The Bastard was, of course, borne to the ground; and Anthony Woodville, riding round about with his drawn sword, asked his opponent to yield. At this point, the marshals, by the king's command, interfered, and extricated the Burgundian from his fallen steed. "I could not hold me by the clouds," exclaimed the brave Bastard; "but, though my horse fail me, I will not fail my encounter." The king, however, decided against the combat being then renewed.

Another day arrived, and the champions, armed with battle-axes, appeared on foot within the lists. This day proved as unfortunate for the Bastard as the former had been. Both knights, indeed, bore themselves valiantly; but, at a critical moment, the point of Woodville's axe penetrated the sight-hole of his antagonist's helmet, and, availing himself of this advantage, Anthony was on the point of so twisting his weapon as to bring the Burgundian to his knee. At that instant, however, the king cast down his warder, and the marshals hastened to sever the combatants. The Bastard, having no relish for being thus worsted, declared himself far from content, and demanded of the king, in the name of justice, that he should be allowed to perform his enterprise. Edward thereupon appealed to the marshals; and they, having considered the matter, decided that by the laws of the tournament the Burgundian was entitled to have his demand granted; but that, in such a case, he must be delivered to his adversary in precisely the same predicament as when the king interfered – in fact, with the point of Anthony Woodville's weapon thrust into the crevice of his visor: "which," says Dugdale, "when the Bastard understood, he relinquished his farther challenge."

The tournament at Smithfield, unlike "the gentle passage at Ashby," terminated without bloodshed. Indeed, neither Anthony Woodville nor his antagonist felt any ambition to die in their harness in the lists; and the Bastard, in visiting England, had a much more practical object in view than to afford amusement to gossiping citizens. He was, in fact, commissioned by the Count of Charolois to press the English king on the subject of a match with Margaret of York; and he played his part so well as to elicit from Edward, notwithstanding Warwick's embassy, a promise that the hand of the princess should be given to the heir of Burgundy. When Warwick returned from France and found what had been done in his absence, he considered that he had been dishonored. Such usage would, at any time, have grated hard on the earl's heart; and the idea of the Woodvilles having been the authors of this wrong made his blood boil with indignation. He forthwith retired to Middleham, in a humor the reverse of serene, and there brooded over his wrongs in a mood the reverse of philosophic.

The king did not allow the king-maker's anger to die for want of fuel. On the contrary, having given Warwick serious cause of offense, he added insult to injury by pretending that the earl had been gained over by Louis to the Lancastrian cause, and that the state was in no small danger from his treasonable attempts. At the same time, he abruptly deprived George Neville, Archbishop of York,[8 - "George Neville, brother to the great Earl of Warwick, at his installment into his archbishopric of York, made a prodigious feast to the nobility, chief clergy, and many gentry, wherein he spent 300 quarters of wheat, 330 tuns of ale, 104 tuns of wine, 1 pipe of spiced wine, 80 fat oxen, 6 wild bulls, 1004 sheep, 3000 hogs, 300 calves, 3000 geese, 3000 capons, 300 pigs, 100 peacocks, 200 cranes, 200 kids, 2000 chickens, 4000 pigeons, 4000 rabbits, 204 bittours, 4000 ducks, 400 herons, 200 pheasants, 500 partridges, 4000 woodcocks, 400 plovers, 100 curlews, 100 quails, 100 egrets, 200 rees, above 400 bucks, does, and roebucks, 5506 venison pasties, 5000 dishes of jelly, 6000 custards, 300 pikes, 300 breams, 8 seals, 4 porpoises, and 400 tarts. At this feast the Earl of Warwick was steward, the Lord Hastings comptroller, with many other noble officers, 1000 servitors, 62 cooks, 515 scullions." —Burton's Admirable Curiosities in England.] of the office of chancellor – thus indicating still farther distrust of the great family to whose efforts he owed his crown.

While rumors as to Warwick's new-born sympathies with the house of Lancaster were afloat, the Castle of Harleck fell into the king's hands. Within the fortress was taken an agent of Margaret; and he, on being put to the rack, declared that Warwick, during his mission to France, had, at Rouen, spoken with favor of the exiled queen, during a confidential conversation with Louis. Warwick treated the accusation with contempt, and declined to leave his castle to be confronted with the accuser.

This unfortunate incident was little calculated to smooth the way for a reconciliation. Nevertheless, the Archbishop of York, who had a keen eye for his own interest, undertook to mediate between his brother and the king. The churchman was successful in his efforts; and in July, 1468, when Margaret Plantagenet departed from England for her new home, Warwick rode before her, through the city of London, as if to indicate by his presence that he had withdrawn his objections to her marriage with the Count of Charolois, who, in the previous year, on the death of his father, had succeeded to the ducal sovereignty of Burgundy.

The chroniclers might with propriety have described this as a second "dissimulated love-day." No true reconcilement could take place between the king and the king-maker. Warwick considered Edward the most ungrateful of mankind; and the king thought of the earl, as the Regent-Duke of Albany said of the third Lord Home, that "he was too great to be a subject." The king regarded Warwick's patriotic counsel with aversion: the earl's discontent could be read by the multitude in his frank face. Each, naturally, began to calculate his strength.

Edward had one source of consolation. In giving his sister to Burgundy he had gained a potent ally on the Continent; and he rejoiced to think that, in the event of a change of fortune, a relative so near would assuredly befriend him. Edward, like other men, deceived himself on such subjects. He little imagined how soon he would have to ask his brother-in-law's protection, and how he should find that Burgundy, while taking a wife from the house of York, had not quite laid his prejudices in favor of the house of Lancaster.

Warwick, on his part, felt aught rather than satisfied. Notwithstanding his appearance at court, he was brooding over the injury that he had received. Convinced of the expediency of making friends, he addressed himself to the king's brothers – George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Of Gloucester the earl could make nothing. The wily boy played with his dagger as he was wont, and maintained such a reserve that it would have been imprudent to trust him. With Clarence the earl had more success. Indeed, the duke complained of the king's unkindness; and particularly that though Edward had given rich heiresses to Dorset and Woodville, he had found no match for his own brother. Having both something of which to complain, the earl and the duke formed an alliance offensive and defensive; and a project was formed for binding them to each other by a tie which the Nevilles deemed could hardly be broken.

Warwick had not been blessed with a son to inherit his vast estates, his great name, and his popularity, which was quite undiminished. He, however, had two daughters – Isabel and Anne – whose birth and lineage were such as to put them on a level with any prince in Europe. It appears that Isabel had inspired Clarence with an ardent attachment; but the king and "the queen's kindred" were averse to a match. Warwick now declared that the marriage should take place in spite of their hostility; and Clarence agreed, for Isabel's sake, to defy both Edward and the Woodvilles.

Having taken their resolution, the duke and the earl, in the summer of 1469, sailed for Calais, of which Warwick was still governor. Preparations were made for uniting Clarence and Isabel; and in the month of July, "in the Chapel of Our Lady," the ill-starred marriage was solemnized with a pomp befitting the rank of a Plantagenet bridegroom and a Neville bride.

King Edward no sooner heard of this marriage than he expressed strong displeasure. Unkind words passed in consequence; and, from that date, no affection existed between the king and the king-maker. About the same time there appeared in the heavens a comet, such as had been seen on the eve of great national changes – as before Hastings, which gave England to the Norman yoke, and Evesham, which freed Englishmen from the domination of a foreign baronage and an alien church. The superstitious were immediately struck with the "blazing star," and expressed their belief that it heralded a political revolution. Others did not look at the sky for signs of a coming struggle. Indeed, those who were capable of comprehending the events passing before them could entertain little doubt that England had not yet seen the last of the Wars of the Roses.

CHAPTER XXI

DESPOTISM, DISCONTENT, AND DISORDER

While the Woodvilles were supreme, and while Edward was under their influence disheartening the ancient barons of England, and alienating the great noble to whom he owed the proudest crown in Christendom, the imprudent king did not ingratiate himself with the multitude by any display of respect for those rights and liberties to maintain which Warwick had won Northampton and Towton. Indeed, the government was disfigured by acts of undisguised tyranny; and torture, albeit known to be illegal in England, was freely used, as during the Lancastrian rule, to extort evidence. Even the laws of the first Edward and his great minister, Robert de Burnel, were in danger of going as much out of fashion as the chain armor in which Roger Bigod and Humphrey Bohun charged at Lewes and Evesham.

Edward's first victim was William Walker. This man kept a tavern in Cheapside, known as "The Crown," and there a club, composed of young men, had been in the habit of meeting. These fell under the suspicion of being Lancastrians, and were supposed to be plotting a restoration. No evidence to that effect existed; but, unfortunately, the host, being one day in a jocular mood, while talking to his son, who was a boy, said, "Tom, if thou behavest thyself, I'll make thee heir to the crown." Every body knew that Walker's joke alluded to his sign; yet, when the words were reported, he was arrested, and, as if in mockery of common sense, indicted for imagining and compassing the death of the king. The prisoner pleaded his innocence of any evil intention, but his protestations were of no avail. He was found guilty, in defiance of justice, and hanged, in defiance of mercy.

The next case, that of a poor cobbler, if not so utterly unjust, was equally impolitic and still more cruel. Margaret of Anjou was, at that time, using every effort to regain her influence in England, and many persons, supposed to possess letters from the exiled queen, were tortured and put to death on that suspicion. Of these the cobbler was one, and one of the most severely punished. Having been apprehended on the charge of aiding Margaret to correspond with her partisans in England, he was tortured to death with red-hot pincers.

Even when the sufferers were Lancastrians, the barbarity of such proceedings could not fail to make the flesh creep and the blood curdle; but the case became still more iniquitous when government laid hands on men attached to the house of York; when the Woodvilles, who had themselves been Lancastrians, singled out as victims stanch partisans of the White Rose.

Sir Thomas Cooke was one of the most reputable citizens of London, and, in the second year of Edward's reign, had fulfilled the highest municipal functions. Unfortunately for him, also, he had the reputation of being so wealthy as to tempt plunder. Earl Rivers and the Duchess of Bedford appear to have thought so; and exerted their influence with the king to have the ex-mayor arrested on a charge of treason, and committed to the Tower.

It appears that, in an evil hour for Cooke, a man named Hawkins had called on him and requested the loan of a thousand marks, on good security; but Sir Thomas said he should, in the first place, like to know for whom the money was, and, in the second, for what purpose it was intended. Hawkins frankly stated it was for the use of Queen Margaret; and Cooke thereupon declined to lend a penny. Hawkins went away, and the matter rested for some time. Sir Thomas was not, however, destined to escape; for Hawkins, having been taken to the Tower and put to the brake, called "the Duke of Exeter's daughter," confessed so much in regard to himself that he was put to death; and at the same time, under the influence of excessive pain, stated that Cooke had lent the money to Margaret of Anjou.

The Woodvilles, having obtained such evidence against their destined victim, seized upon Cooke's house in London, ejecting his lady and servants, and, at the same time, took possession of Giddy Hall, his seat in Essex, where he had fish-ponds, and a park full of deer, and household furniture of great value. After thus appropriating the estate of the city knight, they determined that, for form's sake, he should have a trial; and accordingly a commission, of which Earl Rivers was a member, was appointed to sit at Guildhall. It would seem that the Woodvilles, meanwhile, had no apprehension of the result being unfavorable to their interests; but, unfortunately for their scheme of appropriation, the commission included two men who loved justice and hated iniquity. These were Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and Sir John Markham, Chief Justice of England.

Markham was of a family of lawyers, whose progenitors, though scarcely wealthier than yeomen, had held their land from time immemorial, and been entitled to carry coat armor. Having been early called to the bar, and successful in his profession, he became a puisne judge of the court of king's bench; and having strongly supported the claims of the house of York, and greatly contributed, by his abilities and learning, to the triumph of the White Rose, he succeeded Fortescue as chief justice. But, though zealous for the hereditary right of the house of York, Markham was neither a minion nor a tool of its members; and, though he could not but be aware what the court expected, he was incapable of doing any thing to forfeit the public respect which he enjoyed as "The Upright Judge." When, therefore, the evidence against Cooke had been taken, and the whole case heard, the chief justice ruled that the offense was not treason, but, at the most, "Misprision of Treason," and directed the jury so to find it.

The lands of Sir Thomas Cooke were saved, and the Woodvilles, angry as wild beasts deprived of their prey, vowed vengeance on the chief justice. Accordingly Earl Rivers and his duchess pressed Edward to dismiss the unaccommodating functionary; and Edward swore that Markham should never sit on the bench again. Markham, submitting with a dignity becoming his high character, carried his integrity into retirement; and Sir Thomas Cooke was set free after he had paid an enormous fine.

Every man of intelligence must now have seen that the Woodvilles would embroil Edward with the nation. While the king was, under their influence, perpetrating such enormities as caused grave discontent, he was aroused to a sense of insecurity by formidable commotions in the north. For the origin of these, the master and brethren of the Hospital of St. Leonards appear to have been responsible. The right of levying a thrave of corn from every plow in the country for the relief of the poor had, it seems, been granted to the hospital by one of the Anglo-Saxon kings; but the rural population complained that the revenue was not expended for charitable purposes, but employed by the master and brethren for their private advantage. After long complaining, the people of the country refused to pay, and, in retaliation, their goods were distrained and their persons imprisoned. At length, in 1469, finding they could get no redress, the recusants took up arms, and, under a captain named Robert Hulderne, they put the officers of the hospital to the sword, and, to the number of fifteen thousand, marched, in hostile array, to the gates of York.