from acting with independence. In the reign of Henry VI. the franchise had been narrowed. Till that time all freeholders had had the right of voting. The right was then confined to freeholders with the qualification of forty shillings. This at once brought the representation under the influence of the greater landowners and of the Crown. For party purposes this influence had been unscrupulously used. The representation was constantly tampered with. It is thus we find again and again the Parliament ready to subserve the objects of the party, and, instead of acting independently, merely sanctioning and registering the will of those who were at the moment masters of the Government. It was not until the time of the Puritans, until England had again felt under Elizabeth the impulse of national feeling, that the gentry found themselves sufficiently strong to step forward into the place left vacant by the destruction of the baronage. This new position they asserted in the reign of Charles I., and in the beginning of the Long Parliament, and finally made good in the Revolution of 1688. Thus, in the general depression of all classes, the monarchy was enabled to assume that personal character which it wore during the reigns of the Tudor Kings.

The first acts of Henry's reign were directed against the Yorkists. Edward, the Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Cla

Measures for the repression of the Yorkists.

rence, was imprisoned in the Tower, and all grants of Crown lands made since 1454 were recalled,-these of course having been chiefly given to followers of the House of York. Nor was Henry's dislike for the excluded House groundless. In 1486 there was an unsuccessful rising under Lord Lovel and the Staffords, and the following year took place the great imposture of Lambert Simnel. This young man, trained no doubt by some one of more influence behind the scenes, took advantage of the popularity which Richard, the great Duke of York, had secured for himself and his Lambert Simnel. family during his government in Ireland. Personating the young Earl of Warwick, he betook himself to Dublin, where he gained the complete support of the Earl of Kildare, the Lord Deputy. Being joined by Lord Lovel, by the Earl of Lincoln, himself connected with the royal family, and by an army of 2000 men from Flanders under Martin Schwartz, he landed in Lancashire, and pushing forwards across England towards Newark, fell in with the King's forces at Stoke in Nottinghamshire (June 10), where his troops were entirely routed. Lincoln, Martin Schwartz, and others, lost their lives in the battle. Lord Lovel escaped. His body was discovered some centuries later in a secret chamber of one of his

1487.

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residences, where he had apparently taken refuge and been forgotten.

Alarmed perhaps by this sign of activity on the part of the Yorkists, Henry at length suffered Elizabeth of York to be crowned. It would seem from his delay that he was especially desirous of not in any sense reigning in right of his wife. But while thus in some degree softening the Yorkist opposition, he used the most stringent means to repress the party, and a Bill of Attainder was passed, including almost every important man who had been engaged in Simnel's insurrection. Moreover, to prevent the illegal habit of maintenance, which rendered unexpected insurrections very easy by placing a band of liveried adherents at once at the disposal of any discontented lord, a special court was established (subsequently known as the Court of the Star Chamber), having for its object the suppression of this institution, and which, consisting as it did of some of the chief members of the Council, strengthened by the addition of the judges, was enabled to reach those powerful nobles whom the weaker arm of the regular Law Courts might have been unable to touch. It is plain that the establishment of such a Court, though perhaps necessary for the maintenance of order, considerably increased the power of the central authority. The expedients of the defeated party were however by no means exhausted. Claimants to the throne were so numerous Perkin Warbeck that the explosion of one imposture only made acknowledged for way in France. another. In the beginning of the year 1492, a person, 1492. purporting to be the younger of the Princes popularly reported to have been slain in the Tower, made his appearance in Ireland, where he gained, as Simnel had done, considerable support. But on this occasion there was no premature action. He withdrew from Ire land, and sought refuge with the King of France, who acknowledged him as the heir to the English throne. Charles VIII. was at that time at war with Henry. It had been a principal object of his policy to unite Brittany with France. Already, in 1487, he had assaulted that country, and Henry had been called upon to give assistance to the friends who had sheltered him in his exile. Assistance was promised, and money was raised, but the money was kept, and the assistance never given. The same trick had been played in 1489, when Henry had promised his assistance to Anne of Brittany, whose father, Francis, the Duke who had protected Henry, was now dead. This time the army was sent, but with instructions not to fight. Disgust at this double dealing produced an insurrection in the North of England, in which the Earl of Northumberland, who

had collected the money, lost his life. Neither such lukewarm assistance as Henry's, nor the more earnest efforts of Maximilian, King of the Romans, who was a suitor for her hand, could save Anne, who, in the year 1491, accepted the hand of Charles, and united Brittany to the French monarchy. This afforded Henry a fresh opportunity for raising a subsidy, to wreak his vengeance, as he said, on the French King. But the vengeance came to nothing; for, though a fine army crossed the Channel, it had not been there a week before a treaty with Charles was made. As might have been expected from the character of the King, this arrangement, known as the Treaty of Estaples (Aug. 1492), related chiefly to money, Charles binding himself to pay Henry £149,000. Henry's counsellors and advisers did not come out of the negotiation empty handed. One consequence of this treaty was the removal of the pretender Warbeck from the French Court. He thence betook himself to the Court of Burgundy, In Burgundy. and placed himself under the protection of Margaret, Edward IV.'s sister, who, as Dowager, held her dower lands in complete independence. By her he was fully acknowledged, and by her influence the King of the Romans (Maximilian), his son Philip the Archduke of Austria, the Duke of Saxony, the Kings of Denmark and Scotland, sent him ambassadors. Nor was he without powerful support in England. In 1494 several Lords were arrested on the charge of high treason and executed, among them Sir William Stanley (January 1495), one of the family who had secured the throne for Henry; his great wealth escheated to the Crown. In 1496, Henry's diplomatic skill succeeded in removing the pretender from Burgundy. But meanwhile he had made an unsuccessful descent upon the coast of Kent, when 169 prisoners were taken, and all hanged, an instance both of Henry's determination to show {no mercy to the Yorkists and of the little value in which human life was held, in consequence, partly no doubt, of the barbarous bloodshed of the last century. The treaty which expelled Perkin Warbeck from Burgundy was called "The Great Intercourse." For the last several years both countries had been suffering from the interruption of the commercial intercourse between England and the Netherlands. The present treaty was a broad and wise commercial arrangement, stipulating a reciprocal liberty of trading "in all commodities to each other's ports without pass or license," and mutual assistance and support in all commercial matters, such as the suppression of piracy and privateering. It marks an era in the history of international relations. From Flanders, Perkin Warbeck, still hovering round England,

1496]

WARBECK'S REBELLION

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took refuge with the King of Scotland, whose reception of him was more practical and chivalrous than that of any of his In Scotland. earlier protectors. He did not hesitate to give him his 1496. kinswoman Lady Katherine Gordon in marriage, and before winter declared war in his behalf with the King of England. The proclamation of Warbeck, however, in which he spoke of Henry as "Henry Tyddor, the false usurper," and explained his escape from the Tower, met with no response, and after wasting some districts in the North of England, the army withdrew. But Henry could not let such an opportunity slip. He at once demanded a large sum from his Parliament. It was not raised without difficulty. The Cornish men rose against it, elected as their leaders one Hammock, an attorney, and Joseph a blacksmith. They afterwards, on advancing to Wells, obtained the assistance of Lord Audley, who put himself at their head, and under his command pushed on to London, and were not checked till they suffered a complete defeat on Blackheath. The leaders were at once executed, but the bulk of the insurgents made their way back to Cornwall. To this discontented neighbourhood Warbeck, who had found it necessary to leave Scotland, betook himself. With a small following he landed at Whitsand Bay, and leaving his wife at St. Michael's Mount, found himself before Exeter at the head of in Cornwall. 6000 men. His assaults upon that city failed, and one of his counsellors, who may well be suspected of being Henry's spy, deserted him. Bacon, in his history of the reign, speaks contemptuously of those who remained as "Sterne, a bankrupt mercer, Hulton, a tailor, and Astley, a scrivener." Desertions appear to have become frequent; and though a considerable force still kept together, their leader's courage forsook him, and he fled by night and took sanctuary in the Abbey of Beaulieu. He was there, in January 1498, surrounded, and having received a promise that his life should be spared, he left the sanctuary in a forlorn and comfortless plight. Without foreign assistance he had ceased to be an object of terror. He was allowed to move freely about London, but on attempting to escape, was placed in the Tower, after having read in public a full confession of his imposture. In this document he declared himself to be the son of John Osbeck, comptroller of the town of Tournay, and asserts that, while travelling as a servant, the people of Cork insisted on his being a Plantagenet. This would seem at all events to prove a very strong resemblance to that family, while the length of time during which he played his part, without, it

Warbeck lands

1497.

is asserted, committing a single error, prevents an absolute dispersion of the mystery which hangs over him; for although careful inquiries were made, and witness taken to prove his base birth, they were so entirely in the hands of Henry's agents, that their depositions cannot be taken for more than an ex parte statement. In November 1499,

Is executed. 1499.

Perkin and the young Earl of Warwick, whom he had met in the Tower, were both executed. The charges against them were that they had attempted to escape, and some witness, which looks like a forgery, was advanced to prove their treasonable intentions. It is possible that Warwick may have listened to the suggestions of Warbeck. It is certain that the Yorkist feeling was not dead, for another spurious Earl of Warwick had just been suppressed and executed, and it is possible that at the bottom of this execution lay the intrigues of Ferdinand of Spain, with whom Henry was now negotiating a marriage for his eldest son, and who might not unreasonably object to contracting his daughter to a Prince whose claim was insecure, and who might easily by a turn in the wheel of Fortune be an exile and a wanderer.

Henry's good position.

He

Having thus rid himself of the last dangerous pretender of the House of York, Henry found his position secure. was enabled to spend the remaining ten years of his reign in completing those lines of policy the foundations of which he had been laying during the seven years of discomfort which Warbeck had caused him. At home he had in a great degree completed the work of establishing the royal power. The large subsidies which he had collected during the war with France, and again in James's attack on England, had been used but sparingly. His household was so economically managed that he lived within the income which Parliament had granted him for the purpose of keeping it up. His yearly expenses were somewhat over £12,000, the grant was £13,000. He thus found himself in a position to act without frequent recourse to Parliament, which met but three times in the last ten years of his reign.

Ireland pacified. 1495.

Ireland, which had twice shown its devotion to the House of York, had been brought into comparative order by Sir Edward Poynings, acting as a deputy for Henry's second son, afterwards Henry VIII., at that time a child of four years of age. The Earl of Kildare had been apprehended and sent to England, and the Irish Parliament had passed the statute known as Poynings' Law, by which the country was much more closely connected with England. It was enacted that in future no Parliament should be held without