Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
considerable present:a
He took afterwards an opportunity of sending a herald to the English camp; and having given him directions to apply to the lords Stanley and Howard, who, he heard, were friends to peace, he desired the good offices of these noblemen in promoting an accommodation with their master.
b
As Edward was now fallen into like dispositions, a truce was 29th Aug.
soon concluded on terms more advantageous than honourable to Lewis.
He stipulated to pay Edward immediately 75,000 crowns, on
Peace of Pecquigni.
condition that he should withdraw his army from France, and promised to pay him 50,000 crowns a year during their joint lives: It was added, that the dauphin, when of age, should marry Edward’s eldest daughter.
c
In order to ratify this treaty, the two monarchs agreed to have a personal interview; and for that purpose, suitable preparations were made at Pecquigni near Amiens. A close rail was drawn across a bridge in that place, with no larger intervals than would allow the arm to pass; a precaution against a similar accident to that which befel the duke of Burgundy in his conference with the dauphin at Montereau. Edward and Lewis came to the opposite sides; conferred privately together; and having confirmed their friendship, and interchanged many mutual civilities, they soon after parted.
d
Lewis was anxious not only to gain the king’s friendship; but also that of the nation, and of all the considerable persons in the English court. He bestowed pensions, to the amount of 16,000 crowns a year, on several of the king’s favourites; on lord Hastings two thousand crowns; on lord Howard and others in proportion; and these great ministers were not ashamed thus to receive wages from a foreign prince.
e
As the two armies, after the conclusion of the truce, remained some time in the neighbourhood of each other, the English were not only admitted freely into Amiens, where Lewis resided, but had also their charges defrayed, and had wine and victuals furnished them PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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in every inn, without any payment’s being demanded. They flocked thither in such multitudes, that once above nine thousand of them were in the town, and they might have made themselves masters of the king’s person; but Lewis, concluding from their jovial and dissolute manner of living, that they had no bad intentions, was careful not to betray the least sign of fear or jealousy. And when Edward, informed of this disorder, desired him to shut the gates against them; he replied, that he would never agree to exclude the English from the place where he resided; but that Edward, if he pleased, might recal them, and place his own officers at the gates of Amiens to
Lewis’s desire of confirming a mutual amity with England, engaged him even to make imprudent advances, which it cost him afterwards some pains to evade. In the conference at Pecquigni, he had said to Edward, that he wished to have a visit from him at Paris; that he would there endeavour to amuse him with the ladies; and that, in case any offences were then commited, he would assign him the cardinal of Bourbon for confessor, who, from fellow-feeling, would not be over and above severe in the penances which he would enjoin. This hint made deeper impression than Lewis intended. Lord Howard, who accompanied him back to Amiens, told him, in confidence, that, if he were so disposed, it would not be impossible to persuade Edward to take a journey with him to Paris, where they might make merry together.
Lewis pretended at first not to hear the offer; but on Howard’s repeating it, he expressed his concern, that his wars with the duke of Burgundy would not permit him to attend his royal guest, and do him the honours he intended. "Edward," said he, privately to Comines, "is a very handsome and a very amorous prince: Some lady at Paris may like him as well as he shall do her; and may invite him to return in another
manner. It is better that the sea be between us.”g
This treaty did very little honour to either of these monarchs: It discovered the imprudence of Edward, who had taken his measures so ill with his allies, as to be obliged, after such an expensive armament, to return without making any acquisitions, adequate to them: It showed the want of dignity in Lewis, who, rather than run the hazard of a battle, agreed to subject his kingdom to a tribute, and thus acknowledge the superiority of a neighbouring prince, possessed of less power and territory than himself. But as Lewis made interest the sole test of honour, he thought that all the advantages of the treaty were on his side, and that he had overreached Edward, by sending him out of France on such easy terms. For this reason, he was very solicitous to conceal his triumph; and he strictly enjoined his courtiers never to show the English the least sign of mockery or derision. But he did not himself very carefully observe so prudent a rule: He could not forbear, one day, in the joy of his heart, throwing out some raillery on the easy simplicity of Edward and his council; when he perceived, that he was overheard by a Gascon, who had settled in England. He was immediately sensible of his indiscretion; sent a message to the gentleman; and offered him such advantages in his own country, as engaged him to remain in France.
It is but just,
said he,
that I pay the penalty of my talkativeness.
h
The most honourable part of Lewis’s treaty with Edward was the stipulation for the liberty of queen Margaret, who, though after the death of her husband and son she could no longer be formidable to government, was still detained in custody by PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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Edward. Lewis paid fifty thousand crowns for her ransom; and that princess, who had been so active on the stage of the world, and who had experienced such a variety of fortune, passed the remainder of her days in tranquillity and privacy, till the year 1482, when she died: An admirable princess, but more illustrious by her undaunted spirit in adversity, than by her moderation in prosperity. She seems neither to have enjoyed the virtues, nor been subject to the weaknesses of her sex; and was as much tainted with the ferocity, as endowed with the courage, of that barbarous age, in which she lived.
Though Edward had so little reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the duke of Burgundy, he reserved to that prince a power of acceding to the treaty of Pecquigni: But Charles, when the offer was made him, haughtily replied, that he was able to support himself without the assistance of England, and that he would make no peace with Lewis, till three months after Edward’s return into his own country. This prince possessed all the ambition and courage of a conqueror; but being defective in policy and prudence, qualities no less essential, he was unfortunate in all his enterprizes; and
perished at last in battle against the Swiss;i
a people whom he despised, and who, though brave and free, had hitherto been in a manner overlooked in the general system of Europe.
This event, which happened in the year 1477, produced a great 1477.
alteration in the views of all the princes, and was attended with consequences which were felt for many generations. Charles left only one daughter, Mary, by his first wife; and this princess, being heir of his opulent and extensive dominions, was courted by all the potentates of Christendom, who contended for the possession of so rich a prize. Lewis, the head of her family, might, by a proper application, have obtained this match for the dauphin, and have thereby united to the crown of France all the provinces of the Low Countries, together with Burgundy, Artois, and Picardy; which would at once have rendered his kingdom an overmatch for all its neighbours. But a man wholly interested is as rare as one entirely endowed with the opposite quality; and Lewis, though impregnable to all the sentiments of generosity and friendship, was, on this occasion, carried from the road of true policy by the passions of animosity and revenge. He had imbibed so deep a hatred to the house of Burgundy, that he rather chose to subdue the princess by arms, than unite her to his family by marriage: He conquered the dutchy of Burgundy and that part of Picardy, which had been ceded to Philip the Good by the treaty of Arras: But he thereby forced the states of the Netherlands to bestow their sovereign in marriage on Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederic, from whom they looked for protection in their present distresses: And by these means, France lost the opportunity, which she never could recal, of making that important acquisition of power and territory.
During this interesting crisis, Edward was no less defective in policy, and was no less actuated by private passions, unworthy of a sovereign and a statesman. Jealousy of his brother, Clarence, had caused him to neglect the advances which were made of marrying that prince, now a widower, to the heiress of Burgundy;
k
and he sent her proposals of espousing Anthony earl of Rivers, brother to his queen, who still retained an entire ascendant over him. But the match was rejected with disdain;
l
and Edward, resenting this treatment of his brother-in-law, permitted France to proceed without PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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interruption in her conquests over his defenceless ally. Any pretence sufficed him for abandoning himself entirely to indolence and pleasure, which were now become his ruling passions. The only object, which divided his attention, was the improving of the public revenue, which had been dilapidated by the necessities or negligence of his predecessors; and some of his expedients for that purpose, though unknown to us,
were deemed, during the time, oppressive to the people.m
The detail of private wrongs naturally escapes the notice of history; but an act of tyranny, of which Edward was guilty in his own family, has been taken notice of by all writers, and has met with general and deserved censure.
The duke of Clarence, by all his services in deserting Warwic, Trial and execution of
had never been able to regain the king’s friendship, which he had the duke of Clarence.
forfeited by his former confederacy with that nobleman. He was still regarded at court as a man of a dangerous and a fickle character; and the imprudent openness and violence of his temper, though it rendered him much less dangerous, tended extremely to multiply his enemies, and to incense them against him. Among others, he had had the misfortune to give displeasure to the queen herself, as well as to his brother, the duke of Glocester, a prince of the deepest policy, of the most unrelenting ambition, and the least scrupulous in the means which he employed for the attainment of his ends. A combination between these potent adversaries being secretly formed against Clarence, it was determined to begin by attacking his friends; in hopes, that, if he patiently endured this injury, his pusillanimity would dishonour him in the eyes of the public; if he made resistance and expressed resentment, his passion would betray him into measures, which might give them advantages against him. The king, hunting one day in the park of Thomas Burdet of Arrow, in Warwickshire, had killed a white buck, which was a great favourite of the owner; and Burdet, vexed at the loss, broke into a passion, and wished the horns of the deer in the belly of the person, who had advised the king to commit that insult upon him. This natural expression of resentment, which would have been overlooked or forgotten, had it fallen from any other person, was rendered criminal and capital in that gentleman, by the friendship in which he had the misfortune to live with the duke of Clarence: He was tried for his life; the judges and jury were found servile enough to condemn him; and he was publicly beheaded at Tyburn for this pretended offence.
n
About the same time, one John Stacey, an ecclesiastic, much connected with the duke, as well as with Burdet, was exposed to a like iniquitous and barbarous prosecution. This clergyman, being more learned in mathematics and astronomy than was usual in that age, lay under the imputation of necromancy with the ignorant vulgar; and the court laid hold of this popular rumour to effect his destruction. He was brought to his trial for that imaginary crime; many of the greatest peers countenanced the prosecution by their presence; he was condemned, put to the torture, and executed.
o
The duke of Clarence was alarmed, when he found these acts of tyranny exercised on all around him: He reflected on the fate of the good duke of Glocester in the last reign, who, after seeing the most infamous pretences employed for the destruction of his nearest connexions, at last fell himself a victim to the vengeance of his enemies. But Clarence, instead of securing his own life against the present danger, by silence and PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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reserve, was open and loud in justifying the innocence of his friends, and in exclaiming against the iniquity of their prosecutors.
The king, highly offended with his freedom, or using that
1478. 16th Jan.
pretence against him, committed him to the Tower,p
summoned a parliament, and tried him for his life before the house of peers, the supreme tribunal of the nation.
The duke was accused of arraigning public justice, by maintaining the innocence of men, who had been condemned in courts of judicature; and of inveighing against the iniquity of the king, who had given orders for their prosecution.
q
Many rash expressions were imputed to him, and some too reflecting on Edward’s legitimacy; but he was not accused of any overt act of treason; and even the truth of these speeches may be doubted of, since the liberty of judgment was taken from the court,
by the king’s appearing personally as his brother’s accuser,r
and pleading the cause against him. But a sentence of condemnation, even when this extraordinary circumstance had not place, was a necessary consequence, in those times, of any prosecution by the court or the prevailing party; and the duke of Clarence was pronounced guilty by the peers. The house of commons were no less slavish and unjust: They both petitioned for the execution of the duke, and afterwards passed a