James Gairdner

“ All Europe looked upon her at that time as the only legitimate child of her father, but her father himself compelled her to disown the title and pass an unjust stigma on her own birth and her mother’s good name. Nevertheless Henry was now reconciled to her, and gave her a household in some degree suitable to her rank. During the rest of the reign we hear little about her except in connexion with a number of new marriage projects taken up and abandoned successively, one of which, to the count palatine Philip, duke of Bavaria, was specially repugnant to her in the matter of religion. ”

“ But a succession through females could not reasonably have been objected to after Edward III.'s claim to the crown of France; and, apart from strict legality, the duke's claim was probably supported in the popular estimation by the fact that he was descended from Edward III. through his father no less than through his mother. For his father, Richard, earl of Cambridge, was the son of Edmund, duke of York, fifth son of Edward III.; and he himself was the direct lineal heir of this Edmund, just as much as he was of Lionel, duke of Clarence. ”

“ Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, two nephews of the cardinal, Arthur and Edmund Pole, being ardent young men, conspired to go over to the duke of Guise in France, hoping to return with an army into Wales and so promote the claims of Mary Queen of Scots to the crown of England, for which service the elder, Arthur, expected to be restored to the dukedom of Clarence. ”

“ Now Perkin Warbeck had first appeared in Ireland in 1491, and had somehow been persuaded there to personate Richard, duke of York, the younger of the two princes murdered in the Tower, pretending that he had escaped, though his brother had been killed. Charles VIII., then expecting war with England, called him to France, recognized his pretensions and gave him a retinue; but after the peace he dismissed him. Then Margaret of Burgundy received him as her nephew, and Maximilian, now estranged from Henry, recognized him as king of England. ”

“ The earldom of Ulster, the old inheritance of the De Burghs, had descended to him from Lionel, duke of Clarence; the earldom of March came from the Mortimers, and the dukedom of York and the earldom of Cambridge from his paternal ancestry. Moreover, his own marriage with Cecily Neville, though she was but the youngest daughter of Ralph, 1st earl of Westmorland, allied him to a powerful family in the north of England, to whose support both he and his son were greatly indebted. ”

“ The legitimacy of Edward IV.'s children had been denied by Richard III. and his parliament, and, though the act was denounced as scandalous, the slander might still be reasserted. The duke of Clarence had left two
children, a son and a daughter, and the attainder of their father could not be a greater bar to the crown than the attainder of Henry VII. himself. Seeing this, Henry had, immediately after his victory at Bosworth, secured the person of the son, Edward, earl of Warwick, and kept him a prisoner in the Tower of London. ”

“ Nevertheless, Henry’s reign was much disturbed by a succession of Yorkist conspiracies and pretenders. Of the two most notable impostors, the first, Lambert Simnel, personated the earl of Warwick, son of the duke of Clarence, a youth of seventeen whom Henry had at his accession taken care to imprison in the Tower. Simnel, who was but a boy, was taken over to Ireland to perform his part, and the farce was wonderfully successful. ”

“ Doubts were felt as to the result even from the first; but the law having been once passed could not be relaxed merely because the victims were so numerous; for that would only have encouraged the irreverence which it was intended to check. No doubt there were milder men among the heretics, but as a class their stern fanaticism and ill-will to the old religion made them dangerous, even to the public peace. ”

“ At one time the duke of Brittany was nearly induced to surrender him to Edward IV.; but he remained safe in the duchy till the cruelties of Richard III. drove more and more Englishmen abroad to join him. An invasion of England was planned in 1483 in concert with the duke of Buckingham’s rising; but stormy weather at sea and an inundation in the Severn defeated the two movements. A second expedition, two years later, aided this time by France, was more successful. Henry landed at Milford Haven among his Welsh allies and defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth (August 22, 1485) . ”

“ Philip’s Spanish followers met with positive ill-usage everywhere, and violent outbreaks occurred. A year after his marriage Philip went over to Brussels to receive from his father the government of the Low Countries and afterwards the kingdom of Spain. Much to Mary’s distress, his absence was prolonged for a year and a half, and when he returned in March 1557 it was only to commit England completely to the war; after which he went back to Brussels in July, to return no more to England. ”

“ The popular view of Henry VII.’s reign has always been derived from Bacon’s History of that king. This has been edited by J. R. Lumby (Cambridge, 1881) . But during the last half century large accessions to our knowledge have been made from foreign and domestic archives, and the sources of Bacon’s work have been more critically examined. For a complete account of those sources the reader may be referred to W. Busch’s England under the Tudors, published in German in 1892 and in an English translation in 1895. ”

“ But the real object was only to lay the foundation of a perfect mutual understanding between the two kings, which Wolsey soon after went into France to confirm.
During the next nine years the life of Mary, as well as that of her mother, was rendered miserable by the conduct of Henry VIII. in seeking a divorce. During most of that period mother and daughter seem to have been kept apart. Possibly Queen Catherine had the harder trial; but Mary’s was scarcely less severe. ”

“ Yet a formidable rebellion was raised in his behalf by means of Lambert Simnel, who was defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Stoke in 1487. The earl of Warwick lived for twelve years later in unjust confinement, and was ultimately put to death in 1499 because he had consented to a plot for his own liberation. ”

“ It was a misfortune that she shared with high-born ladies generally in those days that her prospects in life were made a matter of sordid bargaining from the first. Mary was little more than two years old when she was proposed in marriage to the dauphin, son of Francis I. Three years afterwards the French alliance was broken off, and in 1522 she was affianced to her cousin the young emperor Charles V. by the Treaty of Windsor. ”

“ Dudley, duke of Northumberland, then became paramount in the privy council, and easily obtained the sanction of the young king to those schemes for altering the succession which led immediately after his death to the usurpation of Lady Jane Grey. ”

“ A host of the country people, led first by a blacksmith, but afterwards by a nobleman, marched up towards London and were only defeated at Blackheath. But the Cornishmen were quite ready for another revolt, and indeed had invited Perkin to their shores. ”

“ It came to an end at last on the death of Mary. It seems to have been more severe in the eastern and southern parts of England, and the largest number of sufferers was naturally in the diocese of Bonner, bishop of London. From first to last nearly three hundred victims are known to have perished at the stake ”