ngled in love affairs: he was fond of music and enjoyment of all kinds, the pleasures of the table, the uproar of riotous company: his debauched habits are thought to have shortened his life, and many

ot unworthy to be ranked by the side of Ferdinand the Catholic, Charles the Bold, Louis XI, and

ts established rights. We find under him for five years no meeting of Parliament; then a Parliament that had met was prorogued some four or five times without completing any business, till it at last agreed to raise the customs duties, included under the names of Tonnage and Poundage; a revenue which being voted to the Kings for life (and this came gradually to be regarded as a mere formality) gave their government a strong financial basis. Other Parliaments repaid their summons with considerable grants, with large and full subsidies: yet Edward IV was not content even with these. Under him began the practice, by which the wealthy were drawn into contributions for his service in proportion to their property, of which the King knew how to obtain accurate informatio

f the enemy was still very powerful, and after his early death a qu

im; of the details of his death we have not even a legend left. Another Gloucester, who had for many years guarded the crown for the infant Henry VI, was, at the very moment when he might become dangerous to the new government, found dead in his bed. So Henry VI perished in the Tower the day before Edward IV made his entry into London. Edward IV preferred to have his brother Clarence, though already under sentence of death, privately killed. But the most atrocious murder of all was that of the two infant sons of Edward IV himself; they were both murdered at once, as was fully believed, at the behest

se crimes opened a way out of the disorders of the time. For as Richard, while continuing to persecute the house of Lancaster, struck still harder blows against the chief members of

asters, Henry Earl of Richmond, and it was determined that Henry and Elizabeth's daughter, in whom the claims of both lines were united, should marry each other, a prospect which might well prepare the way for the immediate

a lady of the house of Somerset, descended by her father from John of Gaunt, the ancestor of the Lancasters, by his third marriage with Catharine Swynford. It has been said that this marriage, in itself of an irregular nature, was only recognised as legitimate by Richard II on the condition that the issue from it should have no claim to the succession-and so it is in fact stated in the often printed Patent. But the original of the document still exists, and that in two forms, one of which is in the Rolls of Parliament, the other on the Patent Rolls. In the first the limitation is wanting, in the second it exists, but as an interpolation by a later hand. It may be taken as admitted that Rich

-treated by Richard, joined him, it might certainly be hoped that the usurper would be overthrown, and

rable reinforcements; yet he did not number more than 5000 men under his banners, badly clothed and still worse armed, when Richard with his chivalry came upon him in overwhelming numbers. Henry would have been lost, had he not found partisans in Richard's ranks. Even

e best, not only his victory, but the joyous recognition also which he experienced afterwards: yet his whole natu

himself. In this perplexity recourse was had to the judges: and they decided that the possession of the crown supplied all defects, and that the King was already King even without the assent of Parliament.[75] In the general disorder things had gone so far, that it was necessary to find some power outside the continuity of legal forms, from which they might start afresh. The actual possession of the throne formed this time the liv

King himself laid great stress: he once designates the issue of the battle as the decision of God between him and his foes. He thus avoided any mention of the marriage with Edward IV's daughter, which he

understood that her daughter was rather lowered than raised by the marriage. The whole party of York moreover felt itself contemned and insulted. To the ferment of displeasure and ambition into which it fell must be attributed the fact that a pair of adventurers, who acted the pa

y, and the power which the great party-leaders exercised, filled the weaker, who had to sit in judgment on them, with dread of their sure revenge. To put an end to this disorder Henry VII established the Starchamber. With consent of the Parliament, from which all hostile party-movements were excluded, he gave his Privy Council, which was strengthened by the chief judges, a strong organisation with this end in view. It was to punish all those personal engagements, the exercise of unlawful influence in the choice of sheriffs, all riotous assemblies, lastly to have power to deal with the early symptoms of a tumult before it came to an outbreak, and that under forms which were not usual in the Engl

n him still worse reproaches, was his commission against infractions of the law. It was inevitable that in the fluctuation of authority and of the statutes themselves innumerable illegalities should have taken place. And they were still always going on. The King took it especially ill that men omitted to pay the dues which belonged to the crown in right of its feudal superiority. All these negligences and failures were now visited and punished with the severit

t, the customs duties settled on him for life, the tenth from the clergy, and the feudal dues. It was estimated that they produced nearly the same revenue as that of the French kings at this time, but it was remarked that t

his personal claim by the fortune of arms, and made it the central point of his government. Was he to allow it to be again endangered by the ceaseless ebb

weighed down the balance, to the ruin of the victim. William Stanley, who had played the most important part in the battle which decided the fate of the crown, and was regarded as almost the first man in the realm after the King, had at the appearance of Perkin Warbeck (who gave himself out as Edward's younger son, Richard of York) let slip the words, 'he would take his side, if he were the person he gave himself out to be.' He had to atone for these words by his death, since he had intimated a doubt as to the King's lawful right, which might mislead others into sedition. Gradually the movements ceased: the high nobility showed a loyal submission to the King: yet it did not

manded it, but his soul took no pleasure in them, he left them as soon as ever he could; he lived only in business. In his council sat men of mark, sagacious bishops, experienced generals, magistrates learned in the law: he held it to be his duty and his interest to hear their advice. And they were not without influence: one or two were noted as able to restrain his self-seeking will. But the m

o this object, to keep off all foreign

is concessionibus hujusmodi interesse. Praeterea haereditarii ac possessionati omnes de rebus immobilibus suarum possessionum partem libere concedebant. Cumque ne

rived from a confession of the persons concerned in it in Henry VII's time. 'Dightonus tradi

suae capitaneum invenire non possent brevi

1830, p. 178. Hume's objection, that the mother's right came before the son's, is

ques de Jean Molinet, ed. Buchon, iii. 151. 'Le Comte de Richmond fut couronn

sanguinis fuisse expurgatum-ut regi opera parlamen

hat is in the Christian world.-In the judges of the same are the grandees of the realm: and t