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THOUGH Henry had got the crown upon his head, he did not feel quite sure of being able to keep it there, for he knew there was nothing so difficult to balance on the top of a human pole as a regal diadem. He felt that what had been won by the sword must be sustained by that dangerous weapon, though he was not insensible to the fact that edged tools are frequently hurtful to the hand that uses them. He became jealous of Edward Plan-tagenet, a boy of fifteen, the heir of the Duke of York, and grandson of Warwick, the king-maker. This un-happy lad was sent to the Tower, lest his superior right might prove mightier than the might which Henry had displayed on the field of Bosworth.

The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the Queen Dowager, who was known by the humbler name of Mrs. E. Woodville, was let out of prison, to which she had been consigned by Richard the Third, who kept her closely under lock and key from the moment when he found it impossible to unite her to him in wedlock.

Henry came up to London five days after the battle of Bosworth, and was met at Hornsey by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, all dressed in violet, which caused the new king to exclaim, "Ha! gentlemen, you wish me to take a hint. Your privileges shall be, like yourselves, in-violate!" He then proceeded in a close chariot to St. Paul's, where he deposited his three standards; and it has been suggested, that the celebrated Standard at Cornhill was one of those alluded to. The festivities in London were so numerous at the accession, that the city became crowded to suffocation, and the "sweating sickness," which will be remembered as Stanley's old complaint, broke out among the inhabitants.

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When it had abated Henry began to think about his coronation, and he took an early dinner at Lambeth with the Archbishop of Canterbury—Thomas Bourchier—to talk the matter over. The king and the prelate soon came to terms over their chop for the performance of the ceremony, which took place on the 30th of October, 1485, in the usual style of elegance. The good archbishop was an old and experienced hand: for he had crowned Richard the Third only two years before, and indeed the system of the prelate was, to ask no questions that he might hear no falsehoods; but he was always ready to perform a coronation for anyone who could find his own crown, and pay the fees that were usual.

A Parliament was now summoned, but when the Commons came together, it turned out that several of them had been attainted and outlawed in previous reigns without the attainders having been since reversed, and Henry himself was in the same doubtful predicament. The opinion of the judges was required in this disagreeable dilemma, but the intention in consulting them was only to get these accommodating interpreters of the law to twist it into a shape that would meet existing contingencies. With the usual pliability of the judges of those days, the parties whose opinion was asked gave it in favour of the strongest side, and Henry's having got the crown was declared to have cured all deficiencies of title. The Commons were obliged to have bills passed to reverse their attainders, but the king, like one of those patent fire-places which are advertised to consume their own smoke, was alleged to have cured the defects of his own title by the bare fact of his having got possession of the royal dignity.

Having settled all matters concerning his claim to the throne, he began to think about his intended wife, Elizabeth. "I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting," said he to Miss Woodville; "but, really I have been detained by other engagements." The young lady, who had sometimes feared that her case was one of breach of promise, was glad to disguise her real annoyance, and saying that "It did not at all signify," she prepared for the much retarded nuptials. They were solemnised on the 18th of January, 1486, and they were no sooner over than Henry exclaimed, "Now, Madam, recollect I have married you, but have not married your family." This uncourteous speech had reference to old Mrs. Woodville, who had already written to know what her new son-in-law would do for her. "I will not have her in the house," roared Henry, with savage earnestness; but he settled a small annuity upon her, which he enabled himself to pay by pocketing the whole of her dower.

The queen became anxious for her coronation, as any woman might reasonably be; but Henry put her off day after day, by exclaiming, "Don't be in a hurry; there's time enough for that nonsense." In this heartless manner he succeeded in adjourning the pageant for an indefinite period.

Henry's new project was to get up his popularity by a tour in the provinces. Happening to put up at Lincoln, he heard that Lord Lovel, with Humphrey and Thomas Stafford "had gone with dangerous intentions no man knew whither." They had much better have remained where they were; for Lord Lovel, after collecting a large body of insurgents, found himself quite unable to pay their wages, and at once disbanded them. He flew into Flanders; but the two Staffords were taken in the very act of concocting an insurrection, for which Humphrey, the elder, was hanged, while Thomas, on account of his youth, was pardoned.

Henry arrived on the 26th of April, 1486, at York, where Richard the Third, though killed on Bosworth Field, was still living in some of the people's memories. The marking-ink, in which the tyrant's name was written on their hearts, being by no means indelible, Henry determined to sponge it out as quickly as possible. He tried soft soap upon some and golden ointment upon others; both of which specifics had so much effect that in less than a month the city rang with cries of "Long live King Henry!"

On the 20th of September, the Court newsman of the day announced the interesting fact that the happiness of the king's domestic circle had been increased by the birth of a son; or, rather, the royal circle had been turned into a triangle by the arrival of an infant heir, who was named Arthur.

We must now request the reader to throw the luggage of his imagination on board the boat, and accompany us to Ireland, where, on landing, we will introduce him, ideally, to a priest and a boy who have just arrived in Dublin. The priest describes his young charge as Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, which will astonish us not a little, inasmuch as our friend, the reader, will remember that we left the little fellow not long ago a close prisoner in the Tower. How he got out is the question which we first ask ourselves, which we answer by intimating, that he did not get out at all, but he was only "a boy dressed up" to represent the young earl, and he played his part so well that many believed his story to be genuine. He had studied the character he represented, and had got by heart all the adventures of the young prince, together with a fund of anecdote that appeared quite inexhaustible. The juvenile impostor scarcely spoke a sentence that did not begin with "When I was a prisoner in the Tower," which made everyone believe that he had really been an inmate of that gloomy jail; and the trick succeeded to a miracle.

The urchin was proclaimed as Edward the Sixth, King of England and France and Lord of Ireland; for such was the credulity of the Hibernians that they believed every word of the tale that had been told to them.

Henry, desirous of exposing the fraud, had the real Plantagenet taken out of the Tower, for exhibition in the London streets; but the Irish declared that the real thing was a mere imposition, and the mock duke the genuine article. They, in fact, illustrated that instructive fable, in which an actor, having been applauded for his imitation of a pig, was succeeded by a rival who went the whole hog and concealed in the folds of his dress a rear brute, whoso squeak was pronounced very far less natural than that of the original representative of the porcine character.

Henry becoming a little alarmed at these proceedings, began rushing into the extremes of levity and severity; now pardoning a host of political offenders, and the next day, packing off the Queen Dowager—marked "Carriage paid, with care,"—to the monks at Bermondsey. Lambert Simnel, for so the impostor was called, held out as long as he could, and even got up, by subscription, one coronation during the season; but upon Henry's taking measures to chastise him he soon shrunk into insignificance. After a battle at Stoke, the pretender and his friend, the priest, were taken into custody, when the latter was handed over to the church for trial, and the former received a contemptuous pardon, including the place of scullion, to wash up the dishes and run for the beer in the royal household. He was at once placed in the kitchen, where his perquisites, probably in the way of kitchen stuff, enabled him to save a little money, and, in order to better himself, he subsequently sought and obtained the office of superintendent of the poultry yard, under the imposing title of the king's falconer. The priest, his tutor, seems to have dropped down one of those gratings of the past which lead to the common sewer of obscurity, in which it is quite impossible to follow him. We hear of him last looking through the bars of a prison, where he was left till called for, and, as nobody ever called, he never seems to have emerged from his captivity.

The friends of the house of York now became clamorous at the treatment of the Queen Elizabeth, who had been kept in obscurity, and had urged "that little matter of the coronation" over and over again upon the attention of her selfish husband. "How you bother!" he would sometimes exclaim to his unhappy consort, whom he would endeavour to quiet by the philosophical inquiry of "What are the odds, so long as you're happy?"—a question which, as Elizabeth was not happy, she found some difficulty in answering. At length, one morning at breakfast, he said sulkily, "Well, I suppose I shall never have any peace till that affair comes off;" and the necessary orders for the coronation of the queen were immediately given. Henry himself behaved in a very ungentlemanly manner during the entire ceremony, for he viewed it from behind a screen, * which was afterwards brought into the hall, to enable him to sit at his ease out of sight, and take occasional peeps at the dinner. He had refused to honour the proceedings with his presence, having declared the ceremony to be "slow," and alleged the impossibility of his sitting it out after having once suffered the infliction.

It was at about this period of the reign of Henry the Seventh that the court of Star Chamber was established; and though it, ultimately, ** "became odious by the tyrannical exercise of its powers," its intentions were originally as honourable as the most scrupulous of its suitors could have desired. It was founded in consequence of the inefficiency of the ordinary tribunals to do complete justice in criminal matters and other offences of an extraordinary and dangerous character, *** and to supply a sort of criminal equity—if we may be allowed the term—which should reach the offences of great men, whom the inferior judges and juries of the ordinary tribunals might have been afraid to visit with their merited punishment.

It has been suggested with some plausibility that the court of Star Chamber derived its name from the decorations of the room in which it was held, though it is, perhaps, a more ingenious supposition of a modern authority that the word "Star" was applied to the court in question because within its walls justice was administered in a twinkling. It might, with as much reason, be suggested that the name had reference to the constellation of legal talent of which the tribunal was composed; for those stars of the first magnitude—the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, and the President of the Council, were all of them judges of the court.

We must not, however, detain the reader any longer in a dull court of law, for we find ourselves served, in imagination, with a writ of Habeas Corpus, commanding us to bring him up for the purpose of inquiring by what right we hold him in the disagreeable duress of dry legal detail.

In returning to Henry, we find him offering to act as mediator between Charles of France and the Duke of Bretagne, when, like every meddler in the disputes of others, he is unable to emerge from the position in which he has placed himself without that nasal tweak which is the due reward of impertinence. The taxes he was obliged to impose for the purpose of interference, undertaken, as he alleged, to curb the ambition of the French court, were very exorbitant, and particularly so on account of Henry's avarice, which induced him to put about ten per cent, of every levy into his own pocket. The people were, of course, dissatisfied, and the harshness used in collecting the subsidy irritated them so much in the north, that they took their change out of the unfortunate Duke of Northumberland, whom they killed, because he had the ill-luck to be employed in the invidious office of tax-gatherer.

In 1490 Parliament liberally granted some more money to carry on the war with France, but Henry pocketed the cash, and sent some priests to try and compromise the matter with the enemy. It was not until four years afterwards, in the course of 1494, that he really went to work against the French, but he contrived to make it pay him exceedingly well, for he not only grabbed the subsidies voted for the purpose, but he converted them into so much clear profit, by getting his knights and nobles to bear their own expenses out of their own pockets. He kindly gave them permission to sell their estates without the ordinary fines, and many a gallant fellow sold himself completely up, in the hope of indemnifying himself by what he should be able to take from the French in battle.

Henry had, however, completely humbugged his gallant knights and nobles, for he never intended them to have the chance of gaining anything in France by conquest, and had, in fact, settled the whole matter at a very early period. He had made up his mind not to spend more than he could help, and had been putting away the subsidies in a couple of huge portmanteaus, which served him for coffers. Under the pretence of doing something, he passed over with his army to France, and "sat down" before Boulogne; but his sitting down proved that he had no intention of making any stand, and a truce was very soon agreed upon. Two treaties were drawn up, one of which was to be made public, for the purpose of misleading the people, and the other was a private transaction between the two sovereigns. The first only stipulated for peace, but the second secured the sum of £149,000 to be paid by instalments to Henry, who must have been under the necessity of ordering another coffer to receive the additional wealth that was thus poured in upon him.

New troubles were, however, commencing to disturb the mind of the king, who received one morning, at breakfast, a despatch announcing the arrival, at the Cove of Cork, of another pretender to the Crown of England. "There seems to be no end to these vagabonds," he mentally exclaimed, as he read the document announcing that a handsome young man had been giving himself out as Richard, Duke of York, second son of Edward the Fourth, and legitimate heir to the monarchy. "Pooh, pooh!" ejaculated Henry; "the fellow was disposed of in the Tower long ago." But on perusing further, he found that the young man had met this objection by alleging that he had escaped, and had been for seven years a wanderer. It was exceedingly improbable that the royal youth had been so long upon the tramp, but his story was not very rigidly criticised by Henry's enemies. The wanderer introduced himself to the Duchess of Burgundy, who, after some enquiry, pronounced him to be genuine, and embraced him as the undoubted son of her dear brother Edward. She gave him the poetical name of the White Rose of England, but Henry, knowing that "the rose by any other name" would not "smell as sweet" in the nostrils of the English, gave out that the "White Rose" was a Jew boy of the name of Peterkin or Perkin Warbeck. It was further alleged that the lad had been recently a footman in the family of Lady Brompton, with whom he had been travelling. Peterkin was materially damaged in public opinion by getting the character of a mere "flunkey," and he was afraid to do more than hover about the coast without venturing to effect a landing. Though Henry had held the pretender up to ridicule, Perkin Warbeck's opposition was in reality no joke, and the king bribed a few of the party to betray their colleagues. Several were at once informed against, among whom were the two Ratcliffes, who denied their guilt in the usual Ratcliffe highway; but their repudiation had no effect, for one of them was at once beheaded. Sir William Stanley, a very old friend of the Richmond family, whose brother, Lord Stanley, had put the battered crown on Henry's brow in the field of Bosworth, became an object of suspicion; and thinking he should get off by a confession, he acknowledged everything he had been guilty of, with a supplement containing a catalogue of offences he had never committed. Thus, by denying too much for confession and owning enough for condemnation, he fell between two stools, one of which was the stool of repentance, and lost his head at the moment he fancied he was upon a safe footing.

The party of Perkin Warbeck being discouraged by these events, and the people of Flanders having grown tired of the pretender's long visit, he felt that "now or never" was the time for his descent on England. The White Rose having torn himself away by the force of sheer pluck, attempted to transplant himself to the coast of Deal, but he found a Kentish knight ready to repel the Rose, and by a cry of "Go it, my tulips!" encouraging his followers to resist all oppression.

The White Bose and his companions mournfully took their leaves, and as many as could escape returned with press of sail to Flanders. Henry sent a vote of thanks to the men of Kent, with a promise of gold, but the remittance never came to hand from that day to the present.

Mr. P. Warbeck was now becoming such a nuisance in Flanders, that he was told he must really suit himself with another situation immediately. He tried Ireland, but the dry announcement of "no such person known" was almost the only answer to his overtures. As a last resource, and a proof of the desperate nature of his fortune, he actually threw himself upon the generosity of the Scotch, which was almost as hopeless as running his head against a stone wall; but as it was just possible that Perkin Warbeck might be turned to profitable account against England, the Scotch opened their hearts—where there is never any admission except on business—to the adventurous wanderer. James the Third, king of Scotland, chiefly out of spite to Henry, not only received Perkin as the genuine Duke of York, but married him to Lady Catherine Gordon, the lovely and accomplished daughter of the Earl of Huntley, a relative of the royal house of Stuart. An agreement was drawn up between James of Scotland, of the one part, and Perkin Warbeck, of the other, by virtue of which Perkin was to be pitchforked on to the English throne, and was to make over the town of Berwick-on-Tweed—when he got it—as an acknowledgment to King James for his valuable services. After some little delay, the Scotch crossed the border to enforce Perkin's demand; but when that individual arrived in England, he found himself so thoroughly snubbed that he sneaked back again.

Notwithstanding the utter failure of this enterprise, which had cost Henry not a penny to resist, he sent in a bill as long as his arm for the equipment of his army. The people who had not been called upon to strike a single blow, and always liked to have, what they called "their whack for their money," were enraged at being asked to pay for a battle that had never happened. The men of Cornwall were particularly angry at having to give any of their tin, and came up to Blackheath, under Lord Audley, whose inexperience was so great that he might have furnished the original for the sign of the "Green Man," which so long remained the distinguishing feature of the neighbourhood. The battle of Blackheath was fought on the 22nd of June, 1497, with a good deal of superfluous strength on one side, and consummate bad management on the other. On the side of the insurgents, one Flammock or Flummock, an attorney, was a principal leader, but he would gladly have taken out a summons to stay proceedings, had such practice been allowable. It is probable that this "gentleman one, &c." had been persuaded by some noble client who had an interest in the fight to appear as his attorney in this memorable action.

Henry having gained every advantage in his recent transactions was desirous of completing his arrangements, by purchasing Warbeck, if anyone could be found base enough to sell that unfortunate individual. James of Scotland was too honourable for such a shameful bargain, though he was greatly embarrassed in assisting Warbeck, for whom he had melted down his plate—an act worthy of the most fiddle-headed spoon—besides raising money on a gold chain he used to wear, and to which he was so attached, that he compared it to

as he drew it forth from his pocket to put it into the hands of the pawnbroker.

It was now intimated to Perkin Warbeck that he "had better go," for his presence had become exceedingly costly and embarrassing. "I've nothing more for you, my good man," were the considerate words of James as he despatched his guest to seek his fortune elsewhere, attended by a few trusty retainers, who stuck to him "through thick and thin," an attachment which, as he could hardly pay his own way, must have been very embarrassing. His wife's fidelity to him in his ill-fortune was a beautiful as well as a gratifying fact, for she had, really, seen much better days, and the sacrifices she made in sharing the fate of a Pretender "out of luck" was quite undeniable.

Perkin Warbeck made first for Cork in the hope of raising the Irish, but as he could not raise the Spanish, the former would have nothing to do with him. He next tried Cornwall, and marching inland he soon found himself at the head of a party of discontented ragamuffins, who happened to be ready for a row, without any ulterior views of a very definite character. He called himself Richard the Fourth, and penetrated into England as far as Taunton Dean, where Henry's forces had already collected.

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Warbeck was admirable in all his preliminary arrangements, and it was "quite a picture" to see him reviewing his troops; but picture as he was, the idea of fighting put him into such a fright, that he always lost his colour. He was first-rate on parade, but quite unequal to the business of a battle, and, indeed, to use an illustration founded on a fact of our own times, he would have been invaluable in the Astley's version of Waterloo, though utterly contemptible in the original performance of that tremendous action.

No sooner had Perkin Warbeck ascertained the propinquity of the enemy than he recommended that his forces should all go to bed in good time to be fresh for action early in the morning. Having first ascertained that all were asleep, he stole off to the stable, saddled his horse, and having mounted the poor brute, stuck spurs into its side until he reached the sanctuary of Beaulieu in the New Forest. When this disgraceful desertion of their leader was discovered the rebels set up a piteous howl and threw themselves on the mercy of Henry, who ordered some to hang, and sent others to starve, by dismissing them without food or clothing. Lady Catherine Gordon, alias Mrs. P. Warbeck, who had been sojourning for safety at St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, was brought before the king, who, touched by her beauty and her tears, experienced in his heart that truly English sentiment which declares, that "the man who would basely injure a lovely woman in distress, is unworthy of the name of a—a—British officer." He therefore sent her on a visit to the queen, who paid every attention to the fallen heroine.

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The next thing to be done was to rout Perkin Warbeck out of the hole into which cowardice had driven him. Henry was unwilling to disturb the sanctuary, but he sent his agents to parley with Perkin, who, finding himself regularly hemmed in, thought it better to come out on the best terms he could, and he accordingly emerged on the promise of a pardon. Henry was anxious to get a peep at the individual who had caused so much trouble, but thought it infra dig. to admit the rebel into the royal presence. The king, therefore, reverted to his old practice of getting behind a screen, an article he must have carried about with him wherever he went, that he might, unseen, indulge his curiosity. This paltry practice should have obtained for him the name of Peeping Harry, for we find him, at more than one period of his reign, skulking behind a screen, in the most ignoble manner. Perkin was made to ride up to London, behind Henry, at a little distance, and on getting to town he was sent on horseback through Cheapside and Cornhill, as a show for the citizens. There were the usual demonstrations of popular criticism on this occasion, and there is no doubt that amid the gibes and scoffs addressed to the captive the significant interrogatory of "Who ran away from Taunton Dean?" was not forgotten.

After taking a turn to the Tower and back for the accommodation of the inhabitants at the East End, who desired to be gratified with a sight of the Pretender, Perkin was lodged in the palace at Westminster, where a good deal of liberty seems to have been allowed him. He however chose to run away, and being caught again, he was made to stand in the stocks a whole day before the door of Westminster Hall, where he was made to read a written confession, which was interrupted by an occasional egg in his eye, or cabbage leaf over his mouth, for such are the voluntary contributions which a British public has always been ready to offer to helpless impotence.

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The next day the same ceremony with the same accessories was repeated at Cheapside, in order to give the East End an opportunity of enjoying the sport which the West End had already revelled in. Perkin Warbeck was then committed to the Tower, where he and the unfortunate Earl of Warwick became what may be termed fast friends, for they were bound tightly together in the same prison. Warbeck, who was in every sense of the word an accomplished swindler, succeeded in winning the good opinion, not only of his fellow captive but of the keepers of the jail, three of whom, it is said, had actually undertaken to murder Sir John Digby, the governor, for the sake of getting hold of the keys, and releasing the two captives. It was now evident that Warbeck would never be quiet, and Henry, feeling him to be a troublesome fellow, determined to get rid of him. On the 16th of November, 1499, Warbeck was arraigned at Westminster Hall, and being found guilty as a matter of course, was executed on the 23rd of the same month at Tyburn, where, cowardly to the last, he asked the forgiveness of the king, even on the scaffold.

Walpole, in his "Historic Doubts"—a work that throws everything into uncertainty and settles nothing—gives it as his opinion that Perkin Warbeck was really the Duke of York; but had Walpole been able to tell "a sheep's head from a carrot," he would never have been guilty of such a piece of confounding and confounded blundering. We who give no encouragement whatever to Historic Doubts are tolerably sure that Perkin Warbeck was merely a fashionable swindler, for he had none of that personal courage or true dignity which would have redeemed his imposture from the character of mere quackery. He contrived to ruin poor Warwick, or at all events to hasten his destruction by implicating him in a conspiracy, which of his own accord he never would have dreamed of.

When put upon his trial, the hapless earl—who, though only twenty-nine years of age, was from long seclusion in a state of second childhood, if indeed he had ever got out of his first—confessed with piteous simplicity all that had been alleged against him. He was beheaded on Tower Hill the 24th * of November, 1499; and it was said that his death was the most merciful that could be conceived, for in losing his head he was deprived of that which he never knew how to use, and of the possession of which he did not at any time seem sensible. Warbeck's widow continued to go by the name of the White Rose, when Sir Mathew Cradoc, thinking it a pity that she should be "left blooming alone," offered to graft her on his family tree, and the White Rose consented to this arrangement.

Henry had long been anxious to marry his daughter Margaret to James of Scotland, and he sent a cunning bishop, most appropriately named Fox, to act the part of a match-maker. The sly old dog brought the matter so cleverly about that the marriage was agreed upon, and this union led to the peaceful union of the two countries about a century afterwards. The young lady got but a small portion from her stingy father, and her husband made a settlement upon her of £2000 a year, but he got her to accept a paltry compromise. The meanness of the arrangements may be judged of by the ridiculous fact that King James and his young bride rode into Edinburgh on the same palfrey.

Henry's eldest son, Arthur Prince of Wales, had been already married to Catherine, fourth daughter of Ferdinand of Spain, who promised two hundred thousand crowns, half of which he paid down, as a wedding portion. The young husband died soon after, and Ferdinand naturally asked for his money and his child back again. The English king had pocketed the greater part of the cash, which he was not only quite unwilling to refund, but he had serious thoughts of proceeding for the balance of his daughter-in-law's dowry. He therefore consented to affiance her to his second son, Henry, in compliance with the only condition upon which Ferdinand agreed to waive his claim to the cash already in hand, and he even promised to pay the rest of the portion at his "earliest convenience."

Henry himself, or as we may call him for the sake of distinction, the "old gentleman," had lately lost his wife, and he went at once into the matrimonial market to see whether there was anything upon which it might be safe to speculate. He however wanted to conduct his operations with such extraordinary profit to himself that nothing seemed to tempt his avarice. His ruling passion was for "cash down," and to obtain this he fleeced his subjects most unmercifully, though he employed the disreputable firm of Empson and Dudley to collect the amount of the various extortions he was continually practising. These two men were little better than swindlers, though as lawyers they adhered to the rules of law, and indeed they kept a rabble always in the house to sit as jurymen. They had trials in their own office, and would often ring the bell to order up a jury from downstairs, just as anyone in the present day would order up his dinner. Dudley got the name of the Leech, from his power of drawing, and indeed he would have got the blood out of a blood-stone if the opportunity had been afforded him. *

Henry had now but one formidable enemy left, in the person of young Edmund de la Pole, the nephew of Edward the Fourth, and son and heir to the Duke of Suffolk. This turbulent individual renewed the cry in favour of the "White Rose," which was said by a wag of the day to be raised on a pole, after the fashion of the frozen-out gardeners.

Suffolk soon had the mortification of finding that he had not the suffrages of the people, for the rush to the Pole was anything but encouraging. "Ye Pole theyreforre," says Comines, "dydde cutte his sty eke," and became a penniless fugitive in Flanders. He was ultimately surrendered by Philip, the archduke, who had received Suffolk as a visitor, but gave him up with a lot of sundries he was transferring to Henry, who promised to spare the prisoner's life, and did so, though he left word in his will that his successor had better kill the earl, as he would otherwise prove troublesome.

In the course of the year 1509, Henry's health became very indifferent, and he had repeated attacks of the gout, every one of which put him in ill-humour with himself in particular, and the world in general. Every fresh twinge was paid with interest upon one or more of his unfortunate subjects; and when he got very bad he would be most indiscriminate in his cruelty. He fixed upon a poor old alderman named Harris, who died of sheer vexation at his ill-treatment before his indictment came on; and at this remote period we hope we shall not be accused of injuring the feelings of any of the posterity of poor Harris by saying, that he was literally harassed to death through the unkindness of his sovereign. During his illness Henry would do justice occasionally between man and man, but a favourable turn in his malady, a quiet night, or a refreshing nap, would bury all his good resolutions in oblivion. At length on the night of the 21st of April, 1509, he died at Richmond, leaving behind him a will in which he bequeathed to his son and heir the delightful task of repairing all his father's errors.

However easy it may be for an executor to pay the pecuniary debts of a testator with plenty of assets in hand, the moral responsibilities which have been left unsatisfied, are not so soon provided for. It is true that a good son frequently makes atonement to society for the mischief done by a bad parent; but this, though it strikes a sort of balance with the world, does not prevent the father from being still held accountable for his deficiencies.

Henry died in the fifty-third year of his age, and had he lived a day longer, he would have reigned twenty-three years and eight months, or as Cocker has it, in the simplicity of his heart, "had he been alive in the year 1700, he would have reigned upwards of two centuries." Our business, however, is not with what he might have done, but what he actually did, and we therefore record the fact, that he died on the 21st of April, 1509, and was buried in the magnificent chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he built, and which is called after him to this very day and hour that we now write upon. *

It is often the most painful part of our labours to give characters of some of the sovereigns who pass under our review in the course of this history. To those who have only known Henry the Seventh as the chivalrous and high-minded prince that fought so gallantly with Richard the Third on the field of Bosworth, it will be distressing to hear that the Richmond of their dramatic recollections is nothing like a true portrait of the actual character. At all events, if he had virtues in his youth they were not made to wear, they became sufficiently threadbare to be seen be seen through.

Even his ambition seems to have been little more than a medium he had adopted for gratifying his avarice, and it is now pretty clear that he rather wanted the crown for what it was worth in a pecuniary point of view, than for the honourable gratification which power when rightly used is capable of conferring on its possessor. Hume tells us that "Henry loved peace without fearing war," which is true enough; for war afforded him a pretext for raising money, while peace, which he generally managed to arrange, gave him an opportunity of pocketing the cash he had collected. War, therefore, was never formidable to him, for he usually manoeuvred to keep out of it; but he made the rumour of it serve as an excuse for taxing his people. He was decidedly clever as a practical man, though exceedingly unprincipled, but several salutary laws were passed in his reign; one of the best of which was an act allowing the poor to sue in forma pauperis. Considering how often the law reduces its suitors to poverty, it is only fair that those who are brought to such a condition should still be allowed to go on, for it is like ruining a man and then turning him out of doors to say that the courts shall be closed against such as are penniless.

Another important and useful measure of Henry's reign was that by which the nobility and gentry could alienate their estates, or cut mouth an occupant of the throne of England off the tail, which limited everything to the head of a family. This apparently liberal act was passed for the benefit of the king himself, who wished his nobles to be able to sell everything they had got for the sake of paying the expenses of the wars, which otherwise must have been prosecuted partly out of Henry's own pocket. He owed more to fortune than to his own merit, and even the conspiracies that were got up against him from time to time helped to sustain him in his high position, as the shuttlecock is kept in a state of elevation by constant blows from the battledore.