<h2><SPAN name="Chapter_IX" id="Chapter_IX"></SPAN><span class="smcap">Chapter IX.</span></h2>
<h2><span class="smcap">End of the Reign of Edward.</span></h2>
<p class="center">A.D. 1475-1483</p>
<div class="sidenote">Richard's high position.</div>
<p>King Edward reigned, after this time, for about eight years. During
this period, Richard continued to occupy a very high official
position, and a very conspicuous place in the public mind. He was
generally considered as personally a very bad man, and, whenever any
great public crime was committed, in which the government were
implicated at all, it was Richard, usually, who was supposed to be
chiefly instrumental in the perpetration of it; but, notwithstanding
this, his fame, and the general consideration in which he was held,
were very high. This was owing, in a considerable degree, to his
military renown, and the straightforward energy and decision which
characterized all his doings.</p>
<div class="sidenote">His character.</div>
<p>He generally co-operated very faithfully in all Edward's plans and
schemes, though sometimes, when he thought them calculated to impede
rather than promote the interests of the kingdom and the
aggrandizement of the family, he made no secret of opposing them. As
to <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></SPAN></span>Clarence, no one placed any trust or confidence in him whatever.
For a time, he and Edward were ostensibly on friendly terms with each
other, but there was no cordial good-will between them. Each watched
the other with continual suspicion and distrust.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Edward's plan for the invasion of France.</div>
<p>About the year 1475, Edward formed a grand scheme for the invasion of
France, in order to recover from the French king certain possessions
which Edward claimed, on the ground of their having formerly belonged
to his ancestors. This plan, as, indeed, almost all plans of war and
conquest were in those days, was very popular in England, and
arrangements were made on an immense scale for fitting out an
expedition. The Duke of Burgundy, who, as will be recollected, had
married Edward's sister, promised to join the English in this proposed
war. When all was ready, the English army set sail, and crossed over
to Calais. Edward went with the army as commander-in-chief. He was
accompanied by Clarence and Gloucester. Thus far every thing had gone
on well, and all Europe was watching with great interest for the
result of the expedition; but, very soon after landing, great
difficulties arose. The Duke of Burgundy and Edward disagreed, and
this disagreement caused great <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></SPAN></span>delays. The army advanced slowly
toward the French frontier, but for two months nothing effectual was
done.</p>
<p><SPAN name="louis" id="louis"></SPAN></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i181.jpg" class="smallgap" width-obs="225" height-obs="300" alt="LOUIS XI. OF FRANCE." title="" /> <span class="caption">LOUIS XI. OF FRANCE.</span></div>
<div class="sidenote2">Character of King Louis.<br/>Louis's wily management.<br/>Treaty proposed.</div>
<p>In the mean time, Louis, the King of France, who was a very shrewd and
wily man, concluded that it would be better for him to buy off his
enemies than to fight them. So he continually sent messengers and
negotiators to Edward's camp with proposals of various sorts, made to
gain time, in order to enable him, by <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></SPAN></span>means of presents and bribes,
to buy up all the prominent leaders and counselors of the expedition.
He gave secretly to all the men who he supposed held an influence over
Edward's mind, large sums of money. He offered, too, to make a treaty
with Edward, by which, under one pretext or another, he was to pay him
a great deal of money. One of these proposed payments was that of a
large sum for the ransom of Queen Margaret, as mentioned in a
preceding chapter. The amount of the ransom money which he proposed
was fifty thousand crowns.</p>
<p>Besides these promises to pay money in case the treaty was concluded,
Louis made many rich and valuable presents at once. One day, while the
negotiations were pending, he sent over to the English camp, as a gift
to the king, three hundred cart-loads of wine, the best that could be
procured in the kingdom.</p>
<p>At one time, near the beginning of the affair, when a herald was sent
to Louis from Edward with a very defiant and insolent message, Louis,
instead of resenting the message as an affront, entertained the herald
with great politeness, held a long and friendly conversation with him,
and finally sent him away with three hundred crowns in his purse, and
a promise of a thousand <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></SPAN></span>more as soon as a peace should be concluded.
He also made him a present of a piece of crimson velvet "thirty ells
long." Such a gift as this of the crimson velvet was calculated,
perhaps, in those days of military foppery, to please the herald even
more than the money.</p>
<p>These things, of course, put Edward and nearly all his followers in
excellent humor, and disposed them to listen very favorably to any
propositions for settling the quarrel which Louis might be disposed to
make. At last, after various and long protracted negotiations, a
treaty was agreed upon, and Louis proposed that at the final execution
of it he and Edward should have a personal interview.</p>
<p>Edward acceded to this on certain conditions, and the circumstances
under which the interview took place, and the arrangements which were
adopted on the occasion, make it one of the most curious transactions
of the whole reign.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Arrangements made for a personal interview.<br/>The grating on the bridge.</div>
<p>It seems that Edward could not place the least trust in Louis's
professions of friendship, and did not dare to meet him without
requiring beforehand most extraordinary precautions to guard against
the possibility of treachery. So it was agreed that the meeting should
take place upon a bridge, Louis and his friends to come in upon one
side of the bridge, and Edward, <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></SPAN></span>with his party, on the other. In
order to prevent either party from seizing and carrying off the other,
there was a strong barricade of wood built across the bridge in the
middle of it, and the arrangement was for the King of France to come
up to this barricade on one side, and the King of England on the
other, and so shake hands and communicate with each other through the
bars of the barricade.</p>
<p>The place where this most extraordinary royal meeting was held was
called Picquigny, and the treaty which was made there is known in
history as the Treaty of Picquigny. The town is on the River Somme,
near the city of Amiens. Amiens was at that time very near the French
frontier.</p>
<p>The day appointed for the meeting was the 29th of August, 1475. The
barricade was prepared. It was made of strong bars, crossing each
other so as to form a grating, such as was used in those days to make
the cages of bears, and lions, and other wild beasts. The spaces
between the bars were only large enough to allow a man's arm to pass
through.</p>
<p>The King of France went first to the grating, advancing, of course,
from the French side. He was accompanied by ten or twelve attendants,
all men of high rank and station. He was very <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></SPAN></span>specially dressed for
the occasion. The dress was made of cloth of gold, with a large <i>fleur
de lis</i>—which was at that time the emblem of the French
sovereignty—magnificently worked upon it in precious stones.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Meeting of the kings at the grating.</div>
<p>When Louis and his party had reached the barricade, Edward, attended
likewise by his friends, approached on the other side. When they came
to the barricade, the two kings greeted each other with many bows and
other salutations, and they also shook hands with each other by
reaching through the grating. The King of France addressed Edward in a
very polite and courteous manner. "Cousin," said he, "you are right
welcome. There is no person living that I have been so ambitious of
seeing as you, and God be thanked that our interview now is on so
happy an occasion."</p>
<p>After these preliminary salutations and ceremonies had been concluded,
a prayer-book, or missal, as it was called, and a crucifix, were
brought forward, and held at the grating where both kings could touch
them. Each of the kings then put his hands upon them—one hand on the
crucifix and the other on the missal—and they both took a solemn oath
by these sacred emblems that they would faithfully keep the treaty
which they had made.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Jocose conversation of the two kings.</div>
<p>After thus transacting the business which had brought them together,
the two kings conversed with each other in a gay and merry manner for
some time. The King of France invited Edward to come to Paris and make
him a visit. This, of course, was a joke, for Edward would as soon
think of accepting an invitation from a lion to come and visit him in
his den, as of putting himself in Louis's power by going to Paris.
Both monarchs and all the attendants laughed merrily at this jest.
Louis assured Edward that he would have a very pleasant time at Paris
in amusing himself with the gay ladies, and in other dissipations.
"And then here is the cardinal," he added, turning to the Cardinal of
Bourbon, an ecclesiastic of very high rank, but of very loose
character, who was among his attendants, "who will grant you a very
easy absolution for any sins you may take a fancy to commit while you
are there."</p>
<p>Edward and his friends were much amused with this sportive
conversation of Louis's, and Edward made many smart replies,
especially joking the cardinal, who, he knew, "was a gay man with the
ladies, and a boon companion over his wine."</p>
<p>This sort of conversation continued for some time, and at length the
kings, after again shaking <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></SPAN></span>hands through the grating, departed each
his own way, and thus this most extraordinary conference of sovereigns
was terminated.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Terms of the treaty.</div>
<p>The treaty which was thus made at the bridge of Picquigny contained
several very important articles. The principal of them were the
following:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>1. Louis was to pay fifty thousand crowns as a ransom for Queen
Margaret, and Edward was to release her from the Tower and send her to
France as soon as he arrived in England.</p>
<p>2. Louis was to pay to Edward in cash, on the spot, seventy-five
thousand crowns, and an annuity of fifty thousand crowns.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Marriage agreed upon.</div>
<p>3. He was to marry his son, the dauphin, to Edward's oldest daughter,
Elizabeth, and, in case of her death, then to his next daughter, Mary.
These parties were all children at this time, and so the actual
marriage was postponed for a time; but it was stipulated solemnly that
it should be performed as soon as the prince and princess attained to
a proper age. It is important to remember this part of the treaty, as
a great and serious difficulty grew out of it when the time for the
execution of it arrived.</p>
<p>4. By the last article, the two kings bound themselves to a truce for
seven years, during which time hostilities were to be entirely
suspended, <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></SPAN></span>and free trade between the two countries was to be
allowed.</p>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">Clarence and Gloucester.</div>
<p>Clarence was with the king at the time of making this treaty, and he
joined with the other courtiers in giving it his approval, but Richard
would have nothing to do with it. He very much preferred to go on with
the war, and was indignant that his brother should allow himself to be
bought off, as it were, by presents and payments of money, and induced
to consent to what seemed to him an ignominious peace. He did not give
any open expression to his discontent, but he refused to be present at
the conference on the bridge, and, when Edward and the army, after the
peace was concluded, went back to England, he went with them, but in
very bad humor.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The people of England discontented.</div>
<p>The people of England were in very bad humor too. You will observe
that the inducements which Louis employed in procuring the treaty were
gifts and sums of money granted to Edward himself, and to his great
courtiers personally for their own private uses. There was nothing in
his concessions which tended at all to the aggrandizement or to the
benefit of the English realm, or to promote the interest of the people
at large. They thought, therefore, that Edward and his counselors had
been <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></SPAN></span>induced to sacrifice the rights and honor of the crown and the
kingdom to their own personal advantage by a system of gross and open
bribery, and they were very much displeased.</p>
<hr class="medium" />
<div class="sidenote">Renewal of the quarrel between Edward and Clarence.<br/>Clarence retires from court.</div>
<p>The next great event which marks the history of the reign of Edward,
after the conclusion of this war, was the breaking out anew of the old
feud between Edward and Clarence, and the dreadful crisis to which the
quarrel finally reached. The renewal of the quarrel began in Edward's
dispossessing Clarence of a portion of his property. Edward was very
much embarrassed for money after his return from the French
expedition. He had incurred great debts in fitting out the expedition,
and these debts the Parliament and people of England were very
unwilling to pay, on account of their being so much displeased with
the peace which had been made. Edward, consequently, notwithstanding
the bribes which he had received from Louis, was very much in want of
money. At last he caused a law to be passed by Parliament enacting
that all the patrimony of the royal family, which had hitherto been
divided among the three brothers, should be resumed, and applied to
the service of the crown. This made Clarence very angry. True, he was
extremely <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></SPAN></span>rich, through the property which he had received by his
wife from the Warwick estates, but this did not make him any more
willing to submit patiently to be robbed by his brother. He expressed
his anger very openly, and the ill feeling which the affair occasioned
led to a great many scenes of dispute and crimination between the two
brothers, until at last Clarence could no longer endure to have any
thing to do with Edward, and he went away, with Isabella his wife, to
a castle which he possessed near Tewkesbury, and there remained, in
angry and sullen seclusion. So great was the animosity that prevailed
at this time between the brothers and their respective partisans, that
almost every one who took an active part in the quarrel lived in
continual anxiety from fear of being poisoned, or of being destroyed
by incantations or witchcraft.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Belief in witchcraft.</div>
<p>Every body believed in witchcraft in these days. There was one
peculiar species of necromancy which was held in great dread. It was
supposed that certain persons had the power secretly to destroy any
one against whom they conceived a feeling of ill will in the following
manner: They would first make an effigy of their intended victim out
of wax and other similar materials. This image was made <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></SPAN></span>the
representation of the person to be destroyed by means of certain
sorceries and incantations, and then it was by slow degrees, from day
to day, melted away and gradually destroyed. While the image was thus
melting, the innocent and unconscious victim of the witchcraft would
pine away, and at last, when the image was fairly gone, would die.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Birth of Clarence's second son.</div>
<p>Not very long after Clarence left the court and went to Tewkesbury,
his wife gave birth to a child. It was the second son. The child was
named Richard, and is known in history as Richard of Clarence.
Isabella did not recover her health and strength after the birth of
her child. She pined away in a slow and lingering manner for two or
three months, and then died.</p>
<p>Clarence was convinced that she did not die a natural death. He
believed that her life had been destroyed by some process of
witchcraft, such as has been described, or by poison, and he openly
charged the queen with having instigated the murder by having employed
some sorcerer or assassin to accomplish it. After a time he satisfied
himself that a certain woman named Ankaret Twynhyo was the person whom
the queen had employed to commit this crime, and watching an
opportunity when this <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></SPAN></span>woman was at her own residence, away from all
who could protect her, he sent a body of armed men from among his
retainers, who went secretly to the place, and, breaking in suddenly,
seized the woman and bore her off to Warwick Castle. There Clarence
subjected her to what he called a trial, and she was condemned to
death, and executed at once. The charge against her was that she
administered poison to the duchess in a cup of ale. So summary were
these proceedings, that the poor woman was dead in three hours from
the time that she arrived at the castle gates.</p>
<p>These proceedings, of course, greatly exasperated Edward and the
queen, and made them hate Clarence more than ever.</p>
<div class="sidenote">New quarrels.<br/>The rich heiress.</div>
<p>Very soon after this, Charles, the Duke of Burgundy, who married
Margaret, Edward and Clarence's sister, and who had been Edward's ally
in so many of his wars, was killed in battle. He left a daughter named
Mary, of whom Margaret was the step-mother; for Mary was the child of
the duke by a former marriage. Now, as Charles was possessed of
immense estates, Mary, by his death, became a great heiress, and
Clarence, now that his wife was dead, conceived the idea of making her
his second wife. He immediately commenced negotiations <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></SPAN></span>to this end.
Margaret favored the plan, but Edward and Elizabeth, the queen, as
soon as they heard of it, set themselves at work in the most earnest
manner to thwart and circumvent it.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Edward and Clarence quarrel about the heiress.</div>
<p>Their motives for opposing this match arose partly from their enmity
to Clarence, and partly from designs of their own which they had
formed in respect to the marriage of Mary. The queen wished to secure
the young heiress for one of her brothers. Edward had another plan,
which was to marry Mary to a certain Duke Maximilian. Edward's plan,
in the end, was carried out, and Clarence was defeated. When Clarence
found at length that the bride, with all the immense wealth and vastly
increased importance which his marriage with her was to bring, were
lost to him through Edward's interference, and conferred upon his
hated rival Maximilian, he was terribly enraged. He expressed his
resentment and anger against the king in the most violent terms.</p>
<p>About this time a certain nobleman, one of the king's friends, died.
The king accused a priest, who was in Clarence's service, of having
killed him by sorcery. The priest was seized and put to the torture to
compel him to confess his crime and to reveal his confederates. The
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></SPAN></span>priest at length confessed, and named as his accomplice one of
Clarence's household named Burdett, a gentleman who lived in very
intimate and confidential relations with Clarence himself.</p>
<p>The confession was taken as proof of guilt, and the priest and Burdett
were both immediately executed.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Clarence becomes furious.</div>
<p>Clarence was now perfectly frantic with rage. He could restrain
himself no longer. He forced his way into the king's council-chamber,
and there uttered to the lords who were assembled the most violent and
angry denunciation of the king. He accused him of injustice and
cruelty, and upbraided him, and all who counseled and aided him, in
the severest terms.</p>
<div class="sidenote">He is sent to the Tower.</div>
<p>When the king, who was not himself present on this occasion, heard
what Clarence had done, he said that such proceedings were subversive
of the laws of the realm, and destructive to all good government, and
he commanded that Clarence should be arrested and sent to the Tower.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Clarence is accused of high treason.</div>
<p>After a short time the king summoned a Parliament, and when the
assembly was convened, he brought his brother out from his prison in
the Tower, and arraigned him at the bar of the House of Lords on
charges of the most extraordinary character, which he himself
personally <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></SPAN></span>preferred against him. In these charges Clarence was
accused of having formed treasonable conspiracies to depose the king,
disinherit the king's children, and raise himself to the throne, and
with this view of having slandered the king, and endeavored, by bribes
and false representations, to entice away his subjects from their
allegiance; of having joined himself with the Lancastrian faction so
far as to promise to restore them their estates which had been
confiscated, provided that they would assist him in usurping the
throne; and of having secretly organized an armed force, which was all
ready, and waiting only for the proper occasion to strike the blow.</p>
<p>Clarence denied all these charges in the most earnest and solemn
manner. The king insisted upon the truth of them, and brought forward
many witnesses to prove them. Of course, whether the charges were true
or false, there could be no difficulty in finding plenty of witnesses
to give the required testimony. The lords listened to the charges and
the defense with a sort of solemn awe. Indeed, all England, as it
were, stood by, silenced and appalled at the progress of this dreadful
fraternal quarrel, and at the prospect of the terrible termination of
it, which all could foresee must come.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i197.jpg" class="smallgap" width-obs="500" height-obs="341" alt="THE MURDERERS COMING FOR CLARENCE." title="" /> <span class="caption">THE MURDERERS COMING FOR CLARENCE.</span></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">He is sentenced to death.</div>
<p>Whatever the members of Parliament may have thought of the truth or
falsehood of the charges, there was only one way in which it was
prudent or even safe for them to vote, and Clarence was condemned to
death.</p>
<p>Sentence being passed, the prisoner was remanded to the Tower.</p>
<div class="sidenote">He is assassinated.</div>
<p>Edward seems, after all, to have shrunk from the open and public
execution of the sentence which he had caused to be pronounced against
his brother. No public execution took place, but in a short time it
was announced that Clarence had died in prison. It was understood that
assassins were employed to go privately into the room where he was
confined and put him to death; and it is universally believed, though
there is no positive proof of the fact, that Richard was the person
who made the arrangements for the performance of this deed.<SPAN name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</SPAN></p>
<div class="sidenote">Dissipation and wickedness of Edward.</div>
<p>After Clarence was dead, and the excitement and anger of the quarrel
had subsided in Edward's mind, he was overwhelmed with remorse and
anguish at what he had done. He attempted <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></SPAN></span>to drown these painful
thoughts by dissipation and vice. He neglected the affairs of his
government, and his duties to his wife and family, and spent his time
in gay pleasures with the ladies of his court, and in guilty
carousings with wicked men. In these pleasures he spent large sums of
money, wasting his patrimony and all his resources in extravagance and
folly. Among other amusements, he used to form hunting-parties, in
which the ladies of his court were accustomed to join, and he used to
set up gay silken tents for their accommodation on the hunting-ground.
He spent vast sums, too, upon his dress, being very vain of his
personal attractions, and of the favor in which he was held by the
ladies around him.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Jane Shore.</div>
<p>The most conspicuous of his various female favorites was the
celebrated Jane Shore. She was the wife of a respectable citizen of
London. Edward enticed her away from her husband, and induced her to
come and live at court with him. The opposite engraving, which is
taken from an ancient portrait, gives undoubtedly a correct
representation both of her features and of her dress. We shall hear
more of this person in the sequel.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i200.jpg" class="smallgap" width-obs="245" height-obs="300" alt="JANE SHORE." title="" /> <span class="caption">JANE SHORE.</span></div>
<div class="sidenote2">Edward sends Richard to war.</div>
<p>Things went on in this way for about two years, when at length war
broke out on the frontiers of Scotland. Edward was too much engrossed with his
gallantries and pleasures to march himself to meet the enemy, and so
he commissioned Richard to go. Richard was very well pleased that his
brother Edward should remain at home, and waste away in effeminacy and
vice his character and his influence <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></SPAN></span>in the kingdom, while he went
forth in command of the army, to acquire, by the vigor and success of
his military career, that ascendency that Edward was losing. So he
took the command of the army and went forth to the war.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Difficulties in Scotland.</div>
<p>The war was protracted for several years. The King of Scotland had a
brother, the Duke of Albany, who was attempting to dethrone him, in
order that he might reign in his stead; that is, he was doing exactly
that which Edward had charged upon his brother Clarence, and for which
he had caused Clarence to be killed; and yet, with strange
inconsistency, Edward espoused the cause of this Clarence of Scotland,
and laid deep plans for enabling him to depose and supplant his
brother.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Edward falls sick.</div>
<p>In the midst of the measures which Richard was taking for the
execution of these plans, they, as well as all Edward's other earthly
schemes and hopes, were suddenly destroyed by the hand of death.
Edward's health had become much impaired by the dissolute life which
he had led, and at last he fell seriously sick. While he was sick, an
affair occurred which vexed and worried his mind beyond endurance.</p>
<p>The reader will recollect that, at the treaty which Edward made with
Louis of France at the barricade on the bridge of Picquigny, <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></SPAN></span>a
marriage contract was concluded between Louis's oldest son, the
Dauphin of France, and Edward's daughter Mary, and it was agreed that,
as soon as the children were grown up, and were old enough, they
should be married. Louis took a solemn oath upon the prayer-book and
crucifix that he would not fail to keep this agreement.</p>
<div class="sidenote">His anger against the King of France.</div>
<p>But now some years had passed away, and circumstances had changed so
much that Louis did not wish to keep this promise. Edward's great
ally, the Duke of Burgundy, was dead. His daughter Mary, who became
the Duchess Mary on the death of her father, and who, so greatly to
Clarence's disappointment, had married Maximilian, had succeeded to
the estates and possessions of her father. These possessions the King
of France desired very much to join to his dominions, as they lay
contiguous to them, and the fear of Edward, which had prompted him to
make the marriage contract with him in the first instance, had now
passed away, on account of Edward's having become so much weakened by
his vices and his effeminacy. He now, therefore, became desirous of
allying his family to that of Burgundy rather than that of England.</p>
<p>The Duchess Mary had three children, all <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></SPAN></span>very young. The oldest,
Philip, was only about three years old.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Death of the Duchess Mary.</div>
<p>Now it happened that just at this time, while the Duchess Mary was out
with a small party, hawking, near the city of Bruges, as they were
flying the hawks at some herons, the company galloping on over the
fields in order to keep up with the birds, the duchess's horse, in
taking a leap, burst the girths of the saddle, and the duchess was
thrown off against the trunk of a tree. She was immediately taken up
and borne into a house, but she was so much injured that she almost
immediately died.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Louis's treachery.</div>
<p>Of course, her titles and estates would now descend to her children.
The second of the children was a girl. Her name was Margaret. She was
about two years old. Louis immediately resolved to give up the match
between the dauphin and Edward's daughter Mary, and contract another
alliance for him with this little Margaret. He met with considerable
difficulty and delay in bringing this about, but he succeeded at last.
While the negotiations were pending, Edward, who suspected what was
going on, was assured that nothing of the kind was intended, and
various false tales and pretenses were advanced by Louis to quiet his
mind.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Vexation and rage of Edward.</div>
<p>At length, when all was settled, the new plan was openly proclaimed,
and great celebrations and parades were held in Paris in honor of the
event. Edward was overwhelmed with vexation and rage when he received
the tidings. He was, however, completely helpless. He lay tossing
restlessly on his sick-bed, cursing, on the one hand, Louis's
faithlessness and treachery, and, on the other, his own miserable
weakness and pain, which made it so utterly impossible that he should
do any thing to resent the affront.</p>
<div class="sidenote">His death.</div>
<p>His vexation and rage so disturbed and worried him that they hastened
his death. When he found that his last hour was drawing near, a new
source of agitation and anguish was opened in his mind by the remorse
which now began to overwhelm him for his vices and crimes.
Long-forgotten deeds of injustice, of violence, and of every species
of wickedness rose before his mind, and terrified him with awful
premonition of the anger of God and of the judgment to come. In his
distress, he tried to make reparation for some of the grossest of the
wrongs which he had committed, but it was too late. After lingering a
week or two in this condition of distress and suffering, his spirit
passed away.</p>
<hr class="large" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></SPAN></span></p>
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