sweet and well-favoured face!" Having spent nearly a month at York, he turned to the southwest, and visited Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, and Bristol. In the course of his slow and stately progress he was very attentive to the public observance of religious worship; but he chose his own subject for the sermons that were preached. On every Sunday or saint's day one of the bishops read and expounded from the pulpit the bull which Henry had obtained on his marriage from Pope Innocent. On his return to London, in the month of June, he received an embassy from the King of Scotland, who joyfully consented to a treaty of truce and amity, to be followed in due season by a matrimonial alliance between their families.' On the 20th of September, eight months and two days after her marriage, Elizabeth was delivered of a son, who was christened Arthur, after the hero of ancient romance, with whom Henry claimed relationship on the father's side through the Tudors and Cadwalladers. father, then, and in that case, the crown should | Henry! King Henry! Our Lord preserve that levolve to Henry's children by any subsequent marriage. Sentence of excommunication was pronounced against all who should call in question this interpretation, or who should hereafter attempt to disturb Henry in the present possession, or the heirs of his body in the future succession:-and so ended this extraordinary bull.' When parliament was dissolved, Henry prepared to make a royal progress through the kingdom, with the more express object of staying some time in the north, in order to gain the goodwill of the people in those parts. "In the prime time of the year he began his journey towards York, and, because the feast of Easter approached, he turned aside to the city of Lincoln, where he tarried during the solemnity of that high feast." Here he was informed that Lord Lovel, with Humphrey and Thomas Stafford, "had fled from the sanctuary of Colchester, and had gone, with dangerous intentions, no man knew whither." On the 6th of April Henry left Lincoln for Nottingham, well attended; by the 17th he was at Pontefract, where he was stopped for awhile by the intelligence that Lord Lovel, with a considerable body of insurgents, had thrown himself between Middleham and York. To retreat might have proved more dangerous than to advance, even in face of an equal force; but the insurgents were greatly inferior, and, on seeing that the enterprise was hopeless, Lord Lovel disbanded them, and fled into Lancashire. After lying concealed there for a short time in the house of his friend Sir Thomas Broughton, he passed over to Flanders. A few of the men who had taken up arms with him were seized and executed. This failure wholly disconcerted the project of the Staffords, who had prepared an insurrection in Worcestershire. The two brothers fled for sanctuary to the church of Colnham, near Abingdon; but this time their sanctuary was not respected: they were dragged by force from the church, and had sentence passed upon them as traitors. Humphrey, the elder, was executed at Tyburn, but Thomas, the younger brother, was pardoned. 2 We left the young Earl of Warwick, the son of the Duke of Clarence, safely lodged in the Tower. In the month of November a young priest of Oxford, and a beautiful boy, landed at Dublin. The priest gave out that the boy was Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, who had escaped in a marvellous manner from the Tower of London; and among a people of lively imagination and warm feelings, and enthusiastic in their attachment to the house of York, a ready belief was accorded to the story, and a generous sympathy spread from heart to heart for the young hero of it. What was credulity in the common people was design and craft in some, possibly in most of the Anglo-Irish nobles, who were averse to Henry, who had scarcely submitted to his government, and who were ready to adopt all such measures as chance might offer, provided they held out a prospect of overthrowing the new order of things in England. Thomas Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, and lord-lieutenant or deputy of Ireland, received the priest and his pupil with open arms, and presented the latter On the 26th of April Henry entered York, in "to all his friends and lovers,” declaring "the which city the memory of King Richard, his coming of the child, and afterwards affirming mortal enemy, was yet "recent and lively, and that the crown and sceptre of the realm of right not all forgotten of his friends." But the visitor, belonged to this young prince." The boy was on necessary occasions, could relax his avarice: not only beautiful and graceful in person, but he reduced the town-rent to the crown from £160 witty and ingenious: he told his touching story yearly to £18, 58.—he dispensed favours and with great consistency, and when questioned, he honours-held feasts-exhibited pageants and could give minute particulars relating to the miracles-fed some poets who recited some bad royal family. The citizens of Dublin declared verses in his honour-and distributed money unanimously in his favour; and his fame was among the people, who cried, lustily, "King"shortly bruited throughout all Ireland, and 1 Rymer. VOL. I. 2 Year Book. 3 Herald's Journal, MS. Lel Co'lect.; Hall; Bacon; Rym. 90 |