1490-1492 FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS 349 He young duchess, and in 1490 was wedded to her by proxy. was a restless adventurer, always aiming at more than he had the means of accomplishing. Though he could not find time to go at once to Brittany to made good his claim, yet in 1491 he called on Henry to assist him in asserting it. 8. Cardinal Morton's Fork. 1491.—Henry, who knew how unpopular a general taxation was, fell back on the system of benevolences (see p. 335), excusing his conduct on the plea that the statute of Richard III. abolishing benevolences (see p. 342) was invalid, because Richard himself was a usurper. In gathering the benevolence the Chancellor, Cardinal Morton, who had been helpful to Henry in the days of his exile (see p. 341), invented a new mode of putting pressure on the wealthy, which became known as Cardinal Morton's fork. If he addressed himself to one who lived in good style, he told him that his mode of living showed that he could afford to give money to the king. If he had to do with one who appeared to be economical, he told him that he must have saved and could therefore afford to give money to the king. Before Henry could put the money thus gained to much use, Anne, pressed hard by the French, repudiated her formal marriage with Maximilian, who had never taken the trouble to visit her, and gave her hand to Charles VIII., who on his part refused to carry out his contract to marry Maximilian's daughter Margaret (see p. 337). From that time Brittany, the last of the great fiefs to maintain its independence, passed under the power of the king of France. Feudality was everywhere breaking down, and in France, as in England, a strong monarchy was being erected on its ruins. 1492.-Maximilian's alliance 9. The Invasion of France. had proved but a broken reed, but there was now arising a formidable power in the south of Europe, which might possibly give valuable support to the enemies of France. The peninsula to the south of the Pyrenees had hitherto been divided amongst various states, but in 1469 a marriage between Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, the heiress of Castile, united the greater part under one dominion. Ferdinand and Isabella were, for the present, fully occupied with the conquest of Granada, the last remnant of the possessions of the Moors in Spain, and that city did not surrender till early in 1492. In the meanwhile all England was indignant with the king of France on account of his marriage with the heiress of Brittany. Money was voted and men were raised, and on October 2, 1492, Henry crossed to Calais to invade France. He was, however, cool enough to discover that both Ferdinand and Maximilian wanted to play their own game at his expense, and as Anne of Beaujeu was ready to meet him half-way, he concluded a treaty with the French king on November 3 at Etaples, receiving large sums of money for abandoning a war in which he had nothing to gain. In 1493 the Spaniards followed Henry's example, and made a peace with France to their own advantage.' 10. Perkin Warbeck. 1491-1494-Henry's prudent relinquishment of a war of conquest was not likely to bring him popularity in England, and his enemies were now on the watch for another pretender to support against him. Such a pretender was found in Perkin Warbeck, a Fleming of Tournay, who had landed at Cork in the end of 1491 or the beginning of 1492, and who had been pressed by the townsmen to give himself some name which would attach him to the Yorkist family. He allowed them to call him Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower. He received support from Desmond, and probably from Kildare, upon which Henry deprived Kildare of the office of Lord Deputy. Perkin crossed to France, and ultimately made his way to Flanders, where he was supported by Margaret of Burgundy. In 1493 Henry demanded his surrender, and on receiving a refusal broke off commercial intercourse between England and Flanders. The interruption of trade did more harm to England than to Flanders, and gave hopes to the Yorkist party that it might give rise to ill-will between the nation and the king. For some time, however, no one gave assistance to Perkin, and in 1494 Charles VIII. crossed the Alps to invade Italy, and drew the attention of the Continental powers away from the affairs of England. II. Poynings' Acts. 1494.-Henry seized the opportunity to 1 Genealogy of the Houses of Spain and Burgundy : Charles the Rash, Duke of Burgundy Frederick III., Emperor 1495-1496 PERKIN WARBECK 351 bring into obedience the English colony in Ireland. He sent over as Lord Deputy Sir Edward Poynings, a resolute and able man. At a Parliament held by him at Drogheda two acts were passed. By the one it was enacted that all English laws in force at that time should be obeyed in Ireland; by the other, known for many generations afterwards as Poynings' Law, no bill was to be laid before the Irish Parliament which had not been previously approved by the king and his Council in England. At the same time the greater part of the Statute of Kilkenny (see p. 265) was re-enacted; and restricted the authority of the Government at Dublin to the English Pale. 12. Perkin's First Attempt on England. 1495.—Henry's firm government in England had given offence even to men who were not Yorkists. Early in 1495 he discovered that Sir William Stanley, who had helped him to victory at Bosworth, had turned against him. Stanley, who was probably involved in a design for sending Perkin to invade England, was tried and executed. In the summer of 1495 Perkin actually arrived off Deal. Being no warrior, he sent a party of his followers on shore, though he remained himself on shipboard to see what would happen. The countrymen fell upon the invaders, who were all slain or captured. Then Perkin sailed to Ireland, was repulsed at Waterford, and ultimately took refuge in Scotland, where King James IV., anxious to distinguish himself in a war with England, acknowledged him as the Duke of York, and found him a wife of noble birth, Lady Catherine Gordon. It was probably in order to rally even the most timid around him, in face of such a danger, that Henry obtained the consent of Parliament to an act declaring that no one supporting a king in actual possession of the crown could be subjected to the penalty of treason in the event of that king's dethronement. 13. The Intercursus Magnus. 1496.-The danger of a Scottish invasion made Henry anxious to be on good terms with his neighbours. Maximilian had become Emperor in 1493 upon his father's death. In the Netherlands, however, his influence had declined, as his son, the young Archduke Philip, was now growing up, and claimed actually to rule the country which he had inherited from his mother, Mary of Burgundy (see p. 337), his father having merely the right of administering the government of it till he himself came of age. It was therefore with Philip, and not with Maximilian, that Henry concluded, in 1496, a treaty known as the Intercursus Magnus, for the encouragement of trade between England and the Netherlands, each party engaging at the same time to give no shelter to each other's rebels. 14. Kildare Restored to the Deputyship. 1496. — In Ireland also Henry was careful to avert danger. The government of Poynings had not been entirely successful, and the Geraldines had taken good care to show that they could be troublesome in spite of the establishment of English government. The Earl of Kildare was at the time in England, and a story is told of some one who, having brought a long string of charges against him, wound up by saying that all Ireland could not govern the Earl, whereupon the king replied that then the Earl should govern all Ireland. The story is untrue, but it well represents the real situation. In 1496 Henry sent Kildare back as Lord Deputy. A bargain seems to have been struck between them. Henry abandoned his attempt to govern Ireland from England, and Kildare was allowed to use the king's name in any enterprise upon which his heart was set, provided that he did not support any more pretenders to the English throne. 15. Perkin's Overthrow. 1496—1497.—In the autumn of 1496 James IV. made an attack on England in Perkin's name, but it was no more than a plundering foray. Henry, however, early in 1497, obtained from Parliament a grant of money, to enable him to resist any attempt to repeat it. This grant had unexpected consequences. The Cornishmen, refusing payment, marched up to Blackheath, where on June 18 they were overpowered by the king's troops. James IV., thinking it time to be quit of Perkin, sent him off by sea. In July Perkin arrived at Cork, but there was no shelter for him there now that Kildare was Lord Deputy, and in September he made his way to Cornwall. Followed by 6,000 Cornishmen he reached Taunton, but the news of the defeat of the Cornish at Blackheath depressed him, and the poor coward ran away from his army and took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. He was brought to London, where he publicly acknowledged himself to be an impostor. Henry was too humane to do more than place him in confinement. 16. European Changes. 1494-1499.-In 1494 Charles VIII. had passed through Italy as a conqueror to make good his claims to the kingdom of Naples. In 1495 he had returned to France, and in 1496 the French army left behind had been entirely destroyed. Yet the danger of a renewed attack from France made the other Continental powers anxious to unite, and in 1496 the Archduke Philip married Juana, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand |