The pretences of this huckstering king were now become too transparent to deceive any one. All the money hitherto voted for a war that never took place was still in Henry's coffers. The people thought that he ought first to bring out that before he asked for more. Parliament, therefore, made strong opposition, and finally reduced his demand of £100,000 to £75,000. But, when they had voted, the indignant people refused to pay it, considering that the selfish monarch had their cash already in hand. Great disturbances arose in the endeavour to enforce the collection of the tax. This manifested itself especially in the north, where Henry had used such endeavours to soothe and win the inhabitants.
The Earl of Northumberland directed the collection to be enforced, accompanying the command with such menaces as he deemed necessary to procure obedience. But these had a contrary effect. The people flew to arms, and, turning their vengeance first against the earl, as the rigorous instrument of an imperious monarch, they stormed his house and put him to death. They then declared war against the tyrant, as they termed Henry, himself. Their leader was a fiery fellow of the common order, named John à Chambre, but, as they assumed a formidable aspect, Sir John Egremont, one of the Yorkist faction, put himself at their head. Henry lost no time in despatching Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who soon suppressed the insurrection, and hanged John à Chambre and some of his accomplices. Sir John Egremont escaped to Flanders to the Duchess of Burgundy.
Henry now sent over to Brittany a body of 6,000 men under Lord Willoughby de Broke; but he limited their service to six months, which was, in fact, to render them nearly useless, especially when they had instructions not to fight, and he would not even afford that aid until he had exacted from the poor orphan girl, the young duchess, the surrender of her two best sea-ports in security of payment. He moreover compelled the duchess to bind herself by the like oath to him as she had taken to the French king, not to marry without his consent. Before the end of the year Anne found herself invested by the French army in Rennes; and rather than fall a helpless and humiliated captive into the hands of Charles, she consented to marry him, having not a single soul left to stand by her in her resolute opposition. She was married to Charles on the 13th of December, 1491, at Rennes, was crowned in the abbey church of St. Denis, and made her entrance into Paris amid the acclamations of a vast multitude, who regarded this event as one of the most auspicious which had ever happened to France.
The rage of Maximilian may be imagined. He had lost Brittany, his daughter had lost the throne of France, and he was duped and insulted in the most egregious manner before all Europe. He made his complaints ring far and wide, but they were only echoed by the laughter of his enemies, and he proceeded to vow revenge by the assistance of Spain and England.
Henry was now bent, according to all appearance, on war. He was too clear-sighted not to perceive the immense advantage France had obtained over him in securing Brittany, and how the political foresight and sagacity on which he prided himself had suffered from the paltry promptings of his avarice. He therefore put on a most belligerent attitude. He summoned a Parliament at Westminster, and addressed it in the most heroic strain. He commented on the insolence of France, elated with the success of her late perfidy, and on—what he no doubt felt more deeply than anything else—her refusal to pay what he called the tribute agreed by Louis XI. to be paid to Edward IV., and hitherto continued to himself. Two-fifteenths were at once granted him, and the nobility were on fire with the anticipation of realising all the glories and the plunder of the past ages.
He availed himself of the paroxysm of the moment, not only to gather in and garner the two-fifteenths newly granted, but the remains of the benevolence voted last session. Whilst the fresh tax fell on the nation generally, this fell on the monied and commercial capitalists. London alone furnished £10,000 of it or £100,000 of our money. The wily old archbishop, Morton, instructed the commissioners to employ this dilemma, which was called "Morton's fork." They were to urge upon people who lived in a modest and careful way, that they must be rich in consequence of their parsimony; on those who indulged in expensive abodes and styles of living, that they must be opulent, because they had so much to expend. To afford ample time for harvesting these riches, Henry found perpetual causes for delaying his expedition. The nobles were already crowding to his standard with their vassals, and impatient to set out, but Henry had always some plausible excuse for lingering. At one time it was the unsafe state of Scotland, and four months were occupied in negotiating an extension of the truce; then it was the necessity of contracting for fresh levies of troops. These troops, however, were ready in June and July, but still they were not allowed to move. "The truth was," says Bacon, "that though the king showed great forwardness for a war, not only to his Parliament and Court, but to his Privy Council, except the two bishops (Fox and Morton), and a few more, yet, nevertheless, in his secret intentions, he had no purpose to go through with any war upon France. But the truth was, that he did but traffic with that war to make money."
At length, in the beginning of October, 1492, he landed at Calais, with a fine army of 25,000 foot, and 1,600 horse, which he gave in command to the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Oxford. This was a force capable of striking an alarming blow, but the whole affair was a sham. In fact, Henry had entered into a treaty of peace before he had set out, and the only difficulty now was how to get out of the war without incurring too much resentment at home. To guard against this, the odium of the abortive expedient must be carefully removed from himself to other parties. The machinery for this was already prepared. His ambassadors appeared in the camp at Boulogne, informing them that their visit to his previous ally Maximilian had been useless; he was incapable of joining him. These were followed by others from Spain, bringing the intelligence that Ferdinand had concluded a peace with France, Roussillon and Cerdagne being ceded to him by Charles. But with Henry's fine army, and the defenceless state of France, the defection of these allies, from whom little or nothing had been expected, would have scarcely cost him a thought had he been a Henry V. As it was, after all his boasts, it was not even for him to propose an abandonment of the enterprise, and therefore, the Marquis of Dorset and twenty-three other persons of distinction were employed to present to him a request that he would also make a peace with France. They urged, as they were instructed for this purpose, the defection of these allies, the approach of winter, the difficulty of obtaining supplies at Calais at that season, and the obstinacy of the siege of Boulogne. All these were circumstances that had been foreseen from the first, and treated with indifference, as they deserved to be; but now Henry affected to listen to the desires of his army, and sent off the Bishop of Exeter and the Lord Daubeney to confer with the Marshal de Cordes, who had been sent as plenipotentiary on the part of Charles to Étaples. They soon returned, bringing the rough draft of a treaty, by which peace and amity were to be maintained betwixt the two sovereigns during their lives, and a year afterwards. Even this Henry affected to decline, and only consented to give way at the earnest entreaty of his already-mentioned four-and-twenty officers.
After having thus assumed all this pretence to exonerate himself from censure, Henry signed a peace on the following terms:—Charles was to retain Brittany for ever, and he was to pay Henry 620,000 crowns in gold for the money advanced by Henry on account of Brittany and his present expenses, and 125,000 crowns in gold as arrears of the pension paid to Edward IV. by Louis XI. He was also to continue this pension of 25,000 crowns to Henry and his heirs. The whole amount which Henry sacked was 745,000 crowns, equal to £400,000 of our present money. The members of his council, who openly acted the part of petitioners of this peace, are said not only to have been instructed by Henry to perform this obnoxious duty, but to have been gained by the bribes of the French king, who was anxious to make short work of it, that he might proceed on an expedition which he had set his mind upon against Naples. They went about declaring that it was the most glorious peace that any king of England ever made with France, and that if Henry's subjects presumed to censure it, they were ready to take the blame upon themselves.
PENNY OF HENRY VII.