Clarence and Gloucester.
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.
The people of England discontented.
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 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.
Renewal of the quarrel between Edward and Clarence.
Clarence retires from court.
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 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.
Belief in witchcraft.
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 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.
Birth of Clarence's second son.