[73] I take this from Nicolas, Observations on the state of historical literature, 1830, p. 178. Hume's objection, that the mother's right came before the son's, is done away with by the fact that men had in general never yet seen reigning Queens.
[74] How the world regarded it then we ascertain from the words of the Chroniques de Jean Molinet, ed. Buchon, iii. 151. 'Le Comte de Richmond fut couronne et institué Henri VII, par le confort et puissant subside du roi de France.'
[75] 'A quo tempore Rex coronam assumpserat, fontem sanguinis fuisse expurgatum—ut regi opera parlamentaria non fuisset opus.' So Bacon, Henricus VII. 29.
[76] Edw. Coke: 4 Inst. cap. ix. 'It is the most honourable court, our Parliament excepted, that is in the Christian world.—In the judges of the same are the grandees of the realm: and they judge upon confession or deposition or witness.—This court doth keep all England in quiet.'
CHAPTER II.
CHANGES IN THE CONDITION OF EUROPE.
For the history of the world the decisive event of the epoch was the rapid rise of the French monarchy, which after it had freed itself from the English invasions, became master of all the hitherto separate territories of the great vassals, and lastly even of Brittany, and rapidly began to make its preponderance felt on all sides.
Considered in itself no one would have been more called on to oppose this than the King of England, who even still bore the title of King of France. In fact Henry did once revive his claim on the French crown, on Normandy and Guyenne, and took part in a coalition, which was to have forced Charles VIII to give up Brittany; he crossed to Calais and threatened Boulogne. But he was not in earnest with these comprehensive views in his military enterprise, any more than Edward IV had once been in a similar one. Henry VII was contented when a considerable money payment year by year was secured to him, as it had been to Edward. The English called it a tribute, the French a pension. It was acceptable to the King, and advantageous for his home affairs, just at that moment—1492—to have a sum of money at his free disposal.
And no one could have advised him to attach himself unconditionally to the house of Burgundy. Duke Charles' widow was still alive, who found it unendurable that the house of York, from which she sprang, should be dethroned from its 'triumphant majesty, which shone over the seven nations of the world'—for so she expressed herself. With her the fugitive partisans of the house of York found refuge and protection: by herself and her son-in-law Maximilian of Austria the pretenders were fitted out who contested the crown with Henry VII. Henry could not really wish Brittany to pass to his sworn foe, so that he might be threatened from this quarter also at every moment. For how could he delude himself with the hope that a transitory alliance would prevail over a dynastic antipathy?