King Edward, being highly disgusted with the duke of Burgundy's rejection of his truce, and his subsequent offer to make a distinct peace with the king of France, despatched a great favourite of his, named sir Thomas Mountgomery, to king Louis at Vervins, and he arrived whilst the negociation was proceeding with the duke of Burgundy's envoys. Sir Thomas desired, on the behalf of the king his master, that the king of France would not consent to any other truce with the
duke than what was already made.[[69]] He also pressed Louis not to deliver St. Quentin into the duke's hands; and, as further encouragement, Edward offered to repass the seas in the following spring with a powerful army to assist him, provided his majesty would continue in war against the duke of Burgundy, and compensate him for the prejudice he should sustain in his duties upon wool at Calais, which would be worth little or nothing in war time, though at other times they were valued at 50,000 crowns. He proposed likewise that the king of France should pay one-half of his army, and he would pay the other himself. Louis returned Edward abundance of thanks, and made sir Thomas a present of plate: but as to the continuation of the war, he begged to be excused, for the truce with Burgundy was already concluded, and upon the same terms as those which had been already agreed to between them; only the duke of Burgundy had pressed urgently to have a separate truce for himself; which circumstance Louis excused as well as he could, in order to satisfy the English ambassador, who with this answer returned home, accompanied by the hostages. "The king (adds Commines) felt extremely surprised at king Edward's offers, which were delivered before me only, and he conceived it would be very dangerous to bring the king of England into France again, for between those two nations, when brought into contact, any trifling accident might raise some new quarrel, and the English might easily make friends again with the duke of Burgundy." These considerations greatly forwarded the conclusion of the king of France's treaty with the Burgundians.
In fact, the duke of Burgundy at last overreached his brother-in-law king Edward, for he concluded a truce with France for nine years, whilst that of England with France was for seven years only. The duke's ambassadors requested king Louis that this truce might not be proclaimed immediately by sound of trumpet, as the usual custom was, for they were anxious to save the duke's oath to king Edward (when he swore in his passion that he would not accept of the benefit of the truce until the king had been in England three months), lest Edward should think their master had spoken otherwise than he designed.
As for Edward himself, whatever selfish satisfaction he may have derived from the result of the campaign,—such as Commines has already suggested—it must have weakened his popularity both with his nobles and with his people, whilst it terminated the former cordiality that had existed with his brother of Burgundy. The king of England had now become the pensioner of France, the great
absorbing power of that age, which was soon to swallow up England's nearest and best allies, the duchies of Burgundy and Britany.
The French pension of 50,000 crowns was, as Commines relates, punctually paid every half-year in the Tower of London; and by a treaty made in Feb. 1478-9 it was renewed for the lives of Edward and Louis, and extended for a hundred years after the death of both princes: which seemed to give it more directly the character of a tribute, a term that Commines says the English applied to it, but which the French indignantly repelled. However, after little more than four years longer, it had answered its purpose, and its payment ceased. The English voluptuary then found himself entirely outwitted by the wily Frenchman. After the duke of Burgundy's death (in 1477) and that of his only daughter the wife of the archduke Maximilian (in 1482) his grand-daughter Margaret of Austria was suddenly betrothed to the Dauphin, in the place of the lady Elizabeth of England. Louis caught at this alliance in order to detach the counties of Burgundy and Artois from the territory of the Netherlands, and annex them to the crown of France; and the turbulent citizens of Ghent, in whose keeping the children[[70]] of their late sovereign lady were, were ready to make this concession, without the concurrence of the children's father, in order to reduce the power of their princes. This infant bride was then only three years and a half old; and had consequently made her appearance on the stage of life subsequently to the Dauphin's former contract with the English princess.[[71]]
Commines describes at some length the mortification experienced by king Edward when he heard of this alliance,—"finding himself deluded in the hopes he had entertained of marrying his daughter to the Dauphin, of which marriage both himself and his queen were more ambitious than of any other in the world, and never would give credit to any man, whether subject or foreigner, that endeavoured to persuade them that our king's intentions were not sincere and honourable. For the parliament (or council) of England had remonstrated to king Edward several times, when our king was in Picardy, that after he had conquered
that province he would certainly fall upon Calais and Guines, which are not far off. The ambassadors from the duke and duchess of Austria, as also those from the duke of Bretagne, who were continually in England at that time, represented the same thing to him; but to no purpose, for he would believe nothing of it, and he suffered greatly for his incredulity. Yet I am entirely of opinion that his conduct proceeded not so much from ignorance as avarice; for he was afraid to lose his pension of fifty thousand crowns, which our master paid him very punctually, and besides he was unwilling to leave his ease and pleasures, to which he was extremely devoted."
The enervated temper of Edward's latter years is faithfully depicted in the opening lines of one of the best-known works of our great Dramatic Poet:
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,