CHAPTER XL.

KING EDWARD'S DEATH.

For some years after the treaty of Picquigny, Edward of York, trusting to the friendship and relying on the pension of King Louis, passed his time in inglorious ease; and Elizabeth Woodville, elate with the prospect of her daughter sharing the throne of a Valois, persisted in pestering the crafty monarch of France with inquiries when she was to send him her young dauphiness. Meanwhile, Louis, who had no intention whatever of maintaining faith with the King of England one day longer than prudence dictated, was looking about for a more advantageous alliance for the heir to his throne.

After appearing for some time utterly unsuspicious, Edward, in 1480, resolved on sending an embassador to Paris, and Sir John Howard was selected as the man to urge a speedy celebration of the marriage. The plans of Louis were not then quite ripe, but his statecraft did not desert him; and, at length, after Howard had for some time been silenced by bribes, and Edward deluded by flattering assurances, he set the treaty of Picquigny at defiance, and contracted a marriage between the dauphin and a daughter of the Emperor Maximilian.

Fortunately for Louis, Edward was a much less formidable personage than of yore. Since returning from his French expedition, the English king had given himself up to luxury and indolence. He had drunk deep, kept late hours, sat long over the wine-cup, and gratified his sensual inclinations with little regard either to his dignity as a king or his honor as a man. Dissipation and debauchery had ruined his health and obscured his intellect. Even his appearance was changed for the worse. His person had become corpulent, and his figure had lost its grace. He was no longer the Edward of Towton or of Tewkesbury.

On discovering, however, how completely he had been duped, Edward displayed some sparks of the savage valor which, in other days, had made him so terrible a foe. Rousing himself to projects of revenge, he vowed to carry such a war into France as that country had never before experienced, and commenced preparations for executing his threats. As his resentment appeared implacable, Louis deemed it prudent to find him work nearer home; and, with this object, excited the King of Scots to undertake a war against England.

Some successes achieved by Gloucester in Scotland emboldened Edward in his projects. It happened, however, that he did not live even to attempt the execution of his threats. The excess of his rage against Louis had been such as seriously to affect his health; and, about Easter, 1483, in his forty-second year, the warlike king was laid prostrate with a fever in the Palace of Westminster. Stretched on a bed of sickness, the king found his constitution rapidly giving way; and, losing faith in the skill of his physicians, he referred his quarrel with Louis to the judgment of GOD, and summoned the lords of his court to bid them farewell.

The king, indeed, could not fail to be anxious as to the fortunes of the family he was leaving. Ever since his ill-starred marriage the court had been distracted by the feuds of the queen's kindred and the old nobility of England. The death of Warwick and the judicial murder of Clarence had by no means restored harmony. At the head of one party figured the queen's brother, Earl Rivers, and her son, the Marquis of Dorset; at the head of the other was the Duke of Buckingham, with whom sided the Lords Stanley and Hastings. Difficult as the task might be, Edward hoped to reconcile the hostile factions ere going to his grave.

When the lords appeared in the king's chamber, and assembled around his bed, Edward addressed to them an impressive speech. Having indicated his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as the fittest person to be Protector of the realm, he expressed much anxiety about the affairs of his kingdom and family, pointed out the perils of discord in a state, and lamented that it had been his lot "to win the courtesy of men's knees by the fall of so many heads." After thus smoothing the way, as it were, he put it to his lords, as a last request, that they should lay aside all variance, and love one another. At this solemn appeal the lords acted their parts with a decorum which imposed on the dying man. Two celebrated characters, indeed, were absent, whose talents for dissimulation could not have failed to distinguish them. Gloucester was on the borders of Scotland, and Rivers on the marches of Wales; so that Richard Plantagenet, with his dark guile, and Anthony Woodville, with his airy pretensions, were wanting to complete the scene. But Hastings, Dorset, and others, though their hearts were far asunder, shook hands and embraced with every semblance of friendship; and the king dismissed them with the idea that he had effected a reconciliation.

His affairs on earth thus settled, as he believed, Edward proceeded to make his peace with heaven. Having received such consolations as the Church administers to frail men when they are going to judgment, and committed his soul to the mercy of GOD, Edward awaited the coming of the Great Destroyer. On the 9th of April his hour arrived; and, complaining of drowsiness, he turned on his side. While in that position he fell into the sleep that knows no breaking; and his spirit, which had so often luxuriated in carnage and strife, departed in peace.

On the day when the king breathed his last he lay exposed in the Palace of Westminster, that the lords, temporal and spiritual, and the municipal functionaries of London might have an opportunity of ascertaining that he had not been murdered. This ceremony over, the body was seared and removed to St. Stephen's Chapel, and there watched by nobles, while masses were sung.

Windsor had been selected as the place of interment. Ere being conveyed to its last resting-place, however, the corpse, covered with cloth of gold, was carried to the Abbey of Westminster under a rich canopy of cloth imperial, supported by four knights, Sir John Howard bearing the banner in front of the procession, and the officers of arms walking around. Mass having been again performed at Westminster, the mortal remains of the warrior-king were placed in a chariot drawn by six horses, and conveyed, by slow stages, along the banks of the Thames. Having been met at the gates of Windsor, and perfumed with odors by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester the corpse was borne in solemn procession to the Chapel of St. George, where, placed in the choir, on a hearse blazing with lights and surrounded with banners, it was watched for the night by nobles and esquires. Another mass, more religious solemnities, a few more ceremonies befitting the rank of the deceased, and the last Plantagenet whose obsequies were performed with royal honors was committed to the tomb.