arose partly from the King's support of municipal privileges and patronage of commercial enterprise, and still more from his abstinence from needless wars, and his discouragement of an habitual warlike spirit. Most skilful and successful as a soldier as he was, and flinging himself as he did into any enterprise with the spirit of a crusader or knight-errant, Edward had no penchant for war in itself, and disliked and despised fruitless and purposeless warfare. Although nothing would have tended more to establish his throne for the moment than the reconquest of France, and though he himself was very desirous of checking the increasing power of Louis the Eleventh, he never would commit himself and the country to such an undertaking without fair prospects of rapid success. He landed once in France with a great army, but it was because he had an assurance from the Duke of Burgundy of his zealous assistance; but on Burgundy failing him altogether, he had no scruple -his courtiers had still less-in receiving a sum of money and an annual payment from Louis, and withdrawing his army. On another occasion, he had abandoned his preparations for a similar expedition, on a like desertion of the Duke of Bretagne. That he should not care to interfere by arms to prevent the annexation to the Crown of France of the dominions of either of these princes may have been a mistake in policy, according to the views then generally entertained, but will not be imputed as a

great fault by politicians of the present day. His foreign policy, indeed, generally wise and successful, though not ambitious, received some sort of dishonour in this matter, owing to the belief that his inaction was caused or assured by the promise which Louis held out to him of a marriage between the heir to the French Crown and Edward's eldest daughter; and his anger at the breach of this engagement is said to have contributed to the fatal result of the King's last illness. But if in this case his wife's ambition (to which his desire for this match was attributed) seconded too strongly the restraining influence of his constitutional love of peace, the effect of this temperament in general was most beneficial on the nation at large. A state of peace became the rule instead of the exception in their daily life, and the arts and habits of peace rapidly superseded those of war. And with peace came Caxton and his printing-press.

Had Edward lived a little longer, this state of things might have been considerably modified. The deceit of Louis had not only wounded his pride, but roused him to a more lively consideration of the growing power of an astute and unscrupulous rival. Though pacific, Edward would have been the last man in his kingdom to allow himself to subside into a mere cypher in the eyes of Europe, and his death probably prevented a struggle in which Louis might have found out his mistake in playing fast

and loose with a man of Edward's temperament and abilities. But Edward seems not to have taken Death into his calculations on any point. He felt so full of life, that he built up his policy at home as well as abroad too much on an assured longevity. He crushed and he overawed the great nobles, and raised up a new nobility out of his wife's relations and the strongest men who would do his service. But affectionate and devoted husband and father as

he was (notwithstanding his irregularities and seeming carelessness), he forgot to provide against the danger to his family after his death, from the animosity of these depressed nobles, and he forgot that they might find a leader in one of his own blood. He left a very excellent and sensible paper of rules for his eldest son's daily life and education, but he forgot to secure his succession by binding it up with the selfish interests of the most powerful men. In his self-reliance, he was as reckless in offending them as he had been in outraging Warwick's pride; but he lived to bear the brunt of Warwick's resentment, and to weather the storm. In the present instance, the inheritance of hatred and revenge was bequeathed to a child, who paid forfeit for it with his life. But strange as it may appear, Edward, though he watched every one, was too self-confident to be easily suspicious, and trusted most men till distrust became a manifest necessity.

Edward the Fourth-to condense this estimate

into a few words-was a shrewd but unscrupulous man of the world, with the aptitudes and instincts of a great conqueror and a profound statesman, and with the sense of responsibility and self-reliance of a self-made King, but with the tastes of an easy and selfish man of pleasure, and with the habits of a roué.

218

RICHARD THE THIRD.

THE life of Edward the Fifth was so brief and his reign so entirely nominal, that it would be absurd to give any estimate of his character as a King of England. We see him for a moment as a child, a mere puppet in the hands of others, and then he disappears from our sight for ever, and neither contemporary curiosity nor modern research has been able to penetrate the mystery which surrounds his fate. With his uncle, who supplanted him on the throne, the case is very different, and yet we seem to know with certainty nearly as little of Richard the Third as of his unfortunate nephew. The writers of the succeeding period have left us a portrait which is of a monster rather than a man, and even the genius of a great dramatist, assuming their narratives as the basis for his creation, has hardly been able to rise above the presentment of an unmitigated stage villain. And when we endeavour to ascertain the truth or falsehood of this representation, which, notwithstanding occasional scepticism on the part of a few clever writers, has been generally received as true,