Part 8 (2/2)

About this time a certain n.o.bleman, one of the king's friends, died.

The king accused a priest, who was in Clarence's service, of having killed him by sorcery. The priest was seized and put to the torture to compel him to confess his crime and to reveal his confederates. The priest at length confessed, and named as his accomplice one of Clarence's household named Burdett, a gentleman who lived in very intimate and confidential relations with Clarence himself.

The confession was taken as proof of guilt, and the priest and Burdett were both immediately executed.

Clarence was now perfectly frantic with rage. He could restrain himself no longer. He forced his way into the king's council-chamber, and there uttered to the lords who were a.s.sembled the most violent and angry denunciation of the king. He accused him of injustice and cruelty, and upbraided him, and all who counseled and aided him, in the severest terms.

When the king, who was not himself present on this occasion, heard what Clarence had done, he said that such proceedings were subversive of the laws of the realm, and destructive to all good government, and he commanded that Clarence should be arrested and sent to the Tower.

After a short time the king summoned a Parliament, and when the a.s.sembly was convened, he brought his brother out from his prison in the Tower, and arraigned him at the bar of the House of Lords on charges of the most extraordinary character, which he himself personally preferred against him. In these charges Clarence was accused of having formed treasonable conspiracies to depose the king, disinherit the king's children, and raise himself to the throne, and with this view of having slandered the king, and endeavored, by bribes and false representations, to entice away his subjects from their allegiance; of having joined himself with the Lancastrian faction so far as to promise to restore them their estates which had been confiscated, provided that they would a.s.sist him in usurping the throne; and of having secretly organized an armed force, which was all ready, and waiting only for the proper occasion to strike the blow.

Clarence denied all these charges in the most earnest and solemn manner. The king insisted upon the truth of them, and brought forward many witnesses to prove them. Of course, whether the charges were true or false, there could be no difficulty in finding plenty of witnesses to give the required testimony. The lords listened to the charges and the defense with a sort of solemn awe. Indeed, all England, as it were, stood by, silenced and appalled at the progress of this dreadful fraternal quarrel, and at the prospect of the terrible termination of it, which all could foresee must come.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MURDERERS COMING FOR CLARENCE.]

Whatever the members of Parliament may have thought of the truth or falsehood of the charges, there was only one way in which it was prudent or even safe for them to vote, and Clarence was condemned to death.

Sentence being pa.s.sed, the prisoner was remanded to the Tower.

Edward seems, after all, to have shrunk from the open and public execution of the sentence which he had caused to be p.r.o.nounced against his brother. No public execution took place, but in a short time it was announced that Clarence had died in prison. It was understood that a.s.sa.s.sins were employed to go privately into the room where he was confined and put him to death; and it is universally believed, though there is no positive proof of the fact, that Richard was the person who made the arrangements for the performance of this deed.[I]

[Footnote I: There was a strange story in respect to the manner of Clarence's death, which was very current at the time, namely, that he was drowned by his brothers in a b.u.t.t of Malmsey wine. But there is no evidence whatever that this story was true.]

After Clarence was dead, and the excitement and anger of the quarrel had subsided in Edward's mind, he was overwhelmed with remorse and anguish at what he had done. He attempted to drown these painful thoughts by dissipation and vice. He neglected the affairs of his government, and his duties to his wife and family, and spent his time in gay pleasures with the ladies of his court, and in guilty carousings with wicked men. In these pleasures he spent large sums of money, wasting his patrimony and all his resources in extravagance and folly. Among other amus.e.m.e.nts, he used to form hunting-parties, in which the ladies of his court were accustomed to join, and he used to set up gay silken tents for their accommodation on the hunting-ground.

He spent vast sums, too, upon his dress, being very vain of his personal attractions, and of the favor in which he was held by the ladies around him.

The most conspicuous of his various female favorites was the celebrated Jane Sh.o.r.e. She was the wife of a respectable citizen of London. Edward enticed her away from her husband, and induced her to come and live at court with him. The opposite engraving, which is taken from an ancient portrait, gives undoubtedly a correct representation both of her features and of her dress. We shall hear more of this person in the sequel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JANE Sh.o.r.e.]

Things went on in this way for about two years, when at length war broke out on the frontiers of Scotland. Edward was too much engrossed with his gallantries and pleasures to march himself to meet the enemy, and so he commissioned Richard to go. Richard was very well pleased that his brother Edward should remain at home, and waste away in effeminacy and vice his character and his influence in the kingdom, while he went forth in command of the army, to acquire, by the vigor and success of his military career, that ascendency that Edward was losing. So he took the command of the army and went forth to the war.

The war was protracted for several years. The King of Scotland had a brother, the Duke of Albany, who was attempting to dethrone him, in order that he might reign in his stead; that is, he was doing exactly that which Edward had charged upon his brother Clarence, and for which he had caused Clarence to be killed; and yet, with strange inconsistency, Edward espoused the cause of this Clarence of Scotland, and laid deep plans for enabling him to depose and supplant his brother.

In the midst of the measures which Richard was taking for the execution of these plans, they, as well as all Edward's other earthly schemes and hopes, were suddenly destroyed by the hand of death.

Edward's health had become much impaired by the dissolute life which he had led, and at last he fell seriously sick. While he was sick, an affair occurred which vexed and worried his mind beyond endurance.

The reader will recollect that, at the treaty which Edward made with Louis of France at the barricade on the bridge of Picquigny, a marriage contract was concluded between Louis's oldest son, the Dauphin of France, and Edward's daughter Mary, and it was agreed that, as soon as the children were grown up, and were old enough, they should be married. Louis took a solemn oath upon the prayer-book and crucifix that he would not fail to keep this agreement.

But now some years had pa.s.sed away, and circ.u.mstances had changed so much that Louis did not wish to keep this promise. Edward's great ally, the Duke of Burgundy, was dead. His daughter Mary, who became the d.u.c.h.ess Mary on the death of her father, and who, so greatly to Clarence's disappointment, had married Maximilian, had succeeded to the estates and possessions of her father. These possessions the King of France desired very much to join to his dominions, as they lay contiguous to them, and the fear of Edward, which had prompted him to make the marriage contract with him in the first instance, had now pa.s.sed away, on account of Edward's having become so much weakened by his vices and his effeminacy. He now, therefore, became desirous of allying his family to that of Burgundy rather than that of England.

The d.u.c.h.ess Mary had three children, all very young. The oldest, Philip, was only about three years old.

Now it happened that just at this time, while the d.u.c.h.ess Mary was out with a small party, hawking, near the city of Bruges, as they were flying the hawks at some herons, the company galloping on over the fields in order to keep up with the birds, the d.u.c.h.ess's horse, in taking a leap, burst the girths of the saddle, and the d.u.c.h.ess was thrown off against the trunk of a tree. She was immediately taken up and borne into a house, but she was so much injured that she almost immediately died.

Of course, her t.i.tles and estates would now descend to her children.

The second of the children was a girl. Her name was Margaret. She was about two years old. Louis immediately resolved to give up the match between the dauphin and Edward's daughter Mary, and contract another alliance for him with this little Margaret. He met with considerable difficulty and delay in bringing this about, but he succeeded at last.

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