22o Constitutional History. [chap.
Large
grants in
parliament.
Mercantile
legislation.
Fortescue
and Morton.
Jealousy of
Clarence
and Glou-
cester.
The chan-
cellor and
treasurer.
method of extortion worse than even the forced loans and blank
charters of Richard II. In the following October an act of
resumption was passed’; in July 1474 the same parliament,
still sitting by prorogation, voted a tenth and fifteenth, with an
additional sum of £51,147 4s. 7-f<Z., to be raised from the
sources from which the tenth and fifteenth were levied2 ; the
payment was accelerated in the following January ; and in
March 1475, after another grant of a tenth and fifteenth, this
long parliament was dissolved ɜ. Besides the details of taxa-
tion, the parliamentary records have little to show but mercan-
tile enactments, private petitions, acts of settlement of estates,
attainders and reversals of attainders, and a few points of
parliamentary privilege. Of the restorations the most signifi-
cant are that of Sir John Fortescue 1, who was pardoned in
1473 on condition that he should refute his own arguments for
the title of the Lancastrian kings, and that of Dr. John Morton5,
a faithful Lancastrian partisan who had been attainted in 1461,
and who in 1472 obtained not only the annulment of his sen-
tence but the office of master of the rolls, and in 1473 was
even made keeper of the great seal. The court was disturbed
by the jealousies of the king’s brothers, who were scarcely more
jealous of the Wydvilles than of each other ; Richard with
great difficulty obtained the hand and part of the inheritance
of the lady Anne Neville, Warwick’s daughter and prince
Edward’s widow. The great seal, after some unimportant
changes, rested in the hands of Thomas Rotherham, afterwards
archbishop of York 8 ; in the treasury the earl of Essex, Henry
Bourchier, retained his position from 1471 until the close of
the reign. The period is otherwise obscure ; the national
restoration was impeded by a severe visitation of the plague ;
1 Rot. Rarl. vi. 71 sq. ; Cont. Croyl. p. 559.
2 Rot. Parl. vɪ. 111-119; Warkworth, p. 23.
a Rot. Parl. vi. 120, 149-153. 4 lb. vi. 69.
5 lb. vi. 26.
° Bishop Stillington was chancellor from 1467 to 1473 ; Morton and the
earl of Essex were keepers in June and July, 1473 J Lawrence Booth,
bishop of Durham, July 27, 1473, to May 25, 1474; after which date
Thomas Rotherham became chancellor, and held the seal until the end of
the reign. See Cont. Croyl. p. 557; Rymer, xi. 782.
XVIII.]
Expedition to France.
221
and the king’s attention, so far as it was not engaged by his
own pleasures and the quarrels of his brothers, was devoted to
the preparation for his great adventure, the expedition to
France in 1475.
This expedition, which had been contemplated so long and Expedition
came to so little, was intended to vindicate the claim of the July, 1475.
king of England to the crown of France,—the worn-out claim
of course which had been invented by Edward III. The policy
of alliance with Burgundy had culminated in July 1474 in a
league for the deposition of Lewis XI. In July 1475 Edward
and his army landed at Calais. It was the finest army that
England had ever sent to France, but it found the French
better prepared than they had ever been to receive it. The
duke of Burgundy was engaged in war on the Rhine ; Lewis
knew an easier way of securing France than fighting battles.
Instead of a struggle, a truce for seven years was the result ;
this was concluded on the 2 9th of August. The two kings met, Lewis buys
with a grating of trellis-work between them, on the bridge of
Pecquigny1 ; and Edward returned home richer by a sum of
75,000 crowns and a promised pension of 50,000. And England,
which had allowed a dynasty to be overthrown because of the
loss of Maine and Anjou, bore the shame without a blush or a
pang2.
The history of 1476 is nearly a blank; the jealousy of Behaviour of
Clarence and Gloucester probably increased ; the king failed
to obtain the surrender of the earl of Prichmond by the duke of
Brittany ; the duke of Burgundy was ruining himself in his
attack on the Swiss3. In 1477 Clarence, unable to endure
1 Cont. Croyl. p. 558 ; Rymer, xii. 14-20. The prince of Wales was
left at home as custos.
2 The Crowland annalist attributes to Edward a great show of vigorous
justice at this time, adding that but for his severity there would have been
a rebellion, so great w as the discontent felt at the Wasteoftreasure: 'tantus
crevisset numerus populorum Conquerentium super male dispensais regni
divitiis, et abraso de omnium scriniis tanto thesauro tarn inutiliter con*
sumpto, nt nesciretur quorum Consiliariorum capita incolumia remanerent,
eorum praesertim qui familiaritate muneribusve Gallici regis inducti pacenι
modis supradictis initaɪn persuasissent ;, p. 559. See DaviesjMunicipal
Records of York, pp. 50-52.
3 Charles the Bold fell at Nancy, Jan. 5, 1477. There was a great
council, i to whyche allo the astats off the Ionde shall com to,’ begun