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ELIZABETH OF YORK. 241 Queen Anne, who had drunk deeply of the cup of affliction, must have felt commiseration for the youthful nieces of her ruthless husband. She treated them with uniform kindness, and distinguished Elizabeth by showing a great preference for her society. But while Richard believed that he had crushed insurrection and quelled his foes, intelligence reached him that Henry Tu- dor had effected a landing at Milford Haven with 3,000 men from Normandy. Counting on the aid of Thomas, Lord Stan- ley, who had married his mother, and whose brothers, as well as himself, possessed considerable power, he had disembarked at Milford Haven, knowing that Sir William Stanley, who was Chamberlain of North Wales, was apprised of his com- ing. The battle of Bosworth and death of Richard was the result of Henry's invasion ; and the marriage between him and Elizabeth, as arranged a considerable time before, was sol- emnized at Westminster on the 18th of January, i486, when this union of the Roses of York and Lancaster put an end for- ever to the wars of the rival houses. But though now wedded to him to whom she had been for some time betrothed, the lovely and amiable Elizabeth had no great reason to be grati- fied ; for the indifference evinced by Henry the Seventh for the marriage proved that he had either depreciated her at- tractions or yielded his heart to those of another, neither of which conclusions could be otherwise than humiliating to one so fair. He had entered London as a victorious sovereign on the 28th of August, 1485, yet did not claim the fulfillment of Elizabeth's pledge to wed him until nearly five months after, nor without being twice reminded of his engagement, first by his privy council, and secondly by a petition from both houses of parliament. This dilatoriness on his part was cer- tainly very unflattering to his future bride ; and his ungracious determination to claim the crown as his own right, without any reference to hers, was no less so. The delay required for pro- curing the pope's dispensation for the marriage could not be alleged as an excuse, for it arrived subsequently, instead of prior to the marriage ; and even as regarded the dispensations, for there were no less than three, Henry the Seventh betrayed a certain want of courtesy to his queen ; for the two first, which acknowledged her as the undoubted, heir to Edward the Fourth, did not satisfy him, and in the third he stipulated to have a clause entered, that in case of Elizabeth's death without off-