Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/510

This page needs to be proofread.

England in 1501, landed at Plymouth on October 2, and after travelling slowly up to London entered the city on November 12. She was received with a vast amount of pageantry and scenic displays, and the marriage took place at St Paul's on Sunday the 14th. Amid the rejoicings which followed, came ambassadors from Scotland to negotiate another marriage, that, namely, of James IV with Margaret, the treaty for which was concluded on January 24, 1502. Next day the marriage was celebrated by proxy at Richmond. But on April 2 following, to the inexpressible grief of Henry and his Queen, Prince Arthur diied at Ludlow; and next year (1503) on February 11, died his mother the Queen, leaving Henry a widower. In the following summer he conducted his daughter as far as Northamptonshire on her way to Scotland, and she was married to James at Edinburgh on August 8.

Meanwhile a new danger for Henry had sprung up. Edmund de la Pole, the brother of the Earl of Lincoln who had supported Simnel, had succeeded on his father's death to the dukedom of Suffolk; but, as the family estate had suffered seriously from his brother's attainder, he arranged with the King, on the restoration of a part of the property, to bear the title of "Earl of Suffolk" only. In 1498 he killed a man in a passion, but after being indicted received the King's pardon. In the summer of 1499 he escaped over sea to Calais, and was going on to the Court of Margaret of Burgundy in Flanders, when ambassadors on their way from Henry VII to the Archduke Philip persuaded him to return. He was with the King at his meeting with Philip in 1500. But in August, 1501, he escaped abroad again, together with his younger brother Richard, relying on a promise which Maximilian, King of the Romans, had made to Sir Robert Curzon, that he would help him to obtain the Crown of England. Sir Robert had been captain of Hammes Castle, but had a desire to go and fight for Maximilian against the Turks; and he obtained leave of the King to give up his post for that purpose on August 29, 1499. This date must have been just after Suffolk's first flight, and there is reason to suspect that leave to give up his post was granted to him on an understanding that he would act as a spy on Suffolk for the King, and ascertain whether the factious Duchess Margaret was disposed to encourage him as she had encouraged Simnel and Warbeck in Flanders. In fact, he simulated flight like one out of favour with his King. But the Duchess Margaret had already been obliged to apologise for the countenance she had given to Warbeck, and it does not appear that she was prepared to encourage Suffolk. At all events, it was by convincing the Earl that he would receive no support from foreign princes, either from France, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, or even from Philip (who was no less an ally of Henry than were the others), that the King's ambassadors persuaded him to return. This, however, was just before the judicial murder of Warwick,—an act which aroused a good deal of resentment in England; and Curzon,