ing, and benevolent; but nature had denied him that health of body and fortitude of mind which could have enabled him to struggle through the peculiar difficulties of his situation. It would be unjust to attribute those difficulties to his misconduct: they arose from causes over which he had no control, the original defect in his descent, the duration of his minority, the dissensions of his uncles, and the frequent recurrence of corporal debility, generally accompanied with the privation of reason.

LINGARD.

EDWARD IV.

EDWARD is said to have been the most accomplished, and, till he grew too unwieldy, the most handsome man of the age. The love of pleasure was his ruling passion. Few princes have been more magnificent in their dress, or more licentious in their amours: few have indulged more freely in the luxuries of the table. But such pursuits often interfered with his duties, and at last incapacitated him for active exertion. Even in youth, while he was fighting for the throne, he was always the last to join his adherents: and in manhood, when he was firmly seated on it, he entirely abandoned the charge of military affairs to his brother, the Duke of Gloucester. To the chief supporters of the opposite party he was cruel and unforgiving: the blood which he shed intimidated his friends no less than his foes: and both lords and commons during his reign, instead

of contending, like their predecessors, for the establishment of rights, and the abolition of grievances, made it their principal study to gratify the royal pleasure. He was as suspicious as he was cruel. Every officer of government, every steward on his manors and farms, was employed as a spy on the conduct of all around him: they regularly made to the king reports of the state of the neighbourhood; and such was the fidelity of his memory, that it was difficult to mention any individual of any consequence, even in the most distant counties, with whose character, history, and influence he was not accurately acquainted. Hence every project of opposition to his govern'ment was suppressed almost as soon as it was formed; and Edward might have promised himself a long and prosperous reign, had not continual indulgence enervated his constitution, and sown the seeds of that malady which consigned him to the grave in the forty-first year of his age. He was buried with the usual pomp in the new chapel at Windsor.

LINGARD.

HENRY VII.

To Henry by his contemporaries was allotted the praise of political wisdom. He seems, indeed, to have been formed by nature for the circumstances in which accident had placed him. With a mind dark and mistrustful, tenacious of its own secrets, and adroit in divining the secrets of others, capable of employing the most unprincipled agents, and of descending to the meanest

artifices, he was able to unravel the plots, to detect the impostures, and to defeat the projects of all his opponents. But there was nothing open in his friendship, or generous in his enmity. His suspicions kept him always on his guard : he watched with jealousy the conduct of his very ministers; and never unbosomed himself with freedom even to his consort or his mother. It was his delight to throw an air of mystery over the most ordinary transactions: nor would pride or policy allow him, even when it appeared essential to his interests, to explain away the doubts, or satisfy the curiosity of his subjects. The consequence was, that no one knew what to believe, or what to expect. "All things," says Sir Thomas More, 66 were so covertly demeaned, one thing pretended and another meant, that there was nothing so plain and openly proved, but that yet, for the common custom of close and covert dealing, men had it ever inwardly suspect, as many well counterfeited jewels make the true mistrusted."

He appears to have been the first of our kings since the accession of Henry III. who confined his expenses within the limits of his income. But the civil wars had swept away those crowds of annuitants and creditors that formerly used to besiege the doors of the Exchequer and the revenue of the crown came to him free from incumbrances, and augmented by forfeitures. Hence he was enabled to reign without the assistance of parliament: and, if he occasionally summoned the two houses, it was only when a decent pretext for demanding a supply afforded

to his avarice a bait, which it could not refuse. He had, however, little to apprehend from the freedom or the remonstrances of these assemblies. That spirit of resistance to oppression, that ardour to claim and establish their liberties, which characterized the parliaments of former times, had been extinguished in the bloody feuds between the two roses. The temporal peers, who had survived the storm, were few in number, and without the power of their ancestors: they feared, by alarming the suspicions of the monarch, to replunge themselves into the dangers from which they had so lately emerged: and the commons readily adopted the humble tone and submissive demeanour of the upper house. Henry, and the same may be observed of his two last predecessors, found them always the obsequious ministers of his pleasure.

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Of his

But if the king were economical in his expenses, and eager in the acquisition of his wealth, it should also be added, that he often rewarded with the generosity, and on occasions of ceremony displayed the magnificence, of a great monarch. His charities were many and profuse. buildings his six convents of friars fell in the next reign his chapel at Westminster still exists a monument of his opulence and taste. He is said to have occasionally advanced loans of money to merchants engaged in profitable branches of trade and not only gave the royal licence to the attempt of the Venetian navigator Cabot, but fitted out a ship at his own expense to join in the voyage. Cabot sailed from Bristol, discovered the island of Newfoundland, crept along the

coast of Florida, and returned to England. It was the first European expedition that ever reached the American continent. LINGARD.

THIS king was that kind of miracle which affects wise men; but does not strike the ignorant. There are numerous particulars, both in his virtues and his fortune, not so fit for common-place, as for grave and prudent observation.

He was certainly religious, both in his temper and behaviour. And as he could see clearly, for those times, into superstition; so he would be blinded now and then through policy. He promoted ecclesiastics, and was tender in the privileges of sanctuaries, though they caused him so much mischief. He built and endowed many religious houses, besides his memorable hospital of the Savoy: yet he was a great almsgiver in secret, which shows that his works in public were dedicated to God's glory, not his own.

He always professed to love and seek peace; and it was his usual preface in his treaties, "That when Christ came into the world, peace was sung; and when he went out of it peace was bequeathed." This could not be imputed to fear or softness in him, being a martial and active man; but was doubtless a truly christian moral virtue. Yet he knew the way to peace was not to seem too desirous of it; and therefore he would frequently raise reports, and feign preparations for war, till he had mended the conditions of peace.

It was also remarkable, that being so great a

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