HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 107 



well, how easy a step it was, from the place of a 

 protector, and first prince of the blood, to the crown. 

 And that out of this deep root of ambition it sprang, 

 that as well at the treaty of peace that passed be 

 tween Edward the Fourth and Lewis the Eleventh 

 of France, concluded by interview of both kings at 

 Piqueny, as upon all other occasions, Richard, then 

 duke of Gloucester, stood ever upon the side of 

 honour, raising his own reputation to the disadvan 

 tage of the king his brother, and drawing the eyes 

 of all, especially of the nobles and soldiers, upon 

 himself; as if the king, by his voluptuous life and 

 mean marriage, were become effeminate and less 

 sensible of honour and reason of state than was fit 

 for a king. And as for the politic and wholesome 

 laws which were enacted in his time, they were in 

 terpreted to be but the brocage of an usurper, 

 thereby to woo and win the hearts of the people, as 

 being conscious to himself, that the true obligations 

 of sovereignty in him failed, and were wanting. But 

 King Henry, in the very entrance of his reign, and 

 the instant of time when the kingdom was cast into 

 his arms, met with a point of great difficulty, and 

 knotty to solve, able to trouble and confound the 

 wisest king in the newness of his estate ; and so 

 much the more, because it could not endure a deli 

 beration, but must be at once deliberated and deter 

 mined. There were fallen to his lot, and concurrent 

 in his person, three several titles to the imperial 

 crown. The first, the title of the lady Elizabeth, 

 with whom, by precedent pact with the party that 



