HISTORY OP KING HENRY VII. 133 



The third was, that there should be again pro 

 claimed a general pardon to all that would reveal 

 their offences, and submit themselves by a day. And 

 that this pardon should be conceived in so ample 

 and liberal a manner, as no high treason, no not 

 against the king s own person, should be excepted. 

 Which though it might seem strange, yet was it not 

 so to a wise king, that knew his greatest dangers 

 were not from the least treasons, but from the 

 greatest. These resolutions of the king and his 

 council were immediately put in execution. And 

 first, the queen dowager was put into the monastery 

 of Bermondsey, and all her estates seized into the 

 king s hands : whereat there. was much wondering; 

 that a weak woman, for the yielding to the menaces 

 and promises of a tyrant, after such a distance of 

 time, wherein the king had shewed no displeasure 

 nor alteration, but much more after so happy a 

 marriage between the king and her daughter, blessed 

 with issue male, should, upon a sudden mutability 

 or disclosure of the king s mind, be so severely 

 handled. 



This lady was amongst the examples of great 

 variety of fortune. She had first from a distressed 

 suitor, and desolate widow, been taken to the 

 marriage bed of a bachelor king, the goodliest per 

 sonage of his time ; and even in his reign she had 

 endured a strange eclipse by the king s flight, and 

 temporary depriving from the crown. She was also 

 very happy, in that she had by him fair issue ; and 

 continued his nuptial love, helping herself by some 



