HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 187 



and prepared way to his own title. With this reso 

 lution he sailed secretly into Flanders, where was a 

 little before arrived the Lord Lovel, leaving a cor 

 respondence here in England with Sir Thomas 

 Broughton, a man of great power and dependencies 

 in Lancashire. For before this time, when the pre 

 tended Plantagenet was first received in Ireland, 

 secret messengers had been also sent to the Lady 

 Margaret, advertising her what was passed in Ire 

 land ; imploring succours in an enterprise, as they 

 said, so pious and just, and that God had so miracu 

 lously prospered the beginning thereof; and making 

 offer that all things should be guided by her will 

 and direction, as the sovereign patroness and pro 

 tectress of the enterprise. Margaret was second 

 sister to King Edward the Fourth, and had been 

 second wife to Charles, surnamed the Hardy, Duke 

 of Burgundy ; by whom having no children of her 

 own, she did with singular care and tenderness in 

 tend the education of Philip and Margaret, grand 

 children to her former husband ; which won her 

 great love and authority among the Dutch. This 

 Princess, having the spirit of a man, and malice of a 

 woman, abounding in treasure by the greatness of 

 her dower and her provident government, and being 

 childless, and without any nearer care, made it her 

 design and enterprise to see the majesty royal of 

 England once again replaced in her house ; and had 

 set up King Henry as a mark at whose overthrow 

 all her actions should aim and shoot ; insomuch as 

 all the counsels of his succeeding troubles came 



VOL. 3. 



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