HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 199 



as the ports were ; for that cause rather than for any 

 doubt of hostility from those parts, before his coming 

 to London, when he was at Newcastle, had sent a 

 solemn ambassage unto James the Third, king of 

 Scotland, to treat and conclude a peace with him. 

 The ambassadors were, Richard Fox, Bishop of 

 Exeter, and Sir Richard Edgcornbe, comptroller of 

 the king s house,, who were honourably received and 

 entertained there. But the King of Scotland, labour 

 ing of the same disease that King Henry did, though 

 more mortal, as afterwards appeared, that is, dis 

 contented subjects, apt to rise and raise tumult, 

 although in his own affection he did much desire 

 to make a peace with the king ; yet finding his nobles 

 averse, and not daring to displease them, concluded 

 only a truce for seven years ; giving nevertheless 

 promise in private, that it should be renewed from 

 time to time during the two kings lives. 



Hitherto the king had been exercised in settling 

 his affairs at home. But about this time brake forth 

 an occasion that drew him to look abroad, and to 

 hearken to foreign business. Charles the Eighth, 

 the French king, by the virtue and good fortune of 

 his two immediate predecessors, Charles the Seventh, 

 his grandfather, and Lewis the Eleventh, his father, 

 received the kingdom of France in more flourishing 

 and spread estate than it had been of many years 

 before ; being redintegrate in those principal mem 

 bers, which anciently had been portions of the crown 

 of France, and were afterward discovered, so as they 

 remained only in homage and not in sovereignty, 



