THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION, 29 
treaty long existing between Burgundy and England ended on No- 
vember the 1st, 1465. Shortly before expiration of the treaty Cax- 
ton and an English diplomat were appointed Royal Commissioners 
to secure its renewal. They were unsuccessful, and the treaty 
lapsed. Philip of Burgundy refused to pass another treaty ; Eng- 
lish cloths were excluded from his dominions ; and the English 
Parliament prohibited the importation of Flemish goods into England. 
For a time the merchants of both countries saved a part of their 
trade by smuggling goods indirectly through adjacent countries ; 
but after a year the Earl of Warwick instructed Caxton to see that 
the act of the English Parliament forbidding English traders from 
buying goods in Burgundy was carvzied out. Philip, however, died 
in 1467, and his son Charles the Bold succeeded to the Dukedom. 
Edward the IV, of England, adroitly negotiated a marriage between 
his sister Margaret and the Duke. The wedding ceremonies were 
held at Bruges in 1468, and Caxton and his company soon after 
succeeded in obtaining a new commercial treaty. 
It was in March, 1468, busy year as it was for him, that Cax- 
ton commenced his translation of the “ Histories of Troy.” When 
he had translated five or six quires the work was put aside, with no 
intention to resume it. But after a lapse of two years the Duchess 
Margaret sent for Caxton to speak with him on divers things, and 
he told her Grace of the translation he had begun. She bade him 
shew her what he had written, and, after reading it, she criticized 
his English, advised him to amend it, and commanded that the work 
should be finished. Accordingly Caxton’s translation into English 
of the Histories of Troy, which he began at Bruges, and con- 
tinued at Ghent, was finished at Cologne in the year 1471. At 
the end of the third book, he writes that his pen is worn and 
weary, eyes dim, ardour to work lessened, and that age was be- 
ginning to make his body feebler. As his book was promised 
to friends and others as soon as possible, he adds :—‘‘I have 
‘* practised and learned, at my great charge and dispense, to ordain 
“ this said book in print, after the manner and form as ye may here 
“see; and it is not written with pen and ink as other books have 
‘been ; tothe end that every man may have them at once.” The 
Troy-book was the first book printed in the English language. As 
forerunner of English printed literature, it will remain a sacred heir- 
