suggested--it must have weakened his popularity both with his nobles and
with his people, whilst it terminated the former cordiality that had
existed with his brother of Burgundy. The king of England had now become
the pensioner of France, the great {xlviii} absorbing power of that age,
which was soon to swallow up England's nearest and best allies, the duchies
of Burgundy and Britany.

The French pension of 50,000 crowns was, as Commines relates, punctually
paid every half-year in the Tower of London; and by a treaty made in Feb.
1478-9 it was renewed for the lives of Edward and Louis, and extended for a
hundred years after the death of both princes: which seemed to give it more
directly the character of a tribute, a term that Commines says the English
applied to it, but which the French indignantly repelled. However, after
little more than four years longer, it had answered its purpose, and its
payment ceased. The English voluptuary then found himself entirely
outwitted by the wily Frenchman. After the duke of Burgundy's death (in
1477) and that of his only daughter the wife of the archduke Maximilian (in
1482) his grand-daughter Margaret of Austria was suddenly betrothed to the
Dauphin, in the place of the lady Elizabeth of England. Louis caught at
this alliance in order to detach the counties of Burgundy and Artois from
the territory of the Netherlands, and annex them to the crown of France;
and the turbulent citizens of Ghent, in whose keeping the children[70] of
their late sovereign lady were, were ready to make this concession, without
the concurrence of the children's father, in order to reduce the power of
their princes. This infant bride was then only three years and a half old;
and had consequently made her appearance on the stage of life subsequently
to the Dauphin's former contract with the English princess.[71]

Commines describes at some length the mortification experienced by king
Edward when he heard of this alliance,--"finding himself deluded in the
hopes he had entertained of marrying his daughter to the Dauphin, of which
marriage both himself and his queen were more ambitious than of any other
in the world, and never would give credit to any man, whether subject or
foreigner, that endeavoured to persuade them that our king's intentions
were not sincere and honourable. For the parliament (or council) of England
had remonstrated to king Edward several times, when our king was in
Picardy, that after he