ry deposition of Edward the Fourth from his
throne had been abetted by the aid which the King-making earl of Warwick
derived from that forger of all mischief Louis the Eleventh of France. At
that time Edward took refuge with his brother-in-law the duke of Burgundy,
a man as ambitious of aggrandisement as king Louis, but whose disposition
instigated him to pursue it by the more ordinary path of martial
enterprise. His enmity to the king of France was bitter and inveterate; and
it doubtless formed the topic of much of his discourse with the exiled
English monarch. Edward, on his part, vowed an ample revenge when the
forces of England should be again at his command: and the result was a
mutual understanding between these princes to prosecute their common
quarrel at the earliest opportunity.

Having this object in view, Edward summoned a parliament[23] in the autumn
{xviii} of 1472, in order to obtain the requisite supplies; and on the last
day of November an act was passed whereby the commons granted to the king a
force of 13,000 archers (the like number which had been granted to his
predecessor in the 31st year of his reign[24]), assigning as their motives
for so doing, that "for the wele and suerte of this your reame inward, and
the defence of the same outeward, to assiste youre roiall astate, ye
verraily entendyng, in youre princely and knightly corage, with all
diligence to youre highnes possible, all your bodely ease leyde apart, to
resiste the seid confedered malice of youre and oure seide ennemyes, in
setting outeward a myghty armee, able by the helpe of God to resiste the
seid ennemyes." The archers were to abide in the king's service by the
space of a year, each receiving the pay of six pence a day; and the commons
granted for their support a disme, or tenth part of the income from lands,
tenements, and possessions of every temporal person, not being a lord of
parliament: but, if the said army held not before the feast of Saint
Michael in 1473, the grant was to be void, and the money repaid. [25]

The lords spiritual and temporal made a similar grant, on the consideration
"that the kyng oure soverayn lord is disposed by the grace of God in his
owne persone to passe forth of this his seid reame with an armee roiall,
for the saufegarde of the same reame, and the subduyng of the auncien
ennemyes of hym and of his seid reame."[26] In the next session, on the 8th
April 1473, the commons granted to the king a fifteenth a