girl Margaret had
become both wife and mother. She had wedded the Earl of Richmond, Edmund
Tudor, a son of Henry the Fifth's widow, Katharine of France, by a
marriage with a Welsh squire, Owen Tudor; and had given birth to a son,
the later Henry the Seventh. From very childhood the life of Henry had
been a troubled one. His father died in the year of his birth; his uncle
and guardian, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, was driven from the realm on the
fall of the House of Lancaster; and the boy himself, attainted at five
years old, remained a prisoner till the restoration of Henry the Sixth by
Lord Warwick. But Edward's fresh success drove him from the realm, and
escaping to Britanny he was held there, half-guest, half-prisoner, by its
Duke. The extinction of the direct Lancastrian line had given Henry a new
importance. Edward the Fourth never ceased to strive for his surrender,
and if the Breton Duke refused to give him up, his alliance with the
English king was too valuable to be imperilled by suffering him to go
free. The value of such a check on Richard was seen by Lewis of France;
and his demands for Henry's surrender into his hands drove the Duke of
Britanny, who was now influenced by a minister in Richard's pay, to seek
for aid from England. In June the king sent a thousand archers to
Britanny; but the troubles of the Duchy had done more for Henry than Lewis
could have done. The nobles rose against Duke and minister; and in the
struggle that followed the young Earl was free to set sail as he would.

[Sidenote: Richard's reign]

He found unexpected aid in the Duke of Buckingham, whose support had done
much to put Richard on the throne. Though rewarded with numerous grants
and the post of Constable, Buckingham's greed was still unsated; and on
the refusal of his demand of the lands belonging to the earldom of
Hereford the Duke lent his ear to the counsels of Margaret Beaufort, who
had married his brother, Henry Stafford, but still remained true to the
cause of her boy. Buckingham looked no doubt to the chance of fooling
Yorkist and Lancastrian alike, and of pressing his own claims to the
throne on Richard's fall. But he was in the hands of subtler plotters.
Morton, the exiled Bishop of Ely, had founded a scheme of union on the
disappearance of Edward the Fifth and his brother, who had been imprisoned
in the Tower since Richard's accession to the throne, and were now
believed to have been murdered by his orders. The death