s might recognise one
another, and thus become as it were a uniformed army ready to serve
their lords in the field. Against these abuses Richard II. had
directed a statute, (see p. 281) and that statute had been confirmed
by Edward IV. These laws had, however, been inoperative; and Henry, in
his first Parliament, did not venture to do more than to make the
peers swear to abandon their evil courses.

3. =Lovel's Rising. 1486.=--In =1486= Lord Lovel, who had been one of
Richard's ministers, rose in arms and seized Worcester. Henry found
warm support even in Yorkshire, where Richard had been more popular
than elsewhere. At short warning a 'marvellous great number of
esquires, gentlemen, and yeomen' gathered round him, and the rebellion
was easily put down. Lovel escaped to Flanders, where he found a
protector in Margaret, the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of
Edward IV. and Richard III. Before long a new attack upon Henry was
developed. For the first time an English king had to ward off danger
from Ireland.

[Illustration: Tudor rose (white and red): from the gates of the
Chapel of Henry VII.]

4. =Lancaster and York in Ireland. 1399--1485.=--Since the expedition
of Richard II. no king had visited Ireland, and the English colonists
were left to defend themselves against the Celtic tribes as best they
might. In =1449= Richard, Duke of York, who had not at that time
entered on his rivalry with Henry VI., was sent to Dublin as Lord
Lieutenant (see p. 319) where he remained till =1450=, and gained
friends amongst both races by his conciliatory firmness. In =1459=,
after the break-up of his party at Ludlow (see p. 326), he appeared in
Ireland in the character of a fugitive seeking for allies. Between him
and the English colony a bargain was soon struck. They gave him troops
which fought gallantly for him at Wakefield, and he, claiming to be
Lord Lieutenant, assented to an act in which they asserted the
complete legislative independence of the Parliament of the colony. The
colony, therefore, became distinctly Yorkist. Its leader was the Earl
of Kildare, the chief of the eastern Fitzgeralds or Geraldines, the
Earl of Desmond being the chief of the Geraldines of the West. Between
them was the Earl of Ormond, the chief of the Butlers, the hereditary
foe of the Geraldines, who, probably merely because his rivals were
Yorkist, had attached himself to the Lancastrian party. All three were
of English descent, but all three