Inst. cap. ix. 'It is the most honourable court, our
Parliament excepted, that is in the Christian world.--In the judges of
the same are the grandees of the realm: and they judge upon confession
or deposition or witness.--This court doth keep all England in quiet.'

CHAPTER II.

CHANGES IN THE CONDITION OF EUROPE.

For the history of the world the decisive event of the epoch was the
rapid rise of the French monarchy, which after it had freed itself
from the English invasions, became master of all the hitherto separate
territories of the great vassals, and lastly even of Brittany, and
rapidly began to make its preponderance felt on all sides.

Considered in itself no one would have been more called on to oppose
this than the King of England, who even still bore the title of King
of France. In fact Henry did once revive his claim on the French
crown, on Normandy and Guyenne, and took part in a coalition, which
was to have forced Charles VIII to give up Brittany; he crossed to
Calais and threatened Boulogne. But he was not in earnest with these
comprehensive views in his military enterprise, any more than Edward
IV had once been in a similar one. Henry VII was contented when a
considerable money payment year by year was secured to him, as it had
been to Edward. The English called it a tribute, the French a pension.
It was acceptable to the King, and advantageous for his home affairs,
just at that moment--1492--to have a sum of money at his free
disposal.

And no one could have advised him to attach himself unconditionally to
the house of Burgundy. Duke Charles' widow was still alive, who found
it unendurable that the house of York, from which she sprang, should
be dethroned from its 'triumphant majesty, which shone over the seven
nations of the world'--for so she expressed herself. With her the
fugitive partisans of the house of York found refuge and protection:
by herself and her son-in-law Maximilian of Austria the pretenders
were fitted out who contested the crown with Henry VII. Henry could
not really wish Brittany to pass to his sworn foe, so that he might be
threatened from this quarter also at every moment. For how could he
delude himself with the hope that a transitory alliance would prevail
over a dynastic antipathy?

At this crisis Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain offered him an alliance
and connexion by marriage.

That which induced this sovereign to do so was above all Charles
VIII's invasion of