party, which no time or experience were ever able to efface. Instead
of embracing the present happy opportunity of abolishing these fatal
distinctions, of uniting his title with that of his consort, and of
bestowing favor indiscriminately on the friends of both families, he
carried to the throne all the partialities which belong to the head of
a faction, and even the passions which are carefully guarded against by
every true politician in that situation. To exalt the Lancastrian party,
to depress the adherents of the house of York, were still the favorite
objects of his pursuit; and through the whole course of his reign, he
never forgot these early prepossessions. Incapable from his natural
temper of a more enlarged and more benevolent system of policy, he
exposed himself to many present inconveniences, by too anxiously
guarding against that future possible event, which might disjoin his
title from that of the princess whom he espoused. And while he treated
the Yorkists as enemies, he soon rendered them such, and taught them to
discuss that right to the crown, which he so carefully kept separate,
and to perceive its weakness and invalidity.

To these passions of Henry, as well as to his suspicious politics, we
are to ascribe the measures which he embraced two days after the battle
of Bosworth. Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick, son of the duke of
Clarence, was detained in a kind of confinement at Sherif-Hutton, in
Yorkshire, by the jealousy of his uncle Richard, whose title to the
throne was inferior to that of the young prince. Warwick had now reason
to expect better treatment, as he was no obstacle to the succession
either of Henry or Elizabeth; and from a youth of such tender years no
danger could reasonably be apprehended. But Sir Robert Willoughby was
despatched by Henry with orders to take him from Sherif-Hutton, to
convey him to the Tower, and to detain him in close custody.[*] The same
messenger carried directions, that the princess Elizabeth, who had been
confined to the same place, should be conducted to London, in order to
meet Henry, and there celebrate her nuptials.

Henry himself set out for the capital, and advanced by slow journeys.
Not to rouse the jealousy of the people, he took care to avoid all
appearance of military triumph; and so to restrain the insolence
of victory, that every thing about him bore the appearance of an
established monarch, making a peaceable progress through his dominions,
rath