hrone, had acknowledged and
obeyed as his lawful sovereign.

The necessity of supporting the government established will more fully
justify some other acts of violence, though the method of conducting
them may still appear exceptionable. John, earl of Oxford, and his son
Aubrey de Vere were detected in a correspondence with Margaret,
were tried by martial law before the constable, were condemned
and executed.[*] Sir William Tyrrel, Sir Thomas Tudenham, and John
Montgomery were convicted in the same arbitrary court; were executed,
and their estates forfeited. This introduction of martial law into civil
government was a high strain of prerogative; which, were it not for the
violence of the times, would probably have appeared exceptionable to a
nation so jealous of their liberties as the English were now become.[**]
[18] It was impossible but such a great and sudden revolution must leave
the roots of discontent and dissatisfaction in the subject, which would
require great art, or, in lieu of it, great violence, to extirpate
them. The latter was more suitable to the genius of the nation in that
uncultivated age.

But the new establishment still seemed precarious and uncertain; not
only from the domestic discontents of the people, but from the efforts
of foreign powers. Lewis, the eleventh of the name, had succeeded to
his father, Charles, in 1460; and was led, from the obvious motives
of national interest, to feed the flames of civil discord among such
dangerous neighbors, by giving support to the weaker party. But the
intriguing and politic genius of this prince was here checked by itself:
having attempted to subdue the independent spirit of his own vassals, he
had excited such an opposition at home, as prevented him from making all
the advantage, which the opportunity afforded, of the dissensions among
the English.

{1462.} He sent, however, a small body to Henry's assistance under
Varenne, seneschal of Normandy;[***] who landed in Northumberland,
and got possession of the Castle of Alnwick; but as the indefatigable
Margaret went in person to France, where she solicited larger supplies
and promised Lewis to deliver up Calais, if her family should by his
means be restored to the throne of England; he was induced to send along
with her a body of two thousand men at arms, which enabled her to take
the field, and to make an inroad into England.

* W. Wyrcester, p. 492. Hall, fol. 189 Grafton, p. 658.
Fabian fol