of terror by
which Edward at once held the country in awe and filled his treasury.
Numerous statutes broke the slumbers of Parliamentary legislation. A
series of mercantile enactments strove to protect the growing interests of
English commerce. The king's love of literature showed itself in a
provision that no statutes should act as a hindrance "to any artificer or
merchant stranger, of what nation or country he be, for bringing into this
realm or selling by retail or otherwise of any manner of books, written or
imprinted." His prohibition of the iniquitous seizure of goods before
conviction of felony which had prevailed during Edward's reign, his
liberation of the bondmen who still remained unenfranchised on the royal
domain, and his religious foundations show Richard's keen anxiety to
purchase a popularity in which the bloody opening of his reign might be
forgotten.

[Sidenote: Bosworth Field]

It was doubtless the same wish to render his throne popular which led
Richard to revive the schemes of a war with France. He had strongly
remonstrated against his brother's withdrawal and alliance in 1475, and it
must have been rather a suspicion of his warlike designs than any horror
at the ruthlessness of his ambition which led Lewis the Eleventh on his
death-bed to refuse to recognize his accession. At the close of Edward the
Fourth's reign the alliance which had bound the two countries together was
brought to an end by the ambition and faithlessness of the French king.
The war between Lewis and Maximilian ended at the close of 1482 through
the sudden death of Mary of Burgundy and the reluctance of the Flemish
towns to own Maximilian's authority as guardian of her son, Philip, the
heir of the Burgundian states. Lewis was able to conclude a treaty at
Arras, by which Philip's sister, Margaret, was betrothed to the Dauphin
Charles, and brought with her as dower the counties of Artois and
Burgundy. By the treaty with England Charles was already betrothed to
Edward's daughter, Elizabeth; and this open breach of treaty was followed
by the cessation of the subsidy which had been punctually paid since 1475.
France in fact had no more need of buying English neutrality. Galled as he
was, Edward's death but a few months later hindered any open quarrel, but
the refusal of Lewis to recognize Richard and his attempts to force from
Britanny the surrender of Henry Tudor added to the estrangement of the two
courts; and we can hardly wonde