] To this war, however, Warwick was
inflexibly opposed. He pointed out the madness of withdrawing from
England all her best-affected chivalry, at a time when the adherents of
Lancaster, still powerful, would require no happier occasion to raise
the Red Rose banner. He showed how hollow was the hope of steady aid
from the hot but reckless and unprincipled Duke of Burgundy, and how
different now was the condition of France under a king of consummate
sagacity and with an overflowing treasury to its distracted state in the
former conquests of the English. This opposition to the king's will gave
every opportunity for Warwick's enemies to renew their old accusation
of secret and treasonable amity with Louis. Although the proud and hasty
earl had not only forgiven the affront put upon him by Edward, but had
sought to make amends for his own intemperate resentment, by public
attendance on the ceremonials that accompanied the betrothal of the
princess, it was impossible for Edward ever again to love the minister
who had defied his power and menaced his crown. His humour and his
suspicions broke forth despite the restraint that policy dictated to
him: and in the disputes upon the invasion of France, a second and more
deadly breach between Edward and his minister must have yawned, had not
events suddenly and unexpectedly proved the wisdom of Warwick's distrust
of Burgundy. Louis XI. bought off the Duke of Bretagne, patched up a
peace with Charles the Bold, and thus frustrated all the schemes and
broke all the alliances of Edward at the very moment his military
preparations were ripe. [W. Wyr, 518.]

Still the angry feelings that the dispute had occasioned between Edward
and the earl were not removed with the cause; and under pretence of
guarding against hostilities from Louis, the king requested Warwick to
depart to his government of Calais, the most important and honourable
post, it is true, which a subject could then hold: but Warwick
considered the request as a pretext for his removal from the court. A
yet more irritating and insulting cause of offence was found in Edward's
withholding his consent to Clarence's often-urged demand for permission
to wed with the Lady Isabel. It is true that this refusal was
accompanied with the most courteous protestations of respect for the
earl, and placed only upon the general ground of state policy.

"My dear George," Edward would say, "the heiress of Lord Warwick is
certainly no mal-allianc