mind. That he was one of the acutest logicians of the age is amply proved by the manner in which he has argued the most subtle points of his science; and that he possessed the varied erudition necessary for the efficient exercise of the most important duties with which a man in power can be charged, is asserted in the emphatic eulogy with which Sir Edward Coke concludes his panegyric.

It is worthy of observation, that at the period when Sir Thomas flourished, England possessed besides himself several men alike eminent in the profession of jurisprudence. Among these were Sir Richard Newton, Sir John Priscot, Sir Robert Danby, William Ascough, Sir John Fortescue, Sir John Markham, and others of similar celebrity. Before the time of these distinguished civilians, the English law was but a maze of doubt and difficulty. They contributed to clear up many of its mysteries by their strong good sense, by the fidelity with which they laboured at their judicial duties, and by the learning which most of them brought to the exercise of their functions. A higher degree of importance, therefore, now began to be attached to the legal character than it had ever yet enjoyed; and from this era, the civilians of England are seen endowed with a rank and influence which rendered them one of the most powerful classes in the state. Of those who flourished with Sir Thomas Lyttleton, some appear to have taken a much deeper share in the political struggles of the times than himself. This was especially the case with Sir John Fortescue, of whom we now subjoin a brief notice.

Sir John Fortescue.

DIED CIRC. A. D. 1485.

THIS eminent English lawyer was descended from an ancient Devonshire family, and third son of Henry Fortescue, lord-chief-justice of Ireland. The time and place of his birth is matter of uncertainty. He is supposed to have been educated at Oxford, and to have studied law in Lincoln's inn. In 1430 he was made sergeant-at-law, and in 1441 was appointed king's sergeant. From this latter period preferments were showered upon him. The next year he was appointed chief-justice of the king's bench, with a special annuity from the privy purse for the better maintenance of his rank and station. He remained in great favour with Henry VI., and served him faithfully in all his troubles. In 1463 he accompanied Queen Margaret and Prince Edward into Lorrain, where he helped to alleviate the bitterness of their exile by his counsels and presence, and drew up for the instruction of the young prince his celebrated treatise, 'De laudibus legum Angliæ,' in which he endeavours to impress his pupil with the just idea, that the constitution of England was a limited monarchy. In this workwhich, though received with great applause by the jurists of the day, was not published till the reign of Henry VIII.-Sir John styles him self Cancellarius Angliæ,' but as his name does not appear in the patent rolls, it is probable, as Selden suggests, that he received this dignity from the fugitive monarch during his exile in Scotland. Returning to England with the queen, Sir John was taken prisoner at

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the defeat of her party at Tewksbury, and, though Edward IV. made rather a cruel use of his victory, yet he not only spared the life of our venerable jurist, but even, soon afterwards, received him into favour. Softened by this kindness, and probably regarding the hopes of the Lancastrian party as now for ever annihilated, Sir John not only began to acknowledge Edward's title to the crown, but wrote in defence of it. It does not appear, however, that he ever departed from his original views of the English constitution as a limited monarchy. Some of his manuscripts are still preserved in public libraries. They bear the following titles: 'Defensio juris domus Lancastriæ,'' Genealogy of the House of Lancaster,' Of the title of the House of York,' 'Genealogiæ Regum Scotia,' A Dialogue between Understanding and Faith.' He appears to have withdrawn into the country some years before his death, which is supposed to have occurred at Ebburton in Gloucestershire, in the church of which parish his remains were interred. His editor, Fortescue Aland, has said of him, that "all good men and lovers of the English constitution speak of him with honour, and that he still lives, in the opinion of all true Englishmen, in as high esteem and reputation as any judge that ever sat in Westminster hall.”

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From the accounts generally given of this eminent lawyer, he may, indeed, be regarded as deserving, like Lyttleton, the gratitude of posterity for having greatly contributed to promote the fair interpretation and proper administration of the fundamental laws of the realm, but doubts have been expressed as to the propriety or honesty of his political conduct. It has been asked, how, as the chief minister of Henry VI., he could favour the cruel persecution of the duke of Gloucester? Or how, as an upright man, he could write in defence, which it appears he did, first of one and then of another of the rival houses? The character of Sir Thomas Lyttleton, on the other hand, is left unstained by suspicions of this nature, and from the praise accorded him for the practice of all the virtues of domestic and social life, as well as for his learning and ability, he may be considered as meriting in every way the reverence of posterity.

Edward IV.

BORN A. D. 1440.-DIED A. D. 1482.

EDWARD had now two important points in his favour,-the possession of the capital, and a title conferred according to the usual constitutional forms. He was, however, sovereign of only half his kingdom: if the southern and middle counties acknowledged his dominion, the northern provinces were warm in the Lancastrian cause. Notwithstanding the dissolute and voluptuous habits which had at an early period been permitted to obtain the mastery, Edward's was a character of singular energy and self-possession when under the impulse of a stirring motive, and he was fully aware that, in the present instance, nothing short of instant and decided effort was adequate to the crisis. Three days after his accession, his advanced guard, under the orders of the earl of Clifford, quitted London for the north; in five days more, he followed in person with the remainder of his army; and at

Pontefract, he passed in review nearly forty-nine thousand soldiers. Margaret's force was larger; her general, the duke of Somerset, was at the head of sixty thousand men, encamped near York. After some previous fighting, in which Clifford was killed, the main armies met, and the field of Towton was the scene of a bloodier fight than the civil broils of England had yet witnessed. No quarter was given on either side. The battle began in the evening, and was maintained with untiring rancour through the night until noon of the following day, when Edward, having been compelled by the superior numbers of the enemy, to bring up all his reserves, was making his last efforts, but, at the critical period of nearly entire exhaustion on both sides, the duke of Norfolk brought up a reinforcement, which decided the victory against the queen's army. The slaughter was terrible: the retreat of the Lancastrians was intercepted by a river, and the pursuit of the Yorkists was unrelenting. The number of those who fel! varies, in the dif ferent estimates, from 30,000 to 40,000. Henry and his queen, with the dukes of Somerset and Exeter, fled to Scotland.

After some farther movements in prosecution of his victory, Edward returned to London, leaving Lord Montague to watch the Lancastrians. This general raised the siege of Carlisle, beleagured by the Scots, whose alliance Margaret had purchased by the surrender of Berwick. On the 29th of June, Edward was crowned at Westminster, and met his parliament as the acknowledged king of England. The session was distinguished by nothing so much as by the number of bills of attainder which were passed, involving all the more distinguished adherents to the house of Lancaster in one common ruin. Margaret, however, was still active, and with an army of French and Scottish auxiliaries gave employment in the north to Edward's generals, and called Edward himself once more to the scene of action, where, however, his stay was brief. It was during this season of perilous enterprise that the thousand-times-told adventure of the forest bandit is said to have happened to Margaret and her son. In 1464, the Lancastrians hazarded a more decided effort, but their array was broken up by the activity of Nevil, Earl Montague, who routed Percy at Hedgeley Moor, and the duke of Somerset at Hexham. Both leaders were slain, the first on the field, Somerset on the scaffold. Henry himself, after evading, during more than a year, all attempts to discover his concealment, was betrayed by a monk, and, in July, 1465, becanie the prisoner of Edward. The king had now leisure for measures of general policy, and negotiated treaties of amity with nearly all the leading European sovereigns. His chief advisers, in all matters of state, appear to have been the brothers of the family of Nevil, the earls of Warwick and Montague, the last in particular was his especial favourite. It has, however, seldom occurred, that such a connexion as that between Edward and the Nevils, has been lasting, and the present case affords no exception to the general rule. Edward's marriage may probably be taken as the remote cause of the breaking up of a union apparently so strong in the mutual attachment and common interest of the parties. It was the king's misfortune to be conspicuously endowed with exterior graces; and these gave him, in his intercourse with

Heurne's Fragment as cited by Turner.

females, advantages which he abused, until he became wholly possessed by a spirit of reckless libertinism: his appetites were his masters, and the grosser sensualities of the table were added to what are usually deemed more refined gratifications of sense. The chase alone relieved, by intervals of manly exercise and exertion, the course of debauchery in which he was now wasting his fine constitution, embruting his moral faculties, and debilitating his powerful mind. Thus given over to habits of self-indulgence, it was his chance to encounter a lovely and fascinating woman, the widow of a Lancastrian officer, who had fallen in civil broil. His passions were kindled, but the lady-whether from virtuous or from interested motives may well be doubted-rejected every licentious proposal, and at length the amorous king made her his wife; an act which gave great and just offence to Warwick, who had been urging a marriage of policy. The doubt suggested in the previous sentence, is not unadvisedly offered, for the conduct of the queen and her family was marked by a spirit of ambition and rapacity rarely equalled in the records of favouritism. A prudent affectation of humility and disinterestedness might have done much towards soothing disappointment and pacifying discontent; but even decency was dis regarded in the exultation of unanticipated advancement. A large and hungry family clamoured for the good things in the gift of their powerfu' relative, and the gratified voluptuary was neither slow nor niggard in his benefactions. The five sisters of Elizabeth Wydevile were made— probably more in constraint than in liking on the part of the bridegroom-the wives of so many wealthy and powerful young noblemen; her brothers caught titled heiresses in the scramble, and the younger was fortunate enough to capture a dowager duchess, rich and eighty. Lord Mountjoy was displaced from the treasurership of England, in favour of the queen's father; and the staff of lord-high-constable, wrested from the grasp of the earl of Worcester, was consigned to the same ready hand. This fell swoop,' in the way of monopoly, struck despair to the hearts of the needy and expectant, who always throng a court, and, had it done no more than this, little harm had been wrought; but there were others who looked on with a loftier and more menacing displeasure the men whose abilities entitled them to a share in the administration of the realm, and whose station gave them a vantage ground for the attainment of the objects of their legitimate ambition. Edward, in his doting favouritism, even ventured to lay hand upon that from which gratitude, no less than policy, should have taught him to abstain. The younger brother of the Nevils had been made archbishop of York, and from him, on some ground of jealousy against himself and his brothers, the king resumed two manors of which the prelate was the grantee. Various circumstances occurred to widen the breach between Edward and the earl of Warwick, whose daughter had lately been married, much to the king's annoyance, to George, duke of Clarence, the second of the three royal brothers. The administration of the Wydeviles seems to have been, from whatever cause, unpopular, and insurrections broke out, in which the father and brother of the queen were seized and put to death. Without taking an ostensible share in these tumults, Warwick reaped their full advantage; and the result of all this folly, misgovernment, and treason was, that the king became, in 1469, the prisoner of the earl. Considerable obscurity rests

upon these events, and much secret history requires to be brought to light, before they can be adequately explained. Although it nowhere appears that the insurrections in question were directly instigated by Warwick, yet they happened most opportunely for his interests; he was ready to turn them to his own ends; and at his orders the rebels returned quietly to their homes. He was not, however, acting in behalf of the house of Lancaster, since he put down, with the utmost promptitude and rigour, in the name of Edward, an attempt in its favour, made by its partizans in the north. It appears probable that Warwick had overrated his own influence, and that he found, in the disposal of a prisoner like Edward, a problem too difficult for his solu tion. The king's name' was 'a tower of strength' only in the king's cause; and though the upstart and overweening favourites had made themselves odious to the people, Edward himself was a popular monarch, and his subjects were by no means inclined to throw him aside at the mere mandate of Warwick. Be all this as it may, the earl found himself compelled to release his thrall, and a reconciliation, apparently cordial, took place. This was toward the close of 1469, yet, early in the following year, Edward was saved from a fresh and probably fatal imprisonment, only by intelligence whispered in his ear, by his own presence of mind, and by the swiftness of his horse. Clarence and Warwick now acted in open rebellion, but so rapid and well-directed were the movements of the king, that they were counteracted in every effort, and compelled at last to quit the country, and seek safety in France. Here the turbulent earl, much to the dissatisfaction of Clarence, negotiated under the auspices of the French king, with Margaret. His daughter was accepted as the bride of the heir of Lancaster, and active preparations were made for the invasion of England. Edward, in the mean time, was indemnifying himself for his late anxieties and exertions, by a total neglect of business, and an entire surrender of all his faculties to enervating pleasure. In this state, he was surprised by the landing of Warwick, who moved on with such celerity, as to leave the king, abandoned by his troops, and betrayed by Montague, who had hitherto professed friendship, no resource but flight. After encountering much danger in his brief voyage, he landed in Holland, October, 1470: the queen took sanctuary in Westminster. Warwick, the king-maker,' was now at the height of his success: he entered London in triumph, released Henry from the Tower, and proceeded, in the usual course, to reverse attainders, and reward his friends with the spoils of his enemies. To his honour be it mentioned, that, although the war of the Roses had been marked by a fearful system of sanguinary reprisal, excepting in one righteous instance, he shed no blood.

But Edward's character, sunk and degraded while prosperity smiled upon him, was of intense energy and strength when roused by adverse circumstances. In this crisis of his fortunes, he acted on the boldest construction of the antique monition---contra audentior ito. Obtaining from his ally, the duke of Burgundy, the means of raising and transporting troops, he sailed for England, entered the Humber, and landed at Ravenspur, March 14, 1471, with about 2000 determined men; his brother, the duke of Gloucester, was with him. No one joined him, but his resolution was taken, and he moved holdly on