Cely Papers - Richard III Society - New Zealand Branch

XXXll THE CELY PAPERS.
of the Dowager Duchess, who would be bitterly opposed to Richard
as the murderer of her nephews and the supplanter of the children .
of her favourite brother Clarence. Margaret was still more the
enemy of Henry VIL, both as a Lancastrian and a French prolege.
DW she aided and abetted the Yorkist schemes against him is
matter of common knowledge, but the Celys say nothing of it.
Maximilian had become King of the Romans in I486, and in
December Henry received an embassy from him, and concluded a
treaty with him and his son's council a for the renewal of the old
treaties of commerce. They had interests partly in common against
France; but the tangled skein of the affairs of Bretagne need not
detain us here. Maximilian never counted for so much as his
title and position seemed to imply. Throughout these years
he was still at variance with the Flemish towns, and their open
hostilities, as in 1483 and 1484, referred to in the Letters,
sorely vexed the English merchants. He was again at war with
the French also. In 1488 he made his famous attempt to secure
ruges. He rashly entered the city with a small force of German
mercenaries and Burgundian followers. He intended to have a
larger force admitted. But suspicions were aroused, the citizens
flew to arms and secured the gates, and Maximilian found himself
a prisoner amid an exasperated population, who made no delay in
killing those suspected of sympathising with him. We learn from
the Letters of January 22, February 19, and March 12, 1488, that
Sir James Tyrrell had been at Bruges on a mission from England,
and had been well received by both the towns and Maximilian ; and
that the expectation was that Maximilian would soon be master, if
not that he ' muste flee hys weye owte of the contray or be destroyed/
and that he would grant England all that she could desire,
Also we gather, contrary to the common account, that many of the
more wealthy inhabitants of Bruges were considered as a rule
friendly to the King of the Romans, but that the rabble of Bruges,
allied with the men of Ghent, were in power, and making overtures
* Bymer, xii. 320.