Anne's betrothal to Prince Edward; nor did the letter from Clarence to
the king, attesting the success of one of his schemes, comfort Richard
for the failure of the other. A letter from Burgundy confirmed the
report of the spy, announced Duke Charles's intention of sending a
fleet to prevent Warwick's invasion, and rated King Edward sharply for
his supineness in not preparing suitably against so formidable a foe.
The gay and reckless presumption of Edward, worthier of a knight-
errant than a monarch, laughed at the word invasion. "Pest on
Burgundy's ships! I only wish that the earl would land!" [Com, iii.
c. 5] he said to his council. None echoed the wish! But later in the
day came a third messenger with information that roused all Edward's
ire; careless of each danger in the distance, he ever sprang into
energy and vengeance when a foe was already in the field. And the
Lord Fitzhugh (the young nobleman before seen among the rebels at
Olney, and who had now succeeded to the honours of his House) had
suddenly risen in the North, at the head of a formidable rebellion.
No man had so large an experience in the warfare of those districts,
the temper of the people, and the inclinations of the various towns
and lordships as Montagu; he was the natural chief to depute against
the rebels. Some animated discussion took place as to the dependence
to be placed in the marquis at such a crisis; but while the more wary
held it safer, at all hazards, not to leave him unemployed, and to
command his services in an expedition that would remove him from the
neighbourhood of his brother, should the latter land, as was expected,
on the coast of Norfolk, Edward, with a blindness of conceit that
seems almost incredible, believed firmly in the infatuated loyalty of
the man whom he had slighted and impoverished, and whom, by his offer
of his daughter to the Lancastrian prince, he had yet more recently
cozened and deluded. Montagu was hastily summoned, and received
orders to march at once to the North, levy forces, and assume their