Edward's foreign policy was feeble and uncertain. At first, after his restoration, he intended to attack France in alliance with his brother-in-law, Charles the Rash of Burgundy, who had given him shelter and succour during his day of exile. He raised an army and crossed the Channel, talking of recovering Normandy, and of asserting his right to the French crown. But Lewis XI., the wily King of France, offered to buy him off, proffering him a great sum down and an annual subsidy, if he would abandon the cause of Duke Charles. Edward was selfish and ungrateful enough to accept the offer with delight. He met King Lewis in a formal interview at Picquigny, in Picardy, and bargained to retire and remain neutral for 75,000 gold crowns paid down, and an annuity of 50,000 more so long as he lived. He also wrung a second 50,000 out of Lewis as a ransom for the unfortunate Queen Margaret of Anjou, a prisoner since the day of Tewkesbury, and stipulated that the Dauphin was to be married to his eldest daughter, the Princess Elizabeth (1475). Edward came home with money in his purse, and found that the French annuity, which was punctually paid him, was most useful in enabling him to avoid having to call Parliaments. His betrayal of Charles of Burgundy was deeply resented by that prince, but Edward took no heed, and the duke was slain not long after, while waging war on the Swiss and the Duke of Lorraine. [Sidenote: =Death of the Duke of Clarence.=] Two years after the treaty of Picquigny occurred a tragedy which showed that Edward could still on occasion burst out into his old fits of cruelty. His brother George, Duke of Clarence, had been received back into his favour after betraying Warwick in 1471, and had been granted half the King-maker's estates as the portion of his wife, Isabel Neville. But Clarence presumed on his pardon, and seems to have thought that all his treachery to his brother in 1468-70 had been forgotten as well as forgiven. He was always a turbulent, unwise, and reckless young man, and provoked the king by his insolent sayings and open disobedience. Edward had twice to interfere with him, once for illegally seizing, and causing to be executed, a lady whom he accused of bewitching his wife Isabel, who died in childbirth; a second time for trying to wed without his brother's leave Mary of Burgundy, the heiress of Charles the Rash. When Clarence was again detected in intrigues with a foreign power--this time with Scotland--the king resolved to make an end of him. Suddenly summoning a Parliament, he appeared before it, and accused his brother of treason, though he gave no clear or definite account of Clarence's misdeeds. Awed by Edward's wrath and vehemence, the two houses passed a bill declaring the duke convicted of high treason. The king then condemned him, cast him into the Tower, and there had him secretly slain (1478). [Sidenote: =Richard, Duke of Gloucester.=]