The turbulent portion of the reign of Henry VII. came to an end with Blackheath Field and the siege of Exeter. From that time forward the Tudor dynasty was no longer in serious danger; there were still some abortive plots, but none that had any prospect of winning popular support. The chances of Warbeck and Clarence had vanished long before they went to the scaffold. The Yorkist claim, after Clarence's death, might be supposed to have passed to his cousin Edmund, earl of Suffolk, the younger brother of that John, earl of Lincoln, who had been declared heir to the crown by Richard III., and had fallen at Stoke field. Fully conscious of the danger of his position, Suffolk fled to the continent, and lived for many years as a pensioner of the emperor Maximilian. Apparently he dabbled in treason; it is at any rate certain that in 1501 King Henry executed some, and imprisoned others, of his relatives and retainers. But his plots, such as they were, seem to have been futile. There was no substratum of popular discontent left in England on which a dangerous insurrection might be built up. It was to be forty years before another outbreak of turbulence against the crown was to break forth. VI. THE TUDOR DESPOTISM AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REFORMATION (1497-1528) Commercial treaties. The last twelve years of the reign of Henry VII. present in most respects a complete contrast to the earlier period, 1485-1497. There were no more rebellions, and--as we have already seen--no more plots that caused any serious danger. Nor did the king indulge his unruly subjects in foreign wars, though he was constantly engaged in negotiations with France, Scotland, Spain and the emperor, which from time to time took awkward turns. But Henry was determined to win all that he could by diplomacy, and not by force of arms. His cautious, but often unscrupulous, dealings with the rival continental powers had two main ends: the first was to keep his own position safe by playing off France against the Empire and Spain; the second was to get commercial advantages by dangling his alliance before each power in turn. Flanders was still the greatest customer of England, and it was therefore necessary above all things to keep on good terms with the archduke Philip, the son of Maximilian, who on coming of age had taken over the rule of the Netherlands from his father. The king's great triumphs were the conclusion of the _Intercursus Magnus_ of 1496 and the _Intercursus Malus_ (so called by the Flemings, not by the English) of 1506. The former provided for a renewal of the old commercial alliance with the house of Burgundy, on the same terms under which it had existed in the time of Edward IV.; the rupture which had taken place during the years when Maximilian was backing Perkin Warbeck had been equally injurious to both parties. The _Malus Intercursus_ on the other hand gave England some privileges which she had not before enjoyed--exemption from local