When Richard de la Pole took service under Charles VIII., his father was recently dead "of grief," and his family were under a cloud, owing to Lincoln's rising in 1487. The "affable" king was much pleased with his captain, and after the siege of Boulogne assigned to him a pension of 7000 _écus_. At the conclusion of the treaty of Etaples, Henry VII. began his shabby course of persecution against Richard, from which he and his son never desisted while Richard was alive, demanding from Charles the surrender of his foe. Charles, however, flatly refused the demand. King Charles's pension, it is sadly to be feared, lapsed with his life in 1498; for in 1505, and thereabouts, we find Richard in absolute destitution--left, indeed, in pawn by his brother Edmund for that brother's debts with the citizens of Aix-la-Chapelle. (Sir Henry Ellis, with a little too much knowledge of German geography, places Richard at "Aken on the Elbe." It is, however, perfectly clear that the place of his detention was Aachen--that is, what we generally call Aix-la-Chapelle, but for which both Edmund and Richard adopted various fancy spellings, as, indeed, they did for most of their words, from the simple article upward.) As Richard's fate is so closely bound up with Edmund's, it may be convenient to review at one rapid glance the fortunes of that poor nobleman after his flight in 1501. He first repaired to Imst, in the Tyrol, to seek help from the Emperor Maximilian. The Emperor Maximilian gave him ample encouragement, drew up an agreement, kept his confidential agent as representative at his own Court, and sent him with letters of recommendation to Aix-la-Chapelle, where, hoping to obtain further succour, Edmund managed to outrun the constable, and was fain to leave his brother as pledge. In spring 1502 it was proposed that Edmund, to make good his claim, should land in England from Denmark. In that same year, however, Henry talked over the Emperor, and concluded a treaty with him, by which Maximilian bound himself not to allow any English rebels to reside in his dominions, "even though they be of the rank of dukes." That was, there can be no doubt, specially aimed at Edmund and Richard. Edmund now despaired of help in the quarter appealed to, and transferred his attentions to the Court of the Count Palatine. In 1504 he entered Guelders, with a view to proceeding to Frisia and obtaining pecuniary assistance--so he writes to his pawned brother at Aachen--from Duke George of Saxony. The Duke of Guelders, greedy to secure--as Archduke Philip, his cousin, writes to Henry--the reward which he is likely to receive from Henry, plays the traitor and enters into an intrigue with Philip of Burgundy--it is always the same Philip--who eventually "interns" Edmund at Namur.