As for Edward himself, whatever selfish satisfaction he may have derived from the result of the campaign,--such as Commines has already suggested--it must have weakened his popularity both with his nobles and with his people, whilst it terminated the former cordiality that had existed with his brother of Burgundy. The king of England had now become the pensioner of France, the great {xlviii} absorbing power of that age, which was soon to swallow up England's nearest and best allies, the duchies of Burgundy and Britany. The French pension of 50,000 crowns was, as Commines relates, punctually paid every half-year in the Tower of London; and by a treaty made in Feb. 1478-9 it was renewed for the lives of Edward and Louis, and extended for a hundred years after the death of both princes: which seemed to give it more directly the character of a tribute, a term that Commines says the English applied to it, but which the French indignantly repelled. However, after little more than four years longer, it had answered its purpose, and its payment ceased. The English voluptuary then found himself entirely outwitted by the wily Frenchman. After the duke of Burgundy's death (in 1477) and that of his only daughter the wife of the archduke Maximilian (in 1482) his grand-daughter Margaret of Austria was suddenly betrothed to the Dauphin, in the place of the lady Elizabeth of England. Louis caught at this alliance in order to detach the counties of Burgundy and Artois from the territory of the Netherlands, and annex them to the crown of France; and the turbulent citizens of Ghent, in whose keeping the children[70] of their late sovereign lady were, were ready to make this concession, without the concurrence of the children's father, in order to reduce the power of their princes. This infant bride was then only three years and a half old; and had consequently made her appearance on the stage of life subsequently to the Dauphin's former contract with the English princess.[71]