Just at first Edward, duke of York, now known as Edward IV., was too busy with affairs at home to interfere much with them. But when he considered that his throne was secure, he sent messengers to Brittany laden with promises of rewards of all sorts, provided that Henry and his uncle were delivered up to him. However, by this the duke perceived, what he had hardly realised before, that his captives were too valuable to be lightly parted with, and declined to accept Edward's proposals, though he promised that, instead of the freedom they had hitherto enjoyed, his prisoners should now be confined apart, and a strict watch set on them. With this answer Edward at first seemed satisfied. The claws of the young lion were for the moment cut, and the king had more pressing business to attend to. So five years slipped by, and Henry spent many of the hours that hung heavily on his hands in studying Latin, and most likely in reading some of the old romances of Arthur and his knights, which have their root in Brittany. English he never heard spoken, and not often real French; but he loved the Breton tongue, which bore so strong a resemblance to his native Welsh, and could talk it easily to the end of his life. In this way Henry reached his twentieth year before any further attempt was made by Edward to get him into his power. Then the bishop of Bath, Stillington, who shrunk from no employment where money was to be made, arrived at St. Malo, and sent a message to the duke, saying that the king desired all strife between the Houses of York and Lancaster to cease, and to this end he was prepared to give his daughter Elizabeth in marriage to the young earl of Richmond, and to restore to Jasper Tudor the earldom of Pembroke. Fair words; but the ambassadors had secret orders to buy the consent of Francis II. at his own price, the money only to be paid on the delivery of the captives. The duke agreed to everything; he had, so he told the envoys, 'no scruple or doubt in the matter'; but, all the same, after the gold was safe in his hands he contrived to convey a warning to Henry not to trust himself on board the ship. Unluckily for the Yorkists, the wind blew from a contrary quarter, and delayed their departure, and a severe attack of low fever and ague confined Henry to his bed. His uncle, however, guessed the danger he ran, as indeed did Henry himself, though he felt almost too ill to care what happened to him. Things were in this state when, by some means or other, the story of the bargain made by the duke reached the ears of Jean Chevlet, a great Breton noble. Knowing that any moment a change of wind might cost the lives of Henry and his uncle, he bade his swiftest horses to be saddled, and rode at full speed to the court. Without stopping to ask for an audience he strode into the presence of Francis, and pausing before him looked silently and steadily into his eyes. The duke reddened, and moved uneasily in his great carved chair, and at last