And here we touch a point, in the relations between Burgundy and France, which is the point on which the final result of these relations turned. The result was that France, under Louis XI., gained a complete victory and that he became really sovereign over the land in which the sovereignty of the French kings had been disputed very long and very hardly. But the point on which the relations turned towards that result is indicated by the very title given to Charles of Burgundy, "the Bold," while the extraordinary character of the King of France is hinted by the means he employed to get rid of Edward and the English army. He made appeal to the chief desire of Edward's heart, the love of money. Louis is known in history as perhaps the master diplomat and schemer of all the many that its pages show us. He was a master in detecting and in playing upon the weaknesses of men's characters. So he played on Edward's avarice. Against this cunning and scheming, for which the king had a genius, his great vassal had perhaps in excess that quality of boldness which his title implies. He was over-venturesome and hasty, and Louis waited and schemed, like a spider in the web's centre, and finally sucked the blood of the buzzing impetuous fly. [Sidenote: The first Tudor king] The claims of the first Tudor king to the throne of {205} England will be seen to be none too sound, if looked at critically. Largely it was Henry's own ability that enabled him to establish himself and to make a final end of the opposition and rebellions after he had been for twelve years king. It was an ability and strength of purpose characteristic of all his successors until the throne of England passed from the Tudors to the Scottish Stuarts. Yet always the despotism of the English kings differed from that of the French kings in this important point: that whereas the French kings had their foot on the necks of both barons and commons, in England even those who were most autocratic over their nobility always kept a wary eye on their commons, and not even Mary in her zeal for the Roman Catholic religion dared to go too far in opposition to the feeling of the country. {206} CHAPTER XXII THE TEUTON AND THE SLAV Thus we have traced in outline the course of the great story up to, or about, the year 1500, in respect of three of the nations which were among the foremost actors in it, England, France, and Spain. We have seen each of them establishing themselves within something very like the national boundaries which enclose them to-day. England and Scotland have not yet come into union, but the Tweed is in 1500, as now, the boundary river between them.