After appearing for some time utterly unsuspicious, Edward, in 1480, resolved on sending an embassador to Paris, and Sir John Howard was selected as the man to urge a speedy celebration of the marriage. The plans of Louis were not then quite ripe, but his statecraft did not desert him; and, at length, after Howard had for some time been silenced by bribes, and Edward deluded by flattering assurances, he set the treaty of Picquigny at defiance, and contracted a marriage between the dauphin and a daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. Fortunately for Louis, Edward was a much less formidable personage than of yore. Since returning from his French expedition, the English king had given himself up to luxury and indolence. He had drunk deep, kept late hours, sat long over the wine-cup, and gratified his sensual inclinations with little regard either to his dignity as a king or his honor as a man. Dissipation and debauchery had ruined his health and obscured his intellect. Even his appearance was changed for the worse. His person had become corpulent, and his figure had lost its grace. He was no longer the Edward of Towton or of Tewkesbury. On discovering, however, how completely he had been duped, Edward displayed some sparks of the savage valor which, in other days, had made him so terrible a foe. Rousing himself to projects of revenge, he vowed to carry such a war into France as that country had never before experienced, and commenced preparations for executing his threats. As his resentment appeared implacable, Louis deemed it prudent to find him work nearer home; and, with this object, excited the King of Scots to undertake a war against England. Some successes achieved by Gloucester in Scotland emboldened Edward in his projects. It happened, however, that he did not live even to attempt the execution of his threats. The excess of his rage against Louis had been such as seriously to affect his health; and, about Easter, 1483, in his forty-second year, the warlike king was laid prostrate with a fever in the Palace of Westminster. Stretched on a bed of sickness, the king found his constitution rapidly giving way; and, losing faith in the skill of his physicians, he referred his quarrel with Louis to the judgment of GOD, and summoned the lords of his court to bid them farewell. The king, indeed, could not fail to be anxious as to the fortunes of the family he was leaving. Ever since his ill-starred marriage the court had been distracted by the feuds of the queen's kindred and the old nobility of England. The death of Warwick and the judicial murder of Clarence had by no means restored harmony. At the head of one party figured the queen's brother, Earl Rivers, and her son, the Marquis of Dorset; at the head of the other was the Duke of Buckingham, with whom sided the Lords Stanley and Hastings. Difficult as the task might be, Edward hoped to reconcile the hostile factions ere going to his grave.