Orleans entered into correspondence with Richard and Maximilian, whom Anne's policy was preventing from gaining the mastery over the Low Countries, and preparations were making for a coalition which would have again brought an English army and the young English king on to the soil of France.

It was to provide against this danger that Anne had received Henry Tudor at the French court when the threat of delivering him up to Richard forced him to quit Britanny after the failure of his first expedition; and she met the new coalition by encouraging the Earl to renew his attack.

Had Richard retained his popularity the attempt must have ended in a failure even more disastrous than before.

But the news of the royal children's murder had slowly spread through the nation, and even the most pitiless shrank aghast before this crowning deed of blood.

The pretence of a constitutional rule too was soon thrown off, and in the opening of 1485 a general irritation was caused by the levy of benevolences in defiance of the statute which had just been passed.