The Wars of the Roses / or, Stories of the Struggle of York and Lancaster
My object in writing this book for boys is to furnish them with a narrative of the struggle between York and Lancaster – a struggle which extended over thirty years, deluged England with blood, cost a hundred thousand lives, emasculated the old nobility, and utterly destroyed the house of Plantagenet.
It is generally admitted that no period in England's history is richer in romantic incident than the three decades occupied by the Wars of the Roses; but the contest is frequently described as having been without interest in a political point of view. This idea seems erroneous. That struggle of thirty years was no mere strife of chiefs, ambitious of supremacy and unscrupulous as to means. Indeed, the circumstances of the country were such that no hand would have been lifted against sovereigns – whether reigning by Parliamentary or hereditary right – who showed a due respect to ancient rights and liberties. But the tyranny exercised, first by the ministers of the sixth Henry, and afterward by those of the fourth Edward – one influenced by Margaret of Anjou, the other by the Duchess of Bedford, both "foreign women" – was such as could not be borne by Englishmen without a struggle; and evidence exists that Richard Neville, in arming the people against these kings, did so to prevent the establishment of that despotism which John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell afterward fought to destroy.
With such impressions as to the origin of the war which, during the fifteenth century, agitated England and perplexed Continental rulers, I have, in the following pages, traced the course of events from the plucking of the roses in the Temple Gardens to the destruction of Richard the Third, and the coronation of Henry Tudor, on Bosworth Field. And I venture to hope that a book written to attract English boys of this generation to a remarkable epoch in the mediæval history of their country will be received with favor, and read with interest, by those for whose perusal it is more particularly intended.
INTRODUCTION
The Plantagenets
About the middle of the ninth century a warrior named Tertullus, having rendered signal services to the King of France, married Petronella, the king's cousin, and had a son who flourished as Count of Anjou. The descendants of Tertullus and Petronella rose rapidly, and exercised much influence on French affairs. At length, in the twelfth century, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, surnamed Plantagenet, from wearing a sprig of flowering broom instead of a feather, espoused Maude, daughter of Henry Beauclerc, King of England; and Henry Plantagenet, their son, succeeded, on the death of Stephen, to the English throne.
Having married Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine, and extended his continental empire from the Channel to the Pyrenees, Henry ranked as the most potent of European princes. But, though enabled to render great services to England, he was not an Englishman; and, indeed, it was not till the death of John, at Swinehead, that the English had a king who could be regarded as one of themselves. That king was Henry the Third, born and educated in England, and sympathizing with the traditions of the people over whom he reigned.
Unfortunately for Henry, he was surrounded by Continental kinsmen, whose conduct caused such discontent that clergy, barons, citizens, and people raised the cry of England for the English; and Simon de Montfort, though foreign himself, undertook to head a movement against foreigners. A barons' war was the consequence. Henry, defeated at Lewes, became a prisoner in the hands of the oligarchy; and there was some prospect of the crown passing from the house of Plantagenet to that of Montfort.
At this crisis, however, Edward, eldest son of the king, escaped from captivity, destroyed the oligarchy in the battle of Evesham, and entered upon his great and glorious career. Space would fail us to expatiate on the services which, when elevated to the throne as Edward the First, that mighty prince rendered to England. Suffice it to say that he gave peace, prosperity, and freedom to the people, formed hostile races into one great nation, and rendered his memory immortal by the laws which he instituted.1
For the country which the first Edward rendered prosperous and free, the third Edward and his heroic son won glory in those wars which made Englishmen, for a time, masters of France. Unhappily, the Black Prince died before his father; and his only son, who succeeded when a boy as Richard the Second, departed from right principles of government. This excited serious discontent, and led the English people to that violation of "the lineal succession of their monarchs" which caused the Wars of the Roses.
Besides the Black Prince, the conqueror of Cressy had by his queen, Philippa – the patroness of Froissart – several sons, among whom were Lionel, Duke of Clarence; John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; and Edmund of Langley, Duke of York.2 Lionel died early; but John of Gaunt survived his father and eldest brother, and was suspected of having an eye to the crown which his young nephew wore. No usurpation, however, was attempted. But when John was in the grave, his son, Henry of Bolingbroke, returning from an irksome exile, deposed Richard, and sent him prisoner to Pontefract Castle, where he is understood to have been murdered.
On the death of Richard, who was childless, Henry the Fourth, as son of John of Gaunt, would have had hereditary right on his side, but that Lionel of Clarence had left a daughter, Philippa, wife of Mortimer, Earl of March, and ancestress of three successive earls. Of these, Edmund, the last earl, was a boy when Henry of Bolingbroke usurped the throne; and his sister, Anne Mortimer, was wife of Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cambridge, second son of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. "This was that princely branch," says Sandford, "by the ingrafting of which into the stock of York, that tree brought forth not only White Roses, but crowns and sceptres also."
Henry the Fourth regarded young March with jealousy, and had him vigilantly guarded. But Henry the Fifth completely won the earl's loyalty, and made him a most zealous adherent. March showed no ambition to reign; and the nation, intoxicated with Agincourt and glory and conquest, cared not an iota for his claims. At the time when the hero-king expired at Vincennes and the Earl of March died in England the dynastic dispute was scarcely remembered, and it would never, in all probability, have been revived had the Lancastrian government not become such as could not be submitted to without degradation. It was when law and decency were defied, and when Englishmen were in danger of being enslaved by a "foreign woman," that they remembered the true heir of the Plantagenets and took up arms to vindicate his claims.
CHAPTER I
THE MONK-MONARCH AND HIS MISLEADERS
On St. Nicholas's Day, in the year 1421, there was joy in the castle of Windsor and rejoicing in the city of London. On that day Katherine de Valois, youthful spouse of the fifth Henry, became mother of a prince destined to wear the crown of the Plantagenets; and courtiers vied with citizens in expressing gratification that a son had been born to the conqueror of Agincourt – an heir to the kingdoms of England and France.
Henry of Windsor, whose birth was hailed with a degree of enthusiasm which no similar event had excited in England, was doomed to misfortune from his cradle. He was not quite nine months old when Henry the Fifth departed this life at Vincennes; and he was still an infant when Katherine de Valois forgot her hero-husband and all dignity for the sake of a Welsh soldier with a handsome person and an imaginary pedigree. The young king, however, was the beloved of a thousand hearts. As son of a hero who had won imperishable glory for England, the heir of Lancaster was regarded by Englishmen with sincere affection; the legitimacy of his title even was unquestioned; and the genius of his uncles, John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, under whose auspices the royal boy was crowned in London and Paris, created a feeling of security seldom felt by kingdoms at the beginning of long minorities.
For a time the aspect of affairs was cheering. At a critical period, however, Bedford expired at Rouen; and ere long England was distracted by a feud between Gloucester and that spurious son of John of Gaunt, known in history as Cardinal Beaufort, and as chief of a house which then enjoyed the dukedom of Somerset. Gloucester charged the cardinal with contempt for the laws of the realm; and the cardinal avenged himself by accusing Gloucester's duchess of endeavoring to destroy the king by witchcraft, and banishing her to the Isle of Man. It soon appeared that the rivalry between Duke Humphrey and his illegitimate kinsman would involve the sovereign and