The Wars of the Roses

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 people of England in serious disasters.

Nature had not gifted Henry of Windsor with the capacity which would have enabled a sovereign to reconcile such foes. Never had the Confessor's crown been placed on so weak a head. Never had the Conqueror's sceptre been grasped by so feeble a hand. The son of the fifth Henry was more of a monk than a monarch, and in every respect better qualified for the cloister than for courts and camps. In one respect, however, the king's taste was not monastic. Notwithstanding his monkish tendencies he did not relish the idea of celibacy; and the rival chiefs, perceiving his anxiety to marry, cast their eyes over Europe to discover a princess worthy of enacting the part of Queen of England.

Gloucester was the first to take the business in hand. Guided at once by motives of policy and patriotism, he proposed to unite his nephew to a daughter of the Count of Armagnac; and he trusted, by an alliance, to allure that powerful French noble to the English interest. The king did not object to the Armagnac match. Before striking a bargain, however, he felt a natural desire to know something of the appearance of his future spouse; and with this view he employed a painter to furnish portraits of the count's three daughters. Before the portraits could be executed circumstances put an end to the negotiations. In fact, the dauphin, as the English still called the seventh Charles of France, having no reason to regard the proposed marriage with favor, placed himself at the head of an army, seized upon the count and his daughters, and carried them off as prisoners of state.

Meanwhile, Beaufort was not idle. Eager to mortify Gloucester and increase his own influence, the aged cardinal was bent on uniting the king to Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René of Provence, and niece of the French monarch. René, indeed, though titular sovereign of Jerusalem and the two Sicilies, was poor, and Margaret, albeit the Carlovingian blood flowed in her veins, was portionless. But, though not favored by fortune, the Provençal princess was richly endowed by nature; and, young as she was, the unrivaled beauty and intellect of King René's daughter had made her name familiar in France and famous in England.

Never was an intriguer more successful than Beaufort. While Gloucester was negotiating with the Count of Armagnac, the cardinal, aware of Margaret's charms, contrived to have a likeness of the princess transmitted to the court of England; and the young king became so enamored of the fair being whom the portrait represented that his wish to espouse her could not decently be combated. Matrimonial negotiations were therefore resolved on; and William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, was sent as embassador to bring home the princess. René drove a hard bargain. Before consenting to the marriage he insisted on the restoration of Maine and Anjou, which were among the Continental conquests that the English were in no humor to surrender. But Suffolk, who was thinking more of his own interests than of his country's honor, yielded without scruple; and the marriage of King René's daughter was made the basis of a treaty which could not fail to prove unpopular. At first, however, no complaint was uttered. Suffolk brought the royal bride to England, and declared, in allusion to her poverty, that her beauty and intellect were worth more than all the gold in the world.

One day in April, 1445, the marriage of Henry of Windsor and Margaret of Anjou was solemnized at the Abbey of Tichfield – the bridegroom being in his twenty-fourth, the bride in her sixteenth year. The religious ceremony having been performed, the wedded pair were conducted to the capital of their dominions, and the English, being then devotedly loyal, were prepared to welcome the spouse of young Henry to London with an enthusiasm which could hardly fail to intoxicate so young a princess. The nobles, displaying all the pride and pomp of feudalism, wore the queen's badge in honor of her arrival. At Greenwich, Gloucester, as first prince of the blood, though known to have been averse to the match, paid his respects, attended by five hundred men, dressed in her livery. At Blackheath appeared the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs of London, arrayed in scarlet robes, and mounted on horseback, to escort her through Southwark into the city. Passing under triumphal arches to Westminster, she was crowned in the Abbey; and that ceremony was the occasion of general rejoicing. The shows, the pageants, the tournaments, the display of feudal banners by the nobles, and loud applause of the populace might well have led the royal pair to prognosticate a life of peace and happiness. Nobody, who witnessed the universal joy, could have supposed that England was on the eve of the bloodiest dynastic struggle recorded in her history.

In fact, the people of England, knowing nothing of the restitution of Maine and Anjou, were at first delighted with their queen, and enraptured with her beauty. Her appearance was such as could hardly fail to please the eye and touch the heart. Imagine a princess in her teens, singularly accomplished, with a fair complexion, soft, delicate features, bright, expressive eyes, and golden hair flowing over ivory shoulders; place a crown upon her head, which seemed to have been formed to wear such a symbol of power; array her graceful figure in robes of state, and a mantle of purple fastened with gold and gems; and you will have before your mind's eye the bride of Henry of Windsor, as on the day of her coronation she appeared among peers and prelates and high-born dames in the Abbey of Westminster.

Unfortunately for Margaret of Anjou, her prudence and intelligence were not equal to her wit and beauty. Ere two years passed the popularity she enjoyed vanished into empty air; but she was a woman of defiant courage, and far from taking any pains to regain the affections of the people, she openly manifested her dislike of Gloucester, who was their favorite and their idol. Indeed, the young queen never could forgive the duke's opposition to her marriage; and she listened readily to the counsels of Beaufort and Suffolk, who, in the spring of 1447, resolved, at all hazards, to accomplish his ruin.

With this view, a parliament was summoned to meet at Bury St. Edmunds; and Gloucester, suspecting no snare, rode thither, with a small retinue, from the castle of Devizes. At first, nothing occurred to raise his apprehension; but, in a few days, to his surprise, he found himself arrested by the Constable of England, on the charge of conspiracy to murder the king and seize the crown.

Gloucester was never brought to trial; and it was said that Suffolk and the cardinal, finding that every body ridiculed the charge of conspiracy, caused "The Good Duke" to be assassinated. Appearances rather strengthened the popular suspicion. One evening, about the close of February, Gloucester was in perfect health: next morning he was found dead in bed. The indecent haste with which Suffolk seized upon the duke's estates was commented on with severity; and Margaret of Anjou shared the suspicion that had been excited.

The cardinal did not long survive the man who was believed to have been his victim. Early in the month of April, Beaufort died in despair, bitterly reproaching his riches, that they could not prolong his life; and Suffolk, now without a rival, so conducted himself as to incur the perfect hatred of the nation. The English people had a peculiar aversion to favorites, and remembered that while weak sovereigns, like the third Henry and the second Edward, had been ruined by such creatures, great kings, like the first and third Edward, had done excellently well without them. Suffolk was every day more and more disliked; and in 1449 his unpopularity reached the highest point.

The position of Suffolk now became perilous. Impatient at their Continental reverses, and exasperated at the loss of Rouen, the people exhibited a degree of indignation that was overwhelming, and the duke, after being attacked in both houses of Parliament, found himself committed to the Tower. When brought to the bar of the Lords, Suffolk, aware of his favor at court, threw himself on the mercy of the king; and, every thing having been arranged, the lord chancellor, in Henry's name, sentenced him to five years' banishment. The peers protested against this proceeding as unconstitutional; and the populace were so furious at the idea of the traitor escaping, that, on the day of his liberation, they assembled in St. Giles's Fields to the number of two thousand, with the intention of bringing him to justice. But Suffolk evaded their vigilance, and, at Ipswich, embarked for the Continent.

On the 2d of May, 1450, however, as the banished duke was sailing between Dover and Calais, he was stopped by an English man-of-war, described as the Nicholas of the Tower, and ordered to come immediately on board. As soon as Suffolk set foot on deck, the master of the Nicholas exclaimed, "Welcome, traitor;" and, for two days, kept his captive in suspense. On the third day, however, the duke was handed into a cock-boat, in which appeared an executioner, an axe, and a block; and the death's-man, having without delay cut off the head of the disgraced minister, contemptuously cast the headless trunk on the sand.

While England's sufferings, from disasters abroad and discord at home, were thus avenged on the queen's favorite, the king was regarded with pity and compassion. Henry, in fact, was looked upon as the victim of fate; and a prophecy, supposed to have been uttered by his father, was cited to account for all his misfortunes. The hero-king, according to rumor, had, on hearing of his son's birth at Windsor, shaken his head, and remarked prophetically, "I, Henry of Monmouth, have gained much in my short reign; Henry of Windsor shall reign much longer, and lose all. But God's will be done."

Margaret of Anjou shared her favorite's unpopularity; and, when she reached the age of twenty, the crown which had been placed on her head amid so much applause became a crown of thorns. Exasperated at the loss of their Continental conquests, Englishmen recalled to mind that she was a kinswoman and protégée of the King of France; and when it was known that, to secure her hand for their sovereign, Maine and Anjou had been surrendered, sturdy patriots described her as the cause of a humiliating peace, and, with bitter emphasis, denounced her as "The Foreign Woman."

These men were not altogether unreasonable. In fact, the case proved much worse for England than even they anticipated; and, ere long, France was gratified with a thorough revenge on the foe by whom she had been humbled to the dust, from having placed on the Plantagenets' throne a princess capable, by pride and indiscretion, of rousing a civil war that ruined the Plantagenets' monarchy.

CHAPTER II

THE DUKE OF YORK AND THE KING-MAKER

When Suffolk fell a victim to the popular indignation, Richard, Duke of York, first prince of the blood, was governing Ireland, with a courage worthy of his high rank, and a wisdom worthy of his great name. Indeed, his success was such as much to increase the jealousy with which the queen had ever regarded the heir of the Plantagenets.

York was descended, in the male line, from Edmund of Langley, fifth son of the third Edward, and was thus heir-presumptive to the crown which the meek Henry wore. But the duke had another claim, which rendered him more formidable than, as heir-presumptive, he would ever have made himself; for, through his mother, Anne Mortimer, daughter of an Earl of March, he inherited the blood of Lionel of Clarence, elder brother of John of Gaunt, and, in this way, could advance claims to the English crown, which, in a hereditary point of view, were infinitely superior to those of the house of Lancaster.

Richard Plantagenet was nearly ten years older than King Henry. He first saw the light in 1412; and, when a mere child, became, by the execution of his father, the Earl of Cambridge, at Southampton, and the fall of his uncle, the Duke of York, at Agincourt, heir of Edmund of Langley. His father's misfortune placed Richard, for a time, under attainder; but after the accession of Henry the dignities of the house of York were restored; and in 1424, on the death of Edmund, last of the Earls of March, the young Plantagenet succeeded to the feudal power of the house of Mortimer.

An illustrious pedigree and a great inheritance rendered York a most important personage; and, as years passed over, he was, by Gloucester's influence, appointed Regent of France. In that situation the duke bore himself like a brave leader in war and a wise ruler in peace; but, as it was feared that he would obstruct the surrender of Maine and Anjou, he was displaced by Suffolk, and succeeded by the Duke of Somerset, who, it was well known, would be most accommodating.

When York returned to England, the queen, not relishing a rival so near the throne, determined to send him out of the way. She, therefore, caused the duke to be appointed, for ten years, to the government of Ireland, and then dispatched armed men to seize him on the road and imprison him in the castle of Conway. York, however, was fortunate enough to escape the queen's snares; and, reaching Ireland in safety, he not only gave peace to that country, but, by his skillful policy, won much favor among the inhabitants.

Time passed on; and the disappearance of Suffolk, of Beaufort, of Gloucester, and of Bedford from the theatre of affairs opened up a new scene. As minister of the king and favorite of the queen, Beaufort and Suffolk were succeeded by Somerset; as first prince of blood and hero of the people, Bedford and Gloucester were succeeded by York. Moreover, the absence of the duke from the country caused much discontent. "If," said the people, "he who brought the wild, savage Irish to civil fashions and English urbanity once ruled in England, he would depose evil counselors, correct evil judges, and reform all unamended matters."

Firmly established the house of Lancaster then was; but York had friends sufficiently powerful to make him a formidable rival to any dynasty. In youth he had married Cicely, daughter of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmoreland; and, of all the English magnates of the fifteenth century, the Nevilles, who drew strength at once from an illustrious Saxon origin and distinguished Norman alliances, were by far the most powerful and popular.

The Nevilles derived the descent, in the male line, from the Anglo-Saxon Earls of Northumberland. Their ancestor, Cospatrick, figured in youth at the court of Edward the Confessor, and, relishing neither the sway of Harold the Usurper, nor of William the Conqueror, passed most of his life in adversity and exile. After much suffering he died at Norham, on the south bank of the Tweed, and left two sons, who were more fortunate. One of these founded the house of Dunbar, whose chiefs for hundreds of years flourished with honor and renown; the other was grandfather of Robert Fitzmaldred, who married the heiress of the Nevilles, and was progenitor of that proud family, whose seat was long at Raby. About the beginning of the fifteenth century the house of Dunbar fell, and great was the fall thereof. About the beginning of the fifteenth century the Nevilles attained to the earldom of Westmoreland, and to a point of grandeur unrivaled among the nobles of England.

Among the chiefs of the house of Neville, Ralph, first Earl of Westmoreland, was one of the most important. His possessions were so extensive that, besides the castle of his Anglo-Saxon ancestors and those of Brancepath, Middleham, and Sheriff Hutton, inherited through Norman heiresses of great name, he possessed about fifty manor-houses; and his feudal following was so grand that, at times, he assembled in the great hall at Raby no fewer than seven hundred knights, who lived on his lands in time of peace, and followed his banner in war. Even the earl's children were more numerous than those of his neighbors. He was twice married; and the Duchess of York, known among northern men as "The Rose of Raby," was the youngest of a family of twenty-two. John Neville, Ralph's eldest son by his first countess, was progenitor of those chiefs who, as Earls of Westmoreland, maintained baronial rank at Raby, till one of them risked and lost all in the great northern rebellion against Elizabeth. Richard Neville, Ralph's eldest son by his second countess, obtained the hand of the heiress of the Montagues, and with her hand their earldom of Salisbury and their vast possessions.