chapter 1._

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471. The Wars of the Roses.

Beginning with a battle fought at St. Albans on the 23d of May, 1455, England was kept in a pitiable state of civil war, with short intervals of troubled peace, during thirty years. The immediate cause of trouble was in the feebleness of King Henry VI., who succeeded to the throne while an infant, and whose mind, never strong, gave way under the trials of his position when he came to manhood. The control of the government, thus weakly commanded, became a subject of strife between successive factions. The final leaders in such contests were Queen Margaret of Anjou, the energetic consort of the helpless king (with the king himself sometimes in a condition of mind to cooperate with her), on one side, and, on the other side, the Duke of York, who traced his lineage to Edward III., and who had strong claims to the throne if Henry should leave no heir. The battle at St. Albans was a victory for the Yorkists and placed them in power for the next two years, the Duke of York being named Protector. In 1456 the king recovered so far as to resume the reigns of government, and in 1459 there was a new rupture between the factions. The queen's adherents were beaten in the battle of Bloreheath, September 23d of that year; but defections in the ranks of the Yorkists soon obliged the latter to disperse and their leaders, York, Warwick and Salisbury, fled to Ireland and to Calais. In June, 1460, the earls of Warwick, Salisbury and March (the latter being the eldest son of the Duke of York) returned to England and gathered an army speedily, the city of London opening its gates to them. The king's forces were defeated at Northampton (July 10) and the king taken prisoner. A parliament was summoned and assembled in October. Then the Duke of York came over from Ireland, took possession of the royal palace and laid before parliament a solemn claim to the crown. After much discussion a compromise was agreed upon, under which Henry VI. should reign undisturbed during his life and the Duke of York should be his undisputed successor. This was embodied in an act of parliament and received the assent of the king; but queen Margaret who had retired into the north, refused to surrender the rights of her infant son, and a strong party sustained her. The Duke of York attacked these Lancastrian forces rashly, at Wakefield, Dec. 30, 1460, and was slain on the field of a disastrous defeat. The queen's army, then, marching towards London, defeated the Earl of Warwick at St. Albans, February 17, 1461 (the second battle of the war at that place), and recovered possession of the person of the king. But Edward, Earl of March (now become Duke of York, by the death of his father), who had just routed a Lancastrian force at Mortimer's Cross, in Wales, joined his forces with those of Warwick and succeeded in occupying London, which steadily favored his cause. Calling together a council of lords, Edward persuaded them to declare King Henry deposed, on the ground that he had broken the agreement made with the late Duke of York. The next step was to elect Edward king, and he assumed the royal title and state at once. The new king lost no time in marching northwards against the army of the deposed sovereign, which lay near York. On the 27th of March the advanced division of the Lancastrians was defeated at Ferrybridge, and, two days later, their main body was almost destroyed in the fearful battle of Towton,--said to have been the bloodiest encounter that ever took place on English soil. King Henry took refuge in Scotland and Queen Margaret repaired to France. In 1464 Henry reappeared in the north with a body of Scots and refugees and there were risings in his favor in Northumberland, which the Yorkists crushed in the successive battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham. The Yorkist king (Edward IV.) now reigned without much disturbance ntil 1470, when he quarreled with the powerful Earl of Warwick-- the "king-maker," whose strong hand had placed him on the throne. Warwick then passed to the other side, offering his services to Queen Margaret and leading an expedition which sailed from Harfleur in September, convoyed by a French fleet. Edward found himself unprepared to resist the Yorkist risings which welcomed Warwick and he fled to Holland, seeking aid from his brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy. For nearly six months, the kingdom was in the hands of Warwick and the Lancastrians; the unfortunate Henry VI., released from captivity in the Tower, was once more seated on the throne. But on the 14th of March, 1471, Edward reappeared in England, landing at Ravenspur, professing that he came only to recover his dukedom of York. As he moved southwards he gathered a large force of supporters and soon reassumed the royal title and pretensions. London opened its gates to him, and, on the 14th of April--exactly one month after his landing--he defeated his opponents at Barnet, where Warwick, "the king-maker"--the last of the great feudal barons--was slain. Henry, again a captive, was sent back to the Tower. But Henry's dauntless queen, who landed at Weymouth, with a body of French allies on the very day of the disastrous Barnet fight, refused to submit. Cornwall and Devon were true to her cause and gave her an army with which she fought the last battle of the war at Tewksbury on the 4th of May. Defeated and taken prisoner, her young son slain--whether in the battle or after it is unknown--the long contention of Margaret of Anjou ended on that bloody field. A few days later, when the triumphant Yorkist King Edward entered London, his poor, demented Lancastrian rival died suddenly and suspiciously in the Tower. The two parties in the long contention had each assumed the badge of a rose--the Yorkists a white rose, the Lancastrians a red one. Hence the name of the Wars of the Roses. "As early as the time of John of Ghent, the rose was used as an heraldic emblem, and when he married Blanche, the daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, he used the red rose for a device. Edmund of Langley, his brother, the fifth son of Edward III., adopted the white rose in opposition to him; and their followers afterwards maintained these distinctions in the bloody wars of the fifteenth century. There is, however, no authentic account of the precise period when these badges were first adopted."

_Mrs. Hookham, Life and Times of Margaret of Anjou, volume 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _J. Gairdner, Houses of Lancaster and York._

_Sir J. Ramsay, Lancaster and York._

_C. W. Oman; Warwick, the King-maker,