PART THE THIRD
Bad deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind; and the English causegained no advantage from the cruel death of Joan of Arc. For a longtime, the war went heavily on. The Duke of Bedford died; the alliancewith the Duke of Burgundy was broken; and Lord Talbot became a greatgeneral on the English side in France. But, two of the consequences ofwars are, Famine--because the people cannot peacefully cultivate theground--and Pestilence, which comes of want, misery, and suffering. Boththese horrors broke out in both countries, and lasted for two wretchedyears. Then, the war went on again, and came by slow degrees to be sobadly conducted by the English government, that, within twenty years fromthe execution of the Maid of Orleans, of all the great French conquests,the town of Calais alone remained in English hands.
While these victories and defeats were taking place in the course oftime, many strange things happened at home. The young King, as he grewup, proved to be very unlike his great father, and showed himself amiserable puny creature. There was no harm in him--he had a greataversion to shedding blood: which was something--but, he was a weak,silly, helpless young man, and a mere shuttlecock to the great lordlybattledores about the Court.
Of these battledores, Cardinal Beaufort, a relation of the King, and theDuke of Gloucester, were at first the most powerful. The Duke ofGloucester had a wife, who was nonsensically accused of practisingwitchcraft to cause the King's death and lead to her husband's coming tothe throne, he being the next heir. She was charged with having, by thehelp of a ridiculous old woman named Margery (who was called a witch),made a little waxen doll in the King's likeness, and put it before a slowfire that it might gradually melt away. It was supposed, in such cases,that the death of the person whom the doll was made to represent, wassure to happen. Whether the duchess was as ignorant as the rest of them,and really did make such a doll with such an intention, I don't know;but, you and I know very well that she might have made a thousand dolls,if she had been stupid enough, and might have melted them all, withouthurting the King or anybody else. However, she was tried for it, and sowas old Margery, and so was one of the duke's chaplains, who was chargedwith having assisted them. Both he and Margery were put to death, andthe duchess, after being taken on foot and bearing a lighted candle,three times round the City, as a penance, was imprisoned for life. Theduke, himself, took all this pretty quietly, and made as little stirabout the matter as if he were rather glad to be rid of the duchess.
But, he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble long. The royalshuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores were very anxious toget him married. The Duke of Gloucester wanted him to marry a daughterof the Count of Armagnac; but, the Cardinal and the Earl of Suffolk wereall for MARGARET, the daughter of the King of Sicily, who they knew was aresolute, ambitious woman and would govern the King as she chose. Tomake friends with this lady, the Earl of Suffolk, who went over toarrange the match, consented to accept her for the King's wife withoutany fortune, and even to give up the two most valuable possessionsEngland then had in France. So, the marriage was arranged, on terms veryadvantageous to the lady; and Lord Suffolk brought her to England, andshe was married at Westminster. On what pretence this queen and herparty charged the Duke of Gloucester with high treason within a couple ofyears, it is impossible to make out, the matter is so confused; but, theypretended that the King's life was in danger, and they took the dukeprisoner. A fortnight afterwards, he was found dead in bed (they said),and his body was shown to the people, and Lord Suffolk came in for thebest part of his estates. You know by this time how strangely liablestate prisoners were to sudden death.
If Cardinal Beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him no good, forhe died within six weeks; thinking it very hard and curious--at eightyyears old!--that he could not live to be Pope.
This was the time when England had completed her loss of all her greatFrench conquests. The people charged the loss principally upon the Earlof Suffolk, now a duke, who had made those easy terms about the RoyalMarriage, and who, they believed, had even been bought by France. So hewas impeached as a traitor, on a great number of charges, but chiefly onaccusations of having aided the French King, and of designing to make hisown son King of England. The Commons and the people being violentagainst him, the King was made (by his friends) to interpose to save him,by banishing him for five years, and proroguing the Parliament. The dukehad much ado to escape from a London mob, two thousand strong, who lay inwait for him in St. Giles's fields; but, he got down to his own estatesin Suffolk, and sailed away from Ipswich. Sailing across the Channel, hesent into Calais to know if he might land there; but, they kept his boatand men in the harbour, until an English ship, carrying a hundred andfifty men and called the Nicholas of the Tower, came alongside his littlevessel, and ordered him on board. 'Welcome, traitor, as men say,' wasthe captain's grim and not very respectful salutation. He was kept onboard, a prisoner, for eight-and-forty hours, and then a small boatappeared rowing toward the ship. As this boat came nearer, it was seento have in it a block, a rusty sword, and an executioner in a black mask.The duke was handed down into it, and there his head was cut off with sixstrokes of the rusty sword. Then, the little boat rowed away to Doverbeach, where the body was cast out, and left until the duchess claimedit. By whom, high in authority, this murder was committed, has neverappeared. No one was ever punished for it.
There now arose in Kent an Irishman, who gave himself the name ofMortimer, but whose real name was JACK CADE. Jack, in imitation of WatTyler, though he was a very different and inferior sort of man, addressedthe Kentish men upon their wrongs, occasioned by the bad government ofEngland, among so many battledores and such a poor shuttlecock; and theKentish men rose up to the number of twenty thousand. Their place ofassembly was Blackheath, where, headed by Jack, they put forth twopapers, which they called 'The Complaint of the Commons of Kent,' and'The Requests of the Captain of the Great Assembly in Kent.' They thenretired to Sevenoaks. The royal army coming up with them here, they beatit and killed their general. Then, Jack dressed himself in the deadgeneral's armour, and led his men to London.
Jack passed into the City from Southwark, over the bridge, and entered itin triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men not to plunder. Havingmade a show of his forces there, while the citizens looked on quietly, hewent back into Southwark in good order, and passed the night. Next day,he came back again, having got hold in the meantime of Lord Say, anunpopular nobleman. Says Jack to the Lord Mayor and judges: 'Will you beso good as to make a tribunal in Guildhall, and try me this nobleman?'The court being hastily made, he was found guilty, and Jack and his mencut his head off on Cornhill. They also cut off the head of his son-in-law, and then went back in good order to Southwark again.
But, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an unpopular lord,they could not bear to have their houses pillaged. And it did so happenthat Jack, after dinner--perhaps he had drunk a little too much--began toplunder the house where he lodged; upon which, of course, his men beganto imitate him. Wherefore, the Londoners took counsel with Lord Scales,who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower; and defended London Bridge, andkept Jack and his people out. This advantage gained, it was resolved bydivers great men to divide Jack's army in the old way, by making a greatmany promises on behalf of the state, that were never intended to beperformed. This _did_ divide them; some of Jack's men saying that theyought to take the conditions which were offered, and others saying thatthey ought not, for they were only a snare; some going home at once;others staying where they were; and all doubting and quarrelling amongthemselves.
Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a pardon, and whoindeed did both, saw at last that there was nothing to expect from hismen, and that it was very likely some of them would deliver him up andget a reward of a thousand marks, which was offered for his apprehension.So, after they had travelled and quarrelled all the way from Southwark toBlackheath, and from Blackheath to Rochester, he mounted a good horse andgalloped away into Sussex. But, there galloped after him, on a betterhorse, one Alexander Iden, who came up with him, had a hard fight withhim, and killed him. Jack's head was set aloft on London Bridge, withthe face looking towards Blackheath, where he had raised his flag; andAlexander Iden got the thousand marks.
It is supposed by some, that the Duke of York, who had been removed froma high post abroad through the Queen's influence, and sent out of theway, to govern Ireland, was at the bottom of this rising of Jack and hismen, because he wanted to trouble the government. He claimed (though notyet publicly) to have a better right to the throne than Henry ofLancaster, as one of the family of the Earl of March, whom Henry theFourth had set aside. Touching this claim, which, being through femalerelationship, was not according to the usual descent, it is enough to saythat Henry the Fourth was the free choice of the people and theParliament, and that his family had now reigned undisputed for sixtyyears. The memory of Henry the Fifth was so famous, and the Englishpeople loved it so much, that the Duke of York's claim would, perhaps,never have been thought of (it would have been so hopeless) but for theunfortunate circumstance of the present King's being by this time quitean idiot, and the country very ill governed. These two circumstancesgave the Duke of York a power he could not otherwise have had.
Whether the Duke knew anything of Jack Cade, or not, he came over fromIreland while Jack's head was on London Bridge; being secretly advisedthat the Queen was setting up his enemy, the Duke of Somerset, againsthim. He went to Westminster, at the head of four thousand men, and onhis knees before the King, represented to him the bad state of thecountry, and petitioned him to summon a Parliament to consider it. Thisthe King promised. When the Parliament was summoned, the Duke of Yorkaccused the Duke of Somerset, and the Duke of Somerset accused the Dukeof York; and, both in and out of Parliament, the followers of each partywere full of violence and hatred towards the other. At length the Dukeof York put himself at the head of a large force of his tenants, and, inarms, demanded the reformation of the Government. Being shut out ofLondon, he encamped at Dartford, and the royal army encamped atBlackheath. According as either side triumphed, the Duke of York wasarrested, or the Duke of Somerset was arrested. The trouble ended, forthe moment, in the Duke of York renewing his oath of allegiance, andgoing in peace to one of his own castles.
Half a year afterwards the Queen gave birth to a son, who was very illreceived by the people, and not believed to be the son of the King. Itshows the Duke of York to have been a moderate man, unwilling to involveEngland in new troubles, that he did not take advantage of the generaldiscontent at this time, but really acted for the public good. He wasmade a member of the cabinet, and the King being now so much worse thathe could not be carried about and shown to the people with any decency,the duke was made Lord Protector of the kingdom, until the King shouldrecover, or the Prince should come of age. At the same time the Duke ofSomerset was committed to the Tower. So, now the Duke of Somerset wasdown, and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, theKing recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the Queenused her power--which recovered with him--to get the Protector disgraced,and her favourite released. So now the Duke of York was down, and theDuke of Somerset was up.
These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole nation into thetwo parties of York and Lancaster, and led to those terrible civil warslong known as the Wars of the Red and White Roses, because the red rosewas the badge of the House of Lancaster, and the white rose was the badgeof the House of York.
The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen of the WhiteRose party, and leading a small army, met the King with another smallarmy at St. Alban's, and demanded that the Duke of Somerset should begiven up. The poor King, being made to say in answer that he wouldsooner die, was instantly attacked. The Duke of Somerset was killed, andthe King himself was wounded in the neck, and took refuge in the house ofa poor tanner. Whereupon, the Duke of York went to him, led him withgreat submission to the Abbey, and said he was very sorry for what hadhappened. Having now the King in his possession, he got a Parliamentsummoned and himself once more made Protector, but, only for a fewmonths; for, on the King getting a little better again, the Queen and herparty got him into their possession, and disgraced the Duke once more.So, now the Duke of York was down again.
Some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these constantchanges, tried even then to prevent the Red and the White Rose Wars. Theybrought about a great council in London between the two parties. TheWhite Roses assembled in Blackfriars, the Red Roses in Whitefriars; andsome good priests communicated between them, and made the proceedingsknown at evening to the King and the judges. They ended in a peacefulagreement that there should be no more quarrelling; and there was a greatroyal procession to St. Paul's, in which the Queen walked arm-in-arm withher old enemy, the Duke of York, to show the people how comfortable theyall were. This state of peace lasted half a year, when a dispute betweenthe Earl of Warwick (one of the Duke's powerful friends) and some of theKing's servants at Court, led to an attack upon that Earl--who was aWhite Rose--and to a sudden breaking out of all old animosities. So,here were greater ups and downs than ever.
There were even greater ups and downs than these, soon after. Aftervarious battles, the Duke of York fled to Ireland, and his son the Earlof March to Calais, with their friends the Earls of Salisbury andWarwick; and a Parliament was held declaring them all traitors. Littlethe worse for this, the Earl of Warwick presently came back, landed inKent, was joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other powerfulnoblemen and gentlemen, engaged the King's forces at Northampton,signally defeated them, and took the King himself prisoner, who was foundin his tent. Warwick would have been glad, I dare say, to have taken theQueen and Prince too, but they escaped into Wales and thence intoScotland.
The King was carried by the victorious force straight to London, and madeto call a new Parliament, which immediately declared that the Duke ofYork and those other noblemen were not traitors, but excellent subjects.Then, back comes the Duke from Ireland at the head of five hundredhorsemen, rides from London to Westminster, and enters the House ofLords. There, he laid his hand upon the cloth of gold which covered theempty throne, as if he had half a mind to sit down in it--but he did not.On the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking him if he would visit the King,who was in his palace close by, he replied, 'I know no one in thiscountry, my lord, who ought not to visit _me_.' None of the lordspresent spoke a single word; so, the duke went out as he had come in,established himself royally in the King's palace, and, six daysafterwards, sent in to the Lords a formal statement of his claim to thethrone. The lords went to the King on this momentous subject, and aftera great deal of discussion, in which the judges and the other lawofficers were afraid to give an opinion on either side, the question wascompromised. It was agreed that the present King should retain the crownfor his life, and that it should then pass to the Duke of York and hisheirs.
But, the resolute Queen, determined on asserting her son's right, wouldhear of no such thing. She came from Scotland to the north of England,where several powerful lords armed in her cause. The Duke of York, forhis part, set off with some five thousand men, a little time beforeChristmas Day, one thousand four hundred and sixty, to give her battle.He lodged at Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, and the Red Roses defied himto come out on Wakefield Green, and fight them then and there. Hisgenerals said, he had best wait until his gallant son, the Earl of March,came up with his power; but, he was determined to accept the challenge.He did so, in an evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, twothousand of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he himself was takenprisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant-hill, and twistedgrass about his head, and pretended to pay court to him on their knees,saying, 'O King, without a kingdom, and Prince without a people, we hopeyour gracious Majesty is very well and happy!' They did worse than this;they cut his head off, and handed it on a pole to the Queen, who laughedwith delight when she saw it (you recollect their walking so religiouslyand comfortably to St. Paul's!), and had it fixed, with a paper crownupon its head, on the walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost hishead, too; and the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy who wasflying with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the heart bya murderous, lord--Lord Clifford by name--whose father had been killed bythe White Roses in the fight at St. Alban's. There was awful sacrificeof life in this battle, for no quarter was given, and the Queen was wildfor revenge. When men unnaturally fight against their own countrymen,they are always observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled withrage than they are against any other enemy.
But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of York--notthe first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of March, was at Gloucester; and,vowing vengeance for the death of his father, his brother, and theirfaithful friends, he began to march against the Queen. He had to turnand fight a great body of Welsh and Irish first, who worried his advance.These he defeated in a great fight at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford,where he beheaded a number of the Red Roses taken in battle, inretaliation for the beheading of the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queenhad the next turn of beheading. Having moved towards London, and fallingin, between St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Dukeof Norfolk, White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose her,and had got the King with them; she defeated them with great loss, andstruck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were in the King'stent with him, and to whom the King had promised his protection. Hertriumph, however, was very short. She had no treasure, and her armysubsisted by plunder. This caused them to be hated and dreaded by thepeople, and particularly by the London people, who were wealthy. As soonas the Londoners heard that Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earlof Warwick, was advancing towards the city, they refused to send theQueen supplies, and made a great rejoicing.
The Queen and her men retreated with all speed, and Edward and Warwickcame on, greeted with loud acclamations on every side. The courage,beauty, and virtues of young Edward could not be sufficiently praised bythe whole people. He rode into London like a conqueror, and met with anenthusiastic welcome. A few days afterwards, Lord Falconbridge and theBishop of Exeter assembled the citizens in St. John's Field, Clerkenwell,and asked them if they would have Henry of Lancaster for their King? Tothis they all roared, 'No, no, no!' and 'King Edward! King Edward!'Then, said those noblemen, would they love and serve young Edward? Tothis they all cried, 'Yes, yes!' and threw up their caps and clappedtheir hands, and cheered tremendously.
Therefore, it was declared that by joining the Queen and not protectingthose two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster had forfeited the crown;and Edward of York was proclaimed King. He made a great speech to theapplauding people at Westminster, and sat down as sovereign of England onthat throne, on the golden covering of which his father--worthy of abetter fate than the bloody axe which cut the thread of so many lives inEngland, through so many years--had laid his hand.