 Section 1 of the Wars of the Roses 1377-1471 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Pamela Nagami M.D. The Wars of the Roses 1377-1471 by Robert Balmain Moat Preface The medieval and modern history of England are divided from one another by the Wars of the Roses. Out of the troubles of that time, a New England arose. The period has been described by the historian Stubbs in a memorable passage. Weak as is the 14th century, the 15th is weaker still, more feudal, more bloody, more immoral. But out of the weakness came strength. The Wars of the Roses were a rough schooling to England, but they ushered in the glories of the Tudor Reigns. It was a period when in Europe, national states were slowly being evolved with autocratic monarchs and consolidated governments. Spain grew to unity and strength through her great conflict with the wars. France, in the first half of the 15th century, suffered dreadfully both from civil and from foreign wars. Out of these grew the centralized government of Louis XI. England, too, had her period of internecine war, during which she got rid of many troublesome elements and emerged a strong consolidated state. In this, England was more fortunate than other countries. The caste nobility was almost completely exterminated, and the country gentlemen in the middle classes stepped into their place in the local government of the country. A new nobility had to be formed, recruited from the best servants of the state. In the century following the Wars of the Roses, England prospered under a strong monarchy, a nobility of service, and a wealthy middle class. Thus she was able to go through the tremendous crisis of the Reformation without the internal conflicts which devastated other countries. It is therefore as being the death of the Old England and the beginning of the new, that the Wars of the Roses have their great interest. End of Section 1. Section 2 of the Wars of the Roses by Robert Balmain-Moet. This Librovox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 1. The Family Settlement of Edward III. There were many causes which produced the unhappy troubles in England known as the Wars of the Roses, but there were two things in particular without which these troubles could never have occurred. One was the family settlement of Edward III. The other was the over mighty subject. These two things were intimately connected with each other. By his family settlement Edward III endowed his sons with great lands and inheritances, and so the royal house was split up into several powerful families, not necessarily in agreement with one another. At the same time certain other noble families grew so wealthy and powerful that in time their influence rivaled and sometimes surpassed that of the king. Some of them too became connected by blood with the royal house. Gradually as the 15th century went on a curious situation arose. In Spain the nobles used to say that they were of as good birth as the king only less rich, but in 15th century England some of the nobles might have said that they were of as good blood as the king only richer. Toward the end of the Wars of the Roses the great constitutional lawyer Fortescue gravely wrote that if law and order in the kingdom were to be assured it was necessary that the king's income should be greater than that of a great lord. It appears that Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known to history as the king-maker, had much more money to spare than the king had for the leveeing of troops. But the over mighty subject is a feature of the later 15th century. The family settlement of Edward III was in the later 14th. Edward III, the patriarch of the Lancastrian and Yorkist houses had twelve children, two of whom died in infancy. His surviving children were five sons and five daughters. Of the sons the eldest Edward born at Woodstock in 1330 became famous as the Black Prince. He died before coming to the throne but left one son King Richard II who died childless and so this line became extinct. The second son was Lionel born at Antwerp in 1338. Lionel left only a daughter who married Edward Mortimer Earl of March on the Welsh border. This line too ended in a female Anne who married back into the royal family by espousing her first cousin twice removed Richard Earl of Cambridge, the head of the Yorkist house. The third son was John born at Ghent or Gaunt in 1340. John was married thrice and left many children and founded several important families, the most famous of which is known as the House of Lancaster. This came through John's eldest son Henry of Lancaster or King Henry IV whose son and grandson successively reigned before the line came to an end. The fourth son was Edmund born in Kings Langley in Hertfordshire in 1342. Edmund's son Richard Earl of Cambridge married Anne Mortimer as stated above the surviving representative of Lionel of Antwerp. The fifth son was Thomas born at Woodstock in 1355. His only male heir died without issue in 1399. All these sons were prominent figures in history throughout their lives, all with the exception of Edmund of Langley were ambitious and desirous of power. All had great estates by the gift of their father and by marriage. If one of them became king it was not unlikely that the other members of the royal family would be strong enough to try to control the throne. Edward of Woodstock was made Prince of Wales Earl of Chester and Duke of Cornwall. Lionel of Antwerp was created Earl of Clarence that is of Clare a great territorial honor in Suffolk. This property came to him through his marriage with the heiress of Clare in 1352. With her also came the great Irish estates of her family in Ulster. These estates when united in the next century with the Mortimer estates in the Welsh March formed a substantial part of the endowment of the Yorkist House. John of Gaunt was Duke of Lancaster a position which carried with it exceptional territorial privileges in that part of England. He was Earl of three counties Darby, Leicester and Lincoln and had honors and estates in nearly every county in England. Edmund of Langley was Duke of York and held estates both in the north and in the home counties. When his line united with that of Lionel of Antwerp the combined inheritance was enormous. The last was Thomas of Woodstock Duke of Gloucester who had large estates not merely in Gloucester but in Buckingham of which he was Earl and in Northampton in Essex. Thus Edward III by his family settlement set up five great royal houses in England by the extinction of the first line in 1400 at the death of Richard II of the fifth line by the death of the young Duke of Gloucester in 1399 and by the union of the second and fourth lines through the marriage of Anne Mortimer and Richard of Cambridge in 1410 these royal houses were reduced to two. There was no apparent superiority of one to the other either in birth or wealth. With their friends and supporters they divided England between them. This plan of allotting great appanages to the younger members of the royal family has often been tried in England, France and Germany and the result has always been bad. In the early days of the Norman rule William the Conqueror left England to his second son William Rufus and Normandy to his eldest son Robert. On William II's death England was held by his younger brother Henry but Normandy still remained with Robert. The result of this division of the Norman power was fifteen years of warfare within the royal family. Again toward the end of the 12th century Henry II gave great appanages to his sons. The eldest young Henry was reserved for the throne of England but Akiten was given to Richard and by a fortunate marriage Brittany was secured to Geoffrey. The result was rebellion and civil war within the royal house increased by the efforts of the youngest John Lackland to establish himself like his brothers in some great appanage. In France the donation of Burgundy by King John the Good to his second son Philip the Bold in 1363 set up the practically independent line of Burgundian dukes, who in the course of their feud with the Orleanist branch of the royal family plunged France into civil war, the strife of Burgundians against Arminyaks. In Germany certain ruling houses adopted the system of creating appanages. Thus the rulers of Saxony created duchies for their younger sons with the result that at one time or another there have been in existence at least eighteen different Saxon duchies, not one of them of course being really strong. So too in the sixteenth century appanages were created for the younger Habsburg princes with the result that the central power was weakened and even domestic warfare was not unknown. The reasons why this unfortunate practice of making appanages has so often been adopted are probably three. In the first place kings like any other men are moved by affection for their children and may not like their younger sons to suffer merely because they were born later than their eldest brother. In the second place it has often been thought necessary for the dignity of the royal family that all the princes of the blood should hold great territories and be almost equal to the head of the house. In the same way the great Napoleon planted out his own brothers as rulers of conquered states. In the third place it has often been thought that the appanages would strengthen the royal house as a whole and would prove useful allies of the king and strenuous supporters of the crown. This last idea was probably very strong with Edward III when he carried out his family settlement. The early Plantagenets had found the nobles too strong. The great territorial baronage had limited the kingly power. But these great baronial families often ended in an heiress. What could be better for the king's purpose than to join one of his sons to such an heiress so that her great estates should be held by a member of the royal house? Her powerful family influence wielded by a prince of the blood. Edward III thought that by this means the old centrifugal feudal spirit would be done away with and superseded by family loyalty by the strong ties of blood and interest which bound the younger sons to the head of the house to the crown. But it was the contrary that happened. The old rebellious feudal spirit was not superseded by a firm family allegiance to the crown. On the contrary, the natural family affection and interest of the younger princes were drawn away into the old feudal spirit. The families of the younger princes became separatist and territorial, rivals of the crown like the old feudal baronage but stronger because they accumulated more territories and because by birth they were royal. The princes in the first generation might like John of Gaunt remain loyal to their head, but the second and third generation felt no such close tie. End of Section 2. Section 3 of The Wars of the Roses by Robert Balmain-Moet. This Lubrovox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 2. Constitutional History of the Lancasterian Dynasty. Edward III died in the year 1377. His eldest son Edward of Windsor whom later ages have called the Black Prince was already dead. So the old king was succeeded by his grandson Richard, only son of the Black Prince. Richard's reign was a stormy one. He was a young man of great ideas and high ambitions, but his uncles would not let him rule freely. Already the results of the family settlement of Edward III were beginning to show themselves. The chief danger came from the youngest uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, the fifth son of Edward III. Thomas was the Duke of Gloucester, a man of strong will and great wealth and influence. It was he who at the head of some of the greatest barons under the name of Lord's appellant, curbed the powers of the young Richard and kept him in a strict tutelage from 1387 to 1389. But in the last year Richard shook off the Lord's appellant and for eight years ruled well by himself. But in 1397 he began to act in an arbitrary fashion. A series of unconstitutional acts lost him the confidence of many people and in 1399 his cousin, Henry of Lancaster, was able to carry out the revolution in which Richard was deposed and Henry elevated to the throne. Henry was another member of the royal family at great possessions. His father, John of Gaunt had many estates, a Lancastrian belt, which stretched across England from the Duchy of Lancaster to Essex. John had remained faithful to his nephew Richard, but his son Henry had been one of the Lord's appellant who for a time controlled the king. Richard by stretching his barockative had made Henry an exile in 1398. Next year Henry landed at the mouth of the Humber to enter into possession of the estates of his father who had just died. Within three months, on September 30th, Henry had been recognized as king in Parliament. Richard was a prisoner and died in February 1400 in Pontefract Castle. Thus began the rule of the Lancastrian branch of the ancient Plantagenet family. Henry IV was able to come to the throne not merely because he was a prince of the royal blood, but because he was a man of great possessions being through his father heir to all the Lancastrian inheritance and through his wife Mary de Buen heir to a great part of the Buen inheritance in Hereford Essex, Northampton. Thus the family settlement of Edward III was already working out its effect. Already the legitimate king had been dispossessed by a prince who had the wealth and the influence and the ambition of a great territorial magnate combined with the claims that attached to royal birth. Sixty years later the family settlement was to achieve another revolution when another prince who was also one of the greatest territorial magnates was to dispossess a king whose wealth and influence were not so great as his. Henry IV claimed the crown on two grounds. Firstly as being descended from King Henry III, secondly as being acknowledged by Parliament to save the realm from default of governance and undoing of the laws. The first part of his claim can scarcely have been meant as giving him a prior right to everyone else. There were other princes who were descended from Henry III. But Henry IV claimed his descent not so much through his father John of Gaunt as through his mother Blanche of Lancaster who was descended from Edmund Crouchback, second son of Henry III. The young Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, grandson of Philippa of Clarence, was descended from Edward I, the elder son of Henry III To do away with this difficulty it was pretended by the Lancastrians that Edmund Crouchback, not Edward I, was really the elder son of Henry III but was passed over because of his supposed deformity. Few people, however, believe this story. So the real title of Henry IV to the throne was a parliamentary one. He did think of claiming the throne by right of conquest but his wise advisor, Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, dissuaded him from taking this course for to hold the crown by conquest would be to nullify all previously existing law of the land and to start an entirely new state of things. Such a course would have been fatal to the new dynasty as a revolution is only acquiesced in by people who have anything to lose if titles and property are guaranteed and the law of the land is maintained. The Lancastrian title therefore depended on the recognition of parliament given in September and October 1399. The fact that there was an elder branch of the Plantagenet family in existence did not in any way invalidate the parliamentary title of the king which was a good one in law and according to the ancient customs of the realm just as the title of the house of Brunswick established by the act of settlement in the year 1701 was not invalid because there was a family of prior descent and existence namely the stewards. The governing classes of the country accepted Henry IV as king because they were afraid for their property and for their religion. Richard II at the end of his reign had made himself an absolute monarch and the property classes could not feel themselves safe from his power. Through his first wife Anne of Bohemia who had been brought under the influence of John Huss he had been attracted by the new religious thought known in England as Lallardy. The Lallards attacked the doctrine and the property of the church. Their views on property seemed to have extended sometimes from disendowment of the church to disendowment of all the property classes. Thus people who had anything to lose and people who were attached to the medieval church welcomed the landcastrian dynasty as being an orthodox family that would preserve both church and state. It may almost be said that Henry IV and his successors were kings by a sort of contract. They owed their title to parliament and the conditions of their ruling were that they should give good government, that they should be constitutional in their methods, taking always the advice of their counselors and parliament and that they should be orthodox and good churchmen. To the best of their ability the landcastrians strove all through to carry out their understanding. They were loyal to the church, they persecuted the heretics, they preserved the property of the religious corporations and they established and endowed new pious communities. So the churchmen as a whole stood by them and all the chroniclers who were ecclesiastics speak well of them. But though they satisfied the churchmen they could not satisfy the laymen. The nobles and the middle classes found that good government did not always exist. That law and order did not invariably prevail. Except during the short reign of Henry V the country was never quite free from disorder. The wars of the roses when they came were just a supreme and crucial instance of the breakdown of government with which in a minor degree the country had long been familiar. The failure of government was not entirely the fault of the landcastrians. It was due partly to the policy of Edward III setting up appennaged houses within the royal family and partly to the state of the nobles who were reduced to too few numbers and who had accumulated too much land and influence. The landcastrian kings did their best and doubtless would have done better had they not been too poor. Henry IV throughout his reign was a hard-working active king and scrupulous to abide by the understanding according to which he had come to the throne. In all important matters he carefully took the advice of the privy council, his ministers were appointed with the approval of parliament and any legislation that the commons as a whole desired was freely accepted by the king. The records of the privy council show the scope and variety of the business submitted to it. War, peace, finance, justice, nothing was kept from it. The king sat regularly at the council board and worked hard at the business of the realm. The privileges of parliament were scrupulously maintained by Henry IV and Henry V and measures were taken to ensure that the commons were freely elected. In 1406 the famous indenture act was passed ordering that the name of the person elected in any constituency should be confirmed under the seals of the electors and that this proof should be sent up to Westminster by the sheriff along with the writ. Thus the sheriff could not substitute the name of another candidate between the time of the election and the return of the writ. Yet although Henry IV meant well and worked hard his reign was troubled the nobles who had helped them to the throne had grown too powerful and proud in the process. The great northern family of Percy was especially troublesome and several times renewed the game of king making before they were finally quelled on Brownham Moor in 1408. The Scots made many raids over the border into England though these raids were fewer when their king was captive in London after 1406. In Wales the great rebel Owen Glendauer remained unconquered though often defeated for the space of 12 years. Worst of all the narrow seas of which the English kings had long claimed the dominion were no longer guarded. French pirates swarmed in the channel and scarcely a year passed without some maritime raid on an English coast town. Henry IV was a man of weak health but of valiant spirit. He shrank from no task that faced him and it was only due to the meagerness of the resources of the crown that his government was not efficient or unquestioned for although Henry IV had been a wealthy duke he was by no means a wealthy king. After his elevation to the throne his followers had to be rewarded and some of the crown revenues and land were alienated to them. The remaining portions of the royal income were absorbed partly by the great household expenses which the king had to maintain partly by the public services of the crown for in those days there was no distinction between the private and public expenditure of the king the royal income had to provide for both. It has been estimated that the total revenue of the crown including the income from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall the earldom of Chester and from customs subsidies and other dues was an average of little over 100,000 pounds per annum. Out of this sum all the services of the crown had to be maintained all the king's palaces castles and manors the expenses of administration at home the defense of the narrow seas and the upkeep of the fortresses of Barrick and Calais the maintenance of these two places alone cost upwards of 30,000 pounds per annum. It is small wonder then that the administration was not completely effective throughout this reign it is all to the king's credit that he maintained his throne and his government and met his difficulties so manfully and died leaving the kingdom in peace. His son the attractive and brilliant Henry V did much at the time to confirm his dynasty on the throne. He showed that he was superior to troubles at home by leading the forces of the nation abroad and by gaining the succession to the crown of France. He had the great advantage of not being a parva new king for his father had reigned before him. Whatever the circumstances of the accession Henry IV had undoubtedly been king and so young Henry held the throne by hereditary right. Everything seemed to combine to establish his dynasty forever. When he succeeded his father on the throne he had been a popular and long accepted heir apparent. He was a brilliant and successful soldier. Nothing so much stimulates the loyalty of a people as great foreign conquests. He was the unquestioned ruler of England, the friend and supporter of the Catholic Church, the ally and confidant of the Holy Roman Emperor, the most legitimate sovereign in Europe. To all this he added the succession to the crown of France and so succeeded to a long line of Capet and to the throne of Clovis and Charlemagne. The Treaty of Trois in 1420 marks the highest point to which his power extended. His realms now extended from the Tweed to the Atlantic and to the Pyrenees. When he died he left a son to carry on his work with the noble valiant and loyal John Duke of Bedford to guard the kingdom during the king's tender years. No one now questioned the right of the house of Lancaster which strictly respecting the constitution of the country had raised England to the highest point ever reached in the Middle Ages. For the glory of Henry V far surpassed that of the famous Angevan Empire of Henry II. Henry II was sovereign in England but as Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, Duke of Aquitaine he was the man and inferior of the French king. But Henry V had no one over him except God. He owed no fealty whether as king or Duke he was free of all feudal ties. His brothers, John Duke of Bedford, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and Thomas Duke of Clarence were able, vigorous and loyal. Clarence died on the field of Beaujet in 1421. In the next reign the ambition of Humphrey of Gloucester caused difficulties. But at the death of Henry V everything seemed prospering for the house of Lancaster. The family known later as Yorkist showed no dangerous ambitions. The reigning family was well supported by the Beauforts. This last family was descended from the Union of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swinford. It was thus closely related to the reigning house. But though legitimated by active parliament they were legally incapable of inheriting the crown. Their wealth and influence made them powerful supporters of the reigning line to which they were attracted by every tie of kinship, gratitude and interest. Their fortune depended upon those of the Lancasterian dynasty with this they must rise or fall. Meanwhile the two remaining branches of Edward's family had amalgamated. Edmund Mortimer, who was the great-grandson of Lionel of Clarence and who was the adopted heir of Richard II died in 1424 without issue. The family of his sister Anne Mortimer therefore represented the line of Lionel of Clarence who it must be remembered was elder brother of the progenitor of the Lancasterian line, John of Gaunt. Anne Mortimer in 1410 had married Richard known later as Earl of Cambridge the son of Edmund of Langley the fourth son of Edward III. Richard at the end of a career of loyalty to the Lancasterian line became involved in a conspiracy against Henry V in 1415. For this he was tried, found guilty and executed at Southampton, but the family was not attainted. He left his son Richard four years old who was kindly treated by Henry V and who on the death of his father's brother at the Battle of Agincourt became Duke of York. End of Section 3. Section 4 of The Wars of the Roses by Robert Balmain Moet this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 3 The French War When young Henry VI, not quite nine months old, succeeded to the throne, the prestige of the crown was very high. Henry V had been acknowledged heir to the French throne, but when he died on August 31, 1422 he was still uncrowned in France. His father-in-law the Mad King Charles VI was still alive and reigning, though not ruling. But within two months, October 21, 1422, poor Charles the well-beloved had died. So Henry VI was proclaimed King of France. Henry V had done his work well. Renewing the claim of Edward III to the French crown he had fought a war of aggression for pure conquest. It was the logical converse of the expedition of William the Conqueror in 1066. Then a Frenchman had set himself on the throne of England, cynically alleging that he was only enforcing his legal rights. Now an Englishman with an equally baseless pretext had set his foot on the steps of the French throne and his son was soon, though only for a time, to wear the crown. Within four years after the victory of Agincourt, Henry V had reduced practically the whole of Normandy and established himself as completely sovereign Duke there. In the next year, 1419, the English forces overran the Isle of France, and the Old King was forced to accede to Henry's terms. In the Cathedral Church of Tois, on the upper Seine on May 21, 1420, the famous Great Peace was concluded, by which Henry became heir to the crown of France, marrying the French king's daughter Catherine and governing the kingdom that soon was to be his as regent for his ailing father-in-law. There was only one check to the victorious career of Henry V. He was the legal crown prince of France, but Charles VI's son, the Dauphin Charles, who had been disinherited by the Treaty of Tois, refused to acknowledge him. The Dauphin proclaimed himself to be king of France, and although the English were masters of most of France to the north of the River Loire and also of Guyenne, he maintained a heroic struggle in the country to the south of the Loire. While Henry went back to England to crown his queen, Thomas, his elder brother, the Duke of Clarence, was defeated and slain by a combined force of French and Scots at Beaujet in Anjou, March 22, 1421. This was the first serious defeat the English had sustained. Next year found Henry consolidating his conquests and capturing such towns as still held out against him in central France, when death overtook him at Vassenne on September 1, 1422. The defeat at Beaujet was prophetic of the ultimate fate of the English power in France, yet the tide did not set in favor of the Dauphin for some time. Henry VI was king of England, king of France, Duke of Normandy. The Privy Council of England sat as usual at London. There was a council at Rouen and another at Paris. The king's uncle, the heroic John Duke of Bedford, was appointed according to the terms of Henry V's will, regent of France and Normandy. His brother, the unstable Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, was protector of England when Bedford was absent. There seemed no likelihood that in 30 years the Lancastrian dynasty would no longer be recognized in France and already would be tottering in England. Henry V was right in his view. Success in France meant success for his dynasty in England. Merely as an English king, the Lancastrians' title to the throne might be questioned. There were others living in England whose rights might be advanced. But if the Lancastrian line by conquest acquired the sovereignty of France, Englishmen would proudly hail them king. No one could say that either in law or fact the Lancastrians were not true kings. And if they, men of the Plantagenet blood, were kings in France, were they not kings of England too? In the same way the German kings from the 10th to the 13th century strengthened their title in Germany by getting themselves crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome. But if the English should be driven out of France, if the Lancastrians should lose their indefeasible right by conquest to wear the crown of the Capet, then their hold on the regal dignity would be tremendously weakened. Clearly as kings of France by right of conquest and by solemn treaty they had no English rival. The Lancastrian family and the Lancastrian family alone had conquered France and received the crown in Notre Dame. Their right to the English crown which some lawyers might hold to be weak was covered over by their established possession of the historic throne of France. But once lose the regal dignity in France and the title to the crown of England might hardly stand alone. The gradual loss of the French territory says therefore an important bearing on the origin of the Wars of the Roses and on the ultimate downfall of the Lancastrian dynasty. With the loss of the French territory the Lancastrian position as French king was gone the name might remain but by itself it meant nothing. Until the dramatic appearance of Joan of Arc in the field the English power under the wise and firm guidance of Bedford went on prospering. But although the English administration and France was good although the peasantry were treated with consideration and the middle classes were encouraged in trade and in self-government yet the forces of nationality even in distracted divided feudal France were too strong. When the romantic figure of Joan of Arc appeared with her devoted and religious passion to free France from Talbot and the English she became a focus for all the vague national and patriotic aspirations of the people whom neither the craft and pertinacity of the Dauphin nor the valor of the professional generals had till then been able to rouse. The strong ally of the English and France was Philip the Good Duke of Burgundy. His father had been murdered by some of the Dauphin supporters at the bridge of Montero on the Seine in 1419. Between Philip and the English the king of Bourges as the Dauphin was satirically called seemed to have little chance. In 1423 the Anglo-Burgundian forces defeated the French with their Scottish allies at Cabel on the Yonne in the east of France. Next year James I the Scottish King who for 18 years had been captive in the Tower of London was released on condition of paying a ransom and recalling the Scottish soldiers from France so the French were left to fight their battles alone. In that year August 17th 1424 Bedford met an army of the Dauphin Charles VII at Verneuil on the river Avra to the northwest of France. After a severe battle in which Bedford fought personally on foot wielding a great poleaxe the French were driven off the field. But the battle showed that they were not afraid to meet the best English army in a hand-to-hand conflict. The result of the victory of Verneuil was that the English were now predominant in all the land north of the Loire with the exception of a few towns on the river itself. The war dragged on for four years more before anything decisive happened. The English were hampered by the lack of strong financial support from home while the king of Bourges had to witness a renewal of internecine war between some of his own followers. Meanwhile Bedford was steadily building up a solid English government in the conquered territory and in 1428 the Council of Paris decided that the time was ripe for a further advance to be made. A new English general Thomas de Montecute Earl of Salisbury had come out to act under Bedford. Salisbury with a good army advanced to the Loire and gained in all 38 small towns. Then on October 7th 1428 against the advice of Bedford it is said he proceeded to invest the city of Orléans the strongest town on the north bank of the Loire being with its important bridge the key to the southern country. The siege of Orléans was the turning point in the history of the English occupation of France. Every effort was made by the English to take the city. The council in London strained every nerve to provide adequate supplies of men and money for the task. But on October 22nd the Earl of Salisbury received a fatal wound and England lost one of her most successful soldiers. Even before Joan of Arc brought the French army of relief it ought to have been clear that Orléans was not to be taken. The blockade of the English army was never really effective for all through the siege supplies were brought up the river from Loire which was in the Dauphin's hands and introduced into the city. On May 8th 1429 the siege was raised by the English. Joan followed up her successes and on June 18th defeated Talbot and the English at Pate on the road to Paris itself. On July 10th she brought the Dauphin to Reims and had him solemnly crowned as Charles VII. In August the maid brought her army before Paris but failed to gain the capital. The English power slowly declined. As a demonstration to the contrary the English council sent the young King Henry who had already been crowned in London in 1429 over to Paris to be crowned King of France there in the ancient capital of the Capet in 1431. Six months before this coronation the maid who had been captured was burned by the English at Rouen. From this point any successes scored by the English commanders were only temporary. Their administration in France degenerated and they began to treat the peasants with undue severity. Philip of Burgundy began to feel that he had sufficiently avenged his father's murder on the bridge of Montereau and in 1435 he left the losing cause and took the natural line of joining his kinsmen Charles VII by the Treaty of Arras. This was on September 11th. On September 15th at Rouen the wise noble and loyal Duke of Bedford breathed his last. He was only 46 years old. Next year the French army entered Paris. The English power in France was certainly doomed. Supplies of money from home always inadequate seemed after the year 1433 practically to have ceased. The north of France was no longer a place where war could be made to support war but the English captains struggled on for eight more years. The war except for a short time after Agincourt had never been really popular in England and yet public opinion would not tolerate a peace. To maintain the war became a sort of point of honor with the nation yet they would not pay for it. For eight years the English grimly maintained themselves in Normandy and in Guyenne. After Bedford's death the commander in chief of the forces in France was the Duke of York son of the Richard Earl of Cambridge who had been executed for treason in 1415. York who was 25 years old when appointed to the French command in 1436 showed good military ability and achieved some successes. He held the position of Lieutenant General of France and Normandy for two periods 1436 through 1437 and 1441 through 1445. But the Council of Henry VI had not full confidence in him and in 1447 he was sent out of the way to be Lieutenant of Ireland. Meanwhile in 1444 the home government had arranged a truce with Charles VII according to which the English gave up everything except Normandy, Guyenne and Calais and Henry VI was to marry the niece of Charles VII, Margaret of Anjou. The marriage was carried out next year and the English garrisons were withdrawn from men and Anjou. The truce was renewed and maintained till 1449 when the plundering forays of the ill-paid English garrisons against the friends and subjects of Charles VII provoked the formal outbreak of war again. The English general in France, Edmund Beaufort, was a conspicuous failure as compared with his predecessor York. Less than a year sufficed for the French to conquer the whole of Normandy which was held by quite inadequate forces among what was now an alien and hostile population. Guyenne, the oldest dependency of England, was still left. It was bound to England by a strong economic tie. It was a great wine country and the prosperity of the countrymen of Guyenne and of the merchants of Buckdaw depended largely on the wine fleet that sailed annually to London. But by the end of 1451 all Guyenne city by city had been conquered too. In 1452 the Gascans asked for help from England. They found the new French government more irksome than the old English government had been. Talbot, our good dog, who had grown old in the French war but whose spirit was as high as ever was sent over to their help with about 3,000 men. He soon brought the Bordeaux back into English power. But next summer he flung himself on the French camp in front of Castillon and after a severe fight suffered defeat and death at the same time. Guyenne was lost. Thus in the words of the Burgundian Varin whose active life included the last 40 years of the war by the grace and aid of God the Duchy of Guyenne was brought back into obedience to the King of France soon after the Duchy of Normandy and all the French kingdom except the town of Calais which is still left in the hands of the English. May God be willing that it too be brought back if the scripture is to be fulfilled which says better is obedience than sacrifice. The failure to hold France ruined the Lancastrian dynasty although undoubtedly the failure was for the good of England. The French and the English would never in all likelihood have done well under a common sovereign. Nor would England have grown to the strong consolidated imperial position which she later retained. France was too opulent, her people too brilliant ever to be secondary to England. The greater would have drawn the less as England after 1603 drew Scotland. England might have sunk to be a second-class kingdom overshadowed by the brilliant and attractive France. The causes of the failure are not to be sought far. In the first place the military superiority of the English was gone by the early days of Henry VI. Just as after the early victories of Edward III du Gett clan organized a workman-like professional army to take the place of the feudal Levy so after the victories of Henry VI which had been partly due to the fact that the French had again gone back to the feudal system of fighting and the new professional army was created by such men as the Bastard of Orléans, La Hire and Ponton de Zintraé. The establishment in 1437 of the perpetual tax known as the Thai enabled Charles VII to maintain this professional army and especially to have regular companies of artillery weapons in which the French showed immense superiority to the English in the later stages of the war. In the second place the English were attempting to hold districts where, with the exception of the Bordeaux, the population felt an intense dislike to them. The lack of proper supplies from England, the life in small garrison towns varied only by feverish raids into the enemy's country, demoralized the soldiery. Even in Normandy the memory of the good administration of Henry V and Bedford was effaced and just as Napoleon found it impossible to hold down by garrisons countries where the population had a bitter and national hatred for them so too the English captains with their companies of hard-bitten soldiers found it impossible to hold down France. In the third place the early English successes had been partly due to the divisions of France. It was the faction fights between the Burgundian and Armagnac or Orleanist parties which so weakened the French monarchy. But when in 1435 the Duke of Burgundy made his peace with Charles VII and united his strength to the national forces, the moral as well as the material position of the French was immensely strengthened and the flank of the English sphere of occupation was exposed to a steady and continuous attack from the east. In the fourth place the situation of the English and France from the early years of Henry VI was not easily defensible. The English sphere consisted of the outlying dependency of Guine which was strong enough so long as England retained command of the sea and kept the ring of fortresses from Bayonne de Blaye which defended the frontier toward the French kingdom. But the rest of the English territory was a sort of triangle with its base from the frontier of Brittany to the west to Calais on the east and with its apex at Paris. The loss of the Burgundian alliance which safeguarded the east of this triangle and the loss of Paris at the apex in two successive years 1435 and 1436 made the English position practically untenable. In the fifth place the administration of the home government left a great deal to be desired. One defect was that it had no united policy the council being divided into two parties those who desired to proceed with the war and those who advocated peace while it could be obtained with honorable terms. The war party was led by the king's younger uncle Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and the peace party by his great uncle Henry Beaufort Bishop of Winchester. Up till 1444 the war party gained its own way but never completely. The war was carried on but not at all costs. In any step taken the main consideration had to be economy. Moreover the divisions in the council sometimes became most acute and twice Bedford who was continually overworked had to leave the direction of affairs in France and fly to London to make peace between his contending relatives. Later on the Duke of York was removed from the command in France to Ireland and the much less capable Edmund Beaufort put in his place but the lack of money would in any case have ruined everything. To maintain the war became a point of honor with the people for any minister to propose peace was a dangerous proceeding. The peace of 1444 and the French marriage cost the minister's Suffolk his life and yet although Parliament kept insisting on a war policy it refused to pay for it. The revenue even for purposes of peace was continually shrinking. The theory that the king should live off his own and maintain his own war was still believed. So the army in France was starved and the English garrisons stubbornly fighting wasted away or were pushed backwards to the sea. It is always easier in the long run to attack and to defend and it is always easier to re-win a country where one's friends are living than to hold an alien country in spite of the inhabitants. The forces of French patriotism were continually rising. The life of Joan of Arc inspired the whole nation and Charles VII whose character gradually grew stronger as the long schooling of the war proceeded formed a center for the national aspirations. The 15th century saw the birth of patriotism. The feudal system was breaking up and the claims of France were superseding the claims of the Fife. The rise of French patriotism was the doom of the English occupation. It may be granted then that the loss of France was not entirely the fault of the Lancastrians. Henry VI was not a soldier. He took no real part in the war. Under any other king the French dependencies must have been lost sooner or later. But the effect of the loss on the position of the dynasty was disastrous. The glorious adventure of Henry V, the proudest days in the long history of England had ended in failure abroad and financial bankruptcy at home. The troubles from which since 1399 the dynasty had never been wholly free and rose up into startling magnitude. The gradual decline of the English power in France ran parallel with a gradual decline in the Lancastrian power at home. According to arrangements made by Henry V at the time of his death the care of the young king was entrusted to the two brothers of the late king John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester acting with the privy council as a council of regency. Bedford, who had the superior voice, confined his attention to France. Gloucester was left to preside over the council in England with the title of protector. He expected to be regent in England but Parliament, which since the accession of the Lancastrians had wielded great powers, refused him. Then by act of Parliament a form of government was drawn up for the minority of the king. Bedford was recognized as protector in France and England. Gloucester was to be protector in England when Bedford was absent in France. The rest of the councilors were nominated to the number of sixteen. The most important after Gloucester were Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and his brother Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter. This body was intended to give all its time to the business of administration and was paid for its services. Humphrey of Gloucester, while acting as protector was paid 5,333 pounds, six shillings, eight pence a year. The others received smaller payments from the Bishop of Winchester with 200 pounds a year to Lord Beecham, who received 40 pounds. When in the next year a few new names were added to the council knights received 100 pounds and a simple esquire 40 pounds. If a councilor neglected his duty, his salary was reduced in the case of those who received 200 pounds annually one pound was taken off for each day's absence. From those who received 100 pounds, 10 shillings for each day's absence and so with the others in proportion according to their wages. The nomination of the councilors remained in the hands of parliament till 1437 when Henry VI, age 15 who took a great interest in politics and government began to nominate the council himself. This council naturally had immense power. It consisted of the most eminent men in the land. The king was a child and could not act by himself. Parliament, unlike the council, did not sit continuously. Thus it is correct to say that during the minority of Henry VI the government of England was practically government by the council. When after 1437 Henry VI began to take an active part in politics the government of England was by king and council together. If by the middle of the century the administration of the country had broken down it must be attributed in some manner to the failure of government by the king and council. As might be expected the work of the council was enormously varied. The records and minutes of the council were carefully kept throughout the period and they show how industriously the business of the kingdom was attended to. The volume containing the records for the first seven years of the reign of Henry VI proved this. One of the early acts of the council was to sell some of the largest ships of the Royal Navy, a measure of economy which shows the poor state of the government. No foreign power except an ally of England was allowed to purchase any of the ships. Next some of the less important French prisoners who since their capture at Agincourt had been confined in the fleet prison were set free. The complicated negotiations respecting the release of the captive Scottish king James I were then taken up. Again it was resolved that the expenses of the Duke of Orléans who had been taken prisoner at Agincourt should be defrayed by himself. Hitherto he had been kept at the charges of the king. The king's nurse or governess, Lady Alice Botteller, was authorized reasonably to chastise him from time to time as the case might require without her being afterwards molested or injured for so doing. Later her salary was raised from twenty-six pounds, six shillings, eight pence to fifty-two pounds, thirteen shillings, four pence yearly. Philip, Duke of Coimbre, son of the king of Portugal, first cousin to Henry VI, visited England in fourteen twenty-four. The council arranged for his reception and made the necessary orders for his expenses. The appointments and translation of bishops were taken in hand fourteen twenty-six. John Kemp, bishop of London being appointed to the Sea of York. The Pope however had a nominee of his own, Richard Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, whom he appointed to be Archbishop of York. But the council vigorously resisted this attempt of the Pope, made periodically throughout the Middle Ages, to control the English Episcopat. The Pope, Martin V, saved his dignity by translating his nominee from York back to Lincoln. In the next year the council issued a declaration of war between England and the Duchy of Brittany. Public order inside the kingdom came within the purview of the council. Rewards were posted for the arrest of high women, and the right of sanctuary whenever claimed was carefully inquired into. The council, in fact, seems to have combined all the work of a modern cabinet with a great deal of the work that now falls to the great departments of state. In intention the government was good and honest, but it was not unanimous. There was nothing like the present system of responsible government according to which one group of men, who have the confidence of a majority in parliament, formed the whole cabinet. In the reign of Henry VI, although up to 1437 parliament appointed the council, there was no homogeneity among the members. Those who were reputed, the greatest and wisest in the land, were chosen as councillors irrespective of their attitude to each other. It is obvious that this system could only work well if the members would exercise a wise tolerance and forbearance toward each other's views. As things turned out, such forbearance was seldom exercised, and the council was never able to work wholeheartedly together. The first thing which now began seriously to break up the kingdom was the ambition of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. There is much to be said both foreign against this man. He was an affable popular prince, and was always liked by the citizens of London. He was brave and active, and had been wounded on the glorious field of Agincourt. He was intelligent, interested in science and literature, and a patron of men of learning, for which reason he obtained the title of the Good Duke. In his early days he was connected with Oxford, being probably a member of Balliol College, and one of his last acts was to leave his collection of books to the university, thus beginning the famous library now called the Bodleian. But his ambition was tremendous, so much so that toward the end of his life he was considered to be aiming at the crown. It is not, however, likely that he went so far as this, but he did mean to be chief man under the king, and he was bitterly disappointed when on Henry V's death the Parliament refused to make him regent. The best that can be said for his public policy is that he was consistent. Henry V's wishes and death had been that the French War should go on till the English power in France was made secure, and Humphrey never swerved from this design. Throughout the rest of his life he was the leader of the War Party in England. The struggle in the Council falls into two parts. First the struggle between Gloucester and Bishop Beaufort. Next that between the Earl of Somerset and the Duke of York. The latter quarrel was only settled when Somerset fell fighting in the battle of St. Albans in 1455. The struggle between Gloucester and Beaufort was always going on with every now and then a severe crisis. It must not be considered that Beaufort was always crying peace with France and Gloucester War. On the contrary, Beaufort supported the war so long as England seemed likely to gain anything by it, and he lent or gave large sums of money to the government to carry on the war when the Treasury was empty. But as the war dragged on disasterously Beaufort naturally turned, both as a statesman and a churchman, to advocate peace. Yet what really divided Gloucester and Beaufort from the first was undoubtedly the ambitious high-handed actions of the Duke. In March of 1423 the Duke married Jacqueline, Duchess of Holland and Ano. Jacqueline, although still young, had been twice married and had only been released from her last union by a rather dubious divorce allowed by the anti-pope, Benedict XIII. At the time of the marriage she had been at the English court as her possessions and claims in the Low Countries had made her useful to Henry V. But there was a danger to England from Gloucester's marriage with her. The Duke of Burgundy did not wish to see an English prince become Lord of Ano and Holland. The marriage of Humphrey did much to rob England of the support of Burgundy in the French War. But Gloucester never stopped to count the cost. In October 1423 he set out from Calais to Ano, which was then in the possession of Jacqueline's former husband, the Duke of Brabant. Gloucester had with him 5,000 men raised in England. This was fully up to the numbers of the armies usually employed by the English generals in France in the reign of Henry VI. Gloucester won Ano, but then found himself opposed by the Duke of Burgundy to whom Jacqueline's former husband had appealed for help. In 1425 Gloucester, leaving Jacqueline and Moles, returned to England to get ready for a duel to which the Duke of Burgundy had challenged him. But he did not return, and Jacqueline after defending Moles for some time with great spirit had to surrender to the Duke of Burgundy. Naturally the council were cold in their reception of Gloucester on his return, and Beaufort, who was the best man in it, Beaufort in 1422 had been appointed chancellor. In the absence of both Bedford and Gloucester, he was at the head of the council, and practically vice regent of the kingdom. This was too much for Gloucester who complained bitterly of Beaufort's power. In order to vindicate his position, Gloucester demanded entrance into the Tower of London. The captain, Richard Widville, who belonged to the party of Beaufort refused to open the tower to Humphrey and his following of London citizens. Civil war was only averted by the intervention of Archbishop Chichely. Beaufort wrote off to Bedford, as you desire the welfare of the king, our sovereign lord, and of his realms of England and France, your own will with all yours, haste you hither. By my truth if you tarry we shall put this land in jeopardy, for such a brother you have here, God make him a good man. This was written on September 21st, 1425. On December 20th, Bedford arrived in England. He remained till the end of March, 1427, and kept harmony in the government. But affairs in France urgently demanded his presence, and when he returned there the friction between Humphrey and Beaufort would at once have arisen. Beaufort anticipated this by resigning the chancellorship last before Bedford's departure. Later in May or June he left England on a pilgrimage or crusade to Bohemia. Beaufort and Bedford, being thus out of the way, Gloucester could again exercise his influence freely in the council. On July 9th, he obtained from the council a grant of 20,000 marks or 13,333 pounds, six shillings, eight pence, for a new expedition in favor of his duchess, Jacqueline. This was a shameful use to make of the public money when the war in France was failing for lack of funds and the garrisons themselves were without their daily pay. The money seems to have been sent to Eno, but Humphrey himself did not go as he was then living with one of Jacqueline's former ladies in waiting, Eleanor Cobham, whom he married next year, 1428. Beaufort who had been made a cardinal by Pope Martin V remained for the most part abroad in Germany and in France till 1432. Meanwhile, Gloucester was by no means allowed to have his own way in the council. In 1428 he was sharply told by the peers that he was not regent, but only protector of every different matter. Beaufort, on the other hand, by his readiness to supply money and by his devotion to the king's service was steadily gaining more influence. In 1431 he performed the ceremony of coronation on Henry VI of Paris. In the same year, William de la Pôle whom Beaufort had marked out as a useful minister for the king's service was admitted a member of the council in England. Gloucester tried to oust Beaufort's influence by questioning his right to remain bishop of Winchester after he had been made a cardinal. This was a naughty point which the council was unable to decide. So nothing was done at all and Beaufort remained bishop and cardinal till the end of his life. The ten years from 1430 to 1440 are a period of balance between the two parties in this unfortunate dispute. The logic of facts was slowly but surely confirming the arguments of Beaufort. He believed in making peace while large portions of France might still be retained. Even Henry V in dying seems to have contemplated the possibility of a peace with Charles VII on condition of young Henry keeping the title of king of France and retaining the duchies of Normandy and Guyenne. But while the steady course of disasters after the failure before Orléans seemed to point necessarily to peace with Charles VII any proposal for peace was immensely unpopular. Hence although the wise councils of Beaufort and his friends in the council, Paul and Kemp Archbishop of York, had great influence because they were right yet the theatrical attitude of Humphrey in refusing absolutely to hear of peace and pushing forward the war in every direction coincided with the popular fancy and helped to keep him at the head of affairs. After Bedford's death in 1435 his position was naturally strengthened for Gloucester had always been rather afraid of his brother who acted as a moderating influence whenever he was in England. Moreover Bedford's death left him air presumptive to the throne. When the Duke of Burgundy in 1435 left the English for the French alliance the injured and revengeful feelings of the populace gladly found expression in Gloucester's denunciations and his feverish war policy. So he was proclaimed Count of Flanders the Duke of Burgundy through his defection from the lawful king of France Henry VI having forfeited this title and was made captain of Calais and lieutenant of the king in France. But his campaign in Flanders in August 1436 was quite unsuccessful and when he threw it up and came back to London he was discredited in the popular mind. But he maintained his position still by his unswerving opposition to all proposals of peace. When in 1440 the Duke of Orléans who had been a prisoner ever since Agincourt was at last being released and in Westminster Abbey was swearing to keep the conditions imposed on him Gloucester when the mass began stocked out of the church. The dying Henry V commanded that Orléans should not be released till Henry VI was of lawful age. This was Gloucester's last important act. The peace party who is now in the ascendant the mild and saintly Henry VI was 18 years old and able to bring his influence to bear on the side of peace. William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk the friend of Bishop Beaufort was becoming the king's right hand man. Gloucester had seven more years of life to run but the opposition between him and Beaufort might now be considered practically at an end. He still went on protesting but without effect. The Beaufort party had triumphed and from 1440 to 1450 it governed the country under the king. End of section 5. Section 6 of the Wars of the Roses by Robert Balmain Moet This Lubrivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 4 The Struggle in the Council Part 2 This then is the second stage in the history of parties before the actual outbreak of the Wars of the Roses. The third stage is for five years from 1450 when the Duke of York returned from Ireland and another period of opposition ensued namely between him and the Beaufort party again represented by the cardinal's nephew, Edmund Duke of Somerset. In the period between 1440 to 1450 the government made an effort to get rid of the war with France. William de la Pôle 4th Earl of Suffolk now the chief advocate of peace had done good service in the French War. Born in 1396 he was the grandson of Michael de la Pôle, first Earl of Suffolk, the statesman who had died in exile for his devotion to Richard II. William had been in the service of Henry V and had gone through that monarch's French campaigns. During the minority of Henry VI he had steadily risen in the service. After the death of the Earl of Salisbury before Orléans in 1429 Suffolk had succeeded to the command of the army. He was taken by Joan of Arc at the capture of Jagaux but was able to ransom himself almost at once and return to the war. In 1431 after sixteen years of campaigning he returned to England and was called to the Privy Council. He had seen enough of the long drawn out war to know how hopeless it was especially in its financially starved condition. Parliament would never increase the supplies so he joined the party of the Beauforts. He married Alice Countess of Salisbury the widow of his former leader the Earl of Salisbury killed before Orléans. Alice's grandmother had been sister to Catherine Swinford the Ancestress of the Beaufort family. After 1440 Suffolk's efforts for peace were gradually consummated. In 1444 he was the chief English representative at the Conference of Tour where the truce including the marriage of Henry VI with Margaret of Anjou was arranged. The agreement at Tour provided for a secession of hostilities by land and sea for eighteen months. This secession was subsequently prolonged till the year 1449. The ceremony of marriage was performed for Henry by proxy at Nulsi in 1445. Margaret was nieced to the French king Charles VII and it was hoped that she would harmonize the discordant interests of the two countries. But Charles VII had only allowed the marriage on the secret understanding that the English should evacuate men. No discussion of this condition previously to its being concluded is mentioned in the minutes of the Privy Council but it is unlikely that the Council did not contemplate some such argument. In 1448 Margaret was intensely unpopular in England. All the ministers were afraid to avow it. Only after a strong military demonstration did the French ultimately obtain the actual session in 1448. Neither Suffolk nor Queen Margaret were likely to be any more popular for this and the position of Henry VI was too closely bound up with theirs not to suffer with them. In December of 1444 and Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, were now in the Council of Henry VI along with Queen Margaret who was firm in support of them. The Duke of York was recalled from France in 1445 and appointed to the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in December 1447. The Duke of Gloucester who of course hated the French marriage found himself without influence. He was actually in very bad odor with the King and was suspected of having sinister aims on the crown. His wife, Eleanor Cobham was now in prison July 1446 in the Isle of Man under a strong suspicion of having practiced black magic against the King. The Duke was no longer summoned to the Council. Finally in February 1447 to Barry to attend Parliament there he was put under arrest to be tried concerning an insurrection which it was reported without foundation apparently that he was raising in Wales. When in confinement in Barry the Duke fell sick and died on February 23rd. People said he had been poisoned and rumour pointed to the machinations of Suffolk but almost all sudden deaths not due to violence used to be always been an evil liver and had known for years that his constitution never really strong was ruined and that he might die at any moment. Little more than a month later April 11th died the aged Cardinal Henry Beaufort our velvet hat that covered us from many storms the last great statesman who was entirely devoted to the House of Lancaster. The King was thus left to the control of Suffolk, Somerset and the Queen. Moreover he was to lose Suffolk and the French provinces almost at the same time. He had already injured the Duke of York by recalling him from France. His own mind was rapidly becoming unhinged. It was clear to everyone that the fortunes of the Crown were in a low state. Richard Duke of York had returned to England from France on the conclusion of the truce and marriage after the death of Gloucester York was heir to the throne being the great grandson of Edward III. On his father's side he was descended from Edmund of Langley, Duke of York the fourth son of Edward III. On the side of his mother Ann Mortimer he was descended from Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III. Thus his pedigree was probably better than that of Henry VI. The Castrians had an indisputable parliamentary right to the throne and Richard seems at this time to have had no intention of disputing the position of Henry VI. But the Beaufort party thought him too powerful a subject to live in England at this crisis of the country's history. So he was appointed to the honorable position of Lieutenant of Ireland in order that he might be out of the way. He did not however actually continue to carry on the government not however with any great success for the statutes of livery and maintenance were not properly observed or enforced and consequently public order was not very good. The past and letters of the years 1448-1450 give ample evidence of the bad state of public security in Norfolk. It is not likely that the state of Norfolk, the state of Norfolk, the state of Norfolk it is not likely that the peace in other counties was kept any better. The foreign policy which Suffolk had upheld since 1431 was if possible to make and keep an honorable peace. The Lieutenant in France at this time was Edmund Beaufort who was created Duke of Somerset in 1448. The pay of the English garrisons in Normandy was as usual in arrears so it was very difficult to prevent and to prevent violence and plundering. The French government had by this time realized that their cause was in the ascendant and they gladly seized the opportunity to renew the war when a band of English soldiers made a raid across the Bretton Frontier in March 1449 and plundered the town of Fougere. There is no proof that either Somerset or Suffolk was implicated in this ruffianly design an Aragonese mercenary who had previously been made a knight of the garter by Henry VI called Francis de Sourien and known as Le Hagonois stated in writing afterwards to the king that he had been authorized to make the attack by both of them. Anyhow the French were able to make an excellent Casus Belly out of the incident especially as Fougere was not at once restored by the English. Somerset although in his earlier life to be a good soldier did nothing to stop the advance of the French arms. On June 24th he capitulated in Caen with 4000 soldiers from this time his career lay wholly in England where after Suffolk's death he became Henry's chief advisor. But before the surrender of Caen and Somerset's return to England Suffolk had already met his death. From the very first he had known that the truce with France and the French marriage would be unpopular with a parliament which was infatuated with the French war although it would not pay for it. It is to his credit that he had risked this unpopularity because he thought that peace was in the interest of his country. But he took the precaution before he went on Embassy de Tour to obtain from the king Letter's patent dated February 20th 1444 granting him indemnity for any measures he should conclude with France. This was confirmed in Parliament in June 1445 by a petition of the commons to the king with the ascent of the peers including the Duke of Gloucester. Suffolk thus had all the advantages of a complete bill of indemnity. But the loss of France was too much for the parliament to bear and its anger fell not on Somerset but on Suffolk who was looked on responsible for all the evil by reason of the French marriage and the surrender of Anjou and Men. In January 1450 the commons impeached him of treason before the peers. He was accused of having sold England to Charles VII that he had conspired to make his own son king that he had promised to surrender Anjou and Men to the French and had betrayed the secrets of the French. Suffolk defended himself successfully and with much dignity. He could have claimed to have been tried by the peers in a complete and open manner with evidence and witnesses. But such a trial opening up all the history of the last few years might have brought the crown and government into an unpleasant light which might have ended in ruin. So Suffolk submitted himself to the king's mercy to the kingdom for five years. Whether Suffolk thought this the safest course for himself or whether he waved his right to fair trial and went abroad to save the king from the consequences of a general inquiry into the affairs of government during the last years is uncertain. He quietly settled all his affairs, composed a letter of farewell to his seven-year-old son to read when he grew up and embarked on April 30th. On April 22nd his ship was intercepted by another ship which was attached to the service of the constable of the tower and called the Nicholas of the tower. He was beheaded in Dover Road. If the Nicholas had not caught him there were other ships waiting to do so. Henry VI and his wife were left as it were alone. Of their two great friends and supporters Suffolk was dead and Somerset was still in Normandy. The other great man of the kingdom, the Duke of York was in Ireland. It was at this time, June 1450, that one of the crowning weaknesses of the Lankastrian government showed itself, the rebellion of Jack Cade. Already while the case of the Duke of Suffolk was still going on there had been riotous assemblies in various parts of the country under a leader who took the name of Bluebeard. These gatherings came to nothing but that in Kent was much more serious. The leader was an Irishman called Jack Cade but he took the high sounding name of John Mortimer and said he was cousin to the Duke of York. People in Kent at this time were afraid that the government intended to devastate the county in punishment for the murder of the Duke of Suffolk in which Kentish men and ships had been involved. Therefore many men gathered in Cade and a formal list of complaints was published. These complaints had considerable foundation. They included the high taxation for taxation was fairly high although owing to bad finance the government had received little enough money. The exclusion of the Duke of York from the council. He was not mentioned by name but simply understood among the lords of the royal blood. Interference with the freedom miscarriages of justice especially in cases affecting the holding of land and the loss of France through treason. These articles along with demands for redress were sent up to parliament then sitting at Westminster. It is the duty of a government to consider and redress grievances but order must be restored first. Henry VI saw this clearly and although many common people when called upon to serve refused to fight against them that labored to amend the common wheel yet Henry at last got sixteen thousand men together and marched against the rebels who had got as far as Blackheath. The rebels retired into the wood at Seven Oaks. On the advice of the Queen a detachment of the royal forces was sent on to Seven Oaks under Sir Humphrey Stafford to clear the rebels out of the wood. But in the first fight this detachment was entirely defeated and their leader killed. Cade then advanced to Blackheath from which the royal army had retired. He bore himself so stiffly and so grandly toward the government representatives who came to meet him, namely Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York and Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, that no agreement could be arranged and the King thought it wise to retire to the castle of Cowellworth in Warwickshire. Thus the capital of the kingdom were already the Lancastrian governor of the capital of the kingdom where already the Lancastrian government was not very popular was practically abandoned to the rebels except that the tower was still held for the King by its captain, Lord Scales. On July 3rd Cade marched to London Bridge and cut the ropes by which the middle portion could be raised. He bore himself grandly being dressed in fine clothes a brigadine set full of guilt nails belonging to Sir Humphrey Stafford who had been killed when in command of the Royal Army at Seven Oaks. Now as Mortimer Lord of the city he said, striking London Stone with his sword the treasurer of the realm Baron Sey and Seal on whom the unpopularity of all the taxation fell was given up to the rebels by the captain of the tower and was beheaded in Cheepside. Then the rebels retired to Southwark feeling themselves safer on the south side of the river. The mayor and chief citizens appealed to the captain of the tower to help them to protect their lives and goods. They saw that Cade's fair promises of good law and security were illusory and that the rule of a mob meant fearful evils to the peaceful people. So in their troubles the citizens looked to the old soldiers who were still left in England after the French wars. Lord Scales, one of Bedford's old commanders, harassed the rebels by firing off the artillery in the tower and at the same time he sent Mortimer Goff the heroic defender of Le Mans perhaps the hardest of England's fighters in the French wars to hold London Bridge. The citizens were organized under this tried soldier and all the night of July 5th they held the bridge desperately against the rebels till 9 o'clock next morning. The civic forces pushed the rebels back to the wooden posts at the south end of the bridge. Then the rebels drove them back again and set fire to the houses on the bridge so that women and children in their arms could be seen leaping into the river to escape the fire. The rebels pressed over to the north side as far as St. Magnus Corner, but a great rally of citizens forced them back to the southward side. Then truce was made for a day. The city was saved largely owing to the citizens' own actions, but the old soldier Matthew Goff who had led them was dead. Sir John Fastdolph and his will drawn up 8 years later left provision that prayer should be said for the soul of this Goff who was an old comrade of his in the French wars. Meanwhile the Chancellor of the Kingdom Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York and William Wayne Fleet Bishop of Winchester who when the king went to Kenilworth had remained in the tower with the great seal of the southern with a general pardon ready drawn up and sealed. They came at a propitious moment for the government when the rebels were despondent after the fearful and unsuccessful battle of the night before. Most of them gladly accepted the pardon and went off home. Thus Cade was left with the more violent of the rebels probably the prisoners whom he had released from the Marshall Sea and King's Bench prisons. He gathered his plunder together and slowly sent it away on a barge to Rochester. He himself with his band retired by land. He made an effort to gain the castle of Queenborough but finding the captain staunch and ready to resist he saw that his cause was ruined. He assumed a disguise and set off apparently alone to the woods about Lewis and Sussex. But the new sheriff of Kent Alexander Eden tracked him into a garden at Heathfield near Hastings in a white in which Cade defended himself desperately made him a prisoner. On the way back to London the captain of Kent died of his wounds. The rebellion ended and in the inquiries which followed the king is said to have behaved mercifully having only eight men executed where he might justly have had five hundred. This was one of the many local risings in England. It was clear that the administration of the country was breaking down. Even ecclesiastics were not safe. On June 29th about the same time as Cade's rising, William Askew Bishop of Salisbury after he had said Mass at Eddington was by his own tenants drawn from the altar in his alb with his stole about his neck to the top of a hill and thereby them shamefully murdered and after spoiled to the naked skin. In the same year only six months after Adam de Molaine or Amaleneu Bishop of Chichester keeper of the privy seal had been murdered by the soldiers at Portsmouth whom he was visiting for no other purpose than to pay them the sums that were due and overdue to them before they went off to Sir Thomas Curiel's expedition to Normandy. The rebellion of Cade would not have been formidable for a moment to a government that was really strong. Indeed had the government been strong rebellion would never have been thought of at all. It is probable that in England the outlying counties near the Welsh and Scottish marches had never been quite peaceful and amenable to government. But now all the home counties were in a similar state with local risings and disorder. At the same time the last of the English arms were being expelled from Normandy. On August 22nd, 1450 Cherbourg the last English stronghold surrendered there was a dearth of great or even able men. The root is dead, the swan is gone, the fiery crescent had lost his light. Therefore England may make great moan were not the help of God all might. The castle is one where care begun, the Port Cullis is laid adown. Eclosed we have our velvet hat that covered us with storms brown. The boar is far into the west that should us help with shield and spear, the falcon fleeth and hath no rest till he whit where to big his nest. These beautiful verses were evidently written by a partisan of the Duke of York. It was not merely the rebels of Kent who felt that the country needed him back from Ireland. His achievements in France and England had not been brilliant but they had shown eminent qualities firmness and the sound capacity for administration. He had always been quiet and self-restrained, the confidence which people felt in him was not due to any form of self-advertisement. Whatever work had been given to him he had done well. He had behaved with dignity when the government ministers had plainly shown their dislike of him. But he could also act decisively and now he saw that the time for him had come. Some time early in September 1450 he crossed from Ireland to Wales about the same time before September 11th, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset arrived in England having lost the whole of Normandy of which he had been the king's lieutenant. Henry was faced with a problem.