Part 47

But beneath the surface the contest was not for principle, but for place and spoils. The great nobles, who during the French wars (S288) had pillaged abroad, now pillaged each other; and as England was neither big enough nor rich enough to satisfy the greed of all of them, the struggle gradually became a war of mutual extermination.

It was, to a certain extent, a sectional war. Eastern England, then the wealthiest and most progressive part of the country, had strongly supported Wycliffe in his reforms (S254). It now espoused the side of Richard, Duke of York, who was believed to be friendly to religious liberty, while the western counties fought for the cause of Lancaster and the Church.

302. The First Battles (1455-1460).

We have already seen (S301) that the first blood was shed at St. Albans (1455), where the Yorkists, after half an hour's fighting, gained a complete victory. A similar result followed at Bloreheath, Staffordshire (1459). In a third battle, at Northampton, the Yorkists were again successful (1460). Henry was taken prisoner, and Queen Margaret fled with the young Prince Edward to Scotland. Richard now demanded the crown. (See map facing p. 172.)

Henry answered with unexpected spirit: "My father was King, his father also was King. I have worn the crown forty years from my cradle; you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers did the like to my fathers. How, then, can my claim be disputed?" After a long controversy, a compromise was effected. Henry agreed that if he were left in peaceable possession of the throne during his life, Richard or his heirs should succeed him.

303. Battles of Wakefield and Towton (1460-1461).

But Queen Margaret refused to see her son, Prince Edward, thus tamely set aside. She raised an army and attacked the Yorkists. Richard, Duke of York, whose forces were inferior to hers, had entrenched himself in Sandal Castle near Wakefield, Yorkshire. Day after day Margaret went up under the walls and dared him to come out.

At length, stung by her taunts, the Duke sallied from his strongold, and the battle of Wakefield was fought (1460). Margaret was victorious. Richard was slain, and the Queen, in mockery of his claims to sovereignty, cut off his head, decked it with a paper crown, and set it up over the chief gate of the city of York. Fortune now changed. The next year (1461) the Lacastrians were defeated with great slaughter at Towton, Yorkshire. The light spring snow was crimsoned with the blood of thirty thousand slain, and the way strewn with corpses for ten miles up to the walls of York.

The Earl of Warwick (S296), henceforth popularly known as "King Maker," now place Edward, eldest son of the late Duke of York, on the throne, with the title of Edward IV (S300, table). Henry and Margaret fled to Scotland. The new government summoned them to appear, and as they failed to answer, proclaimed them traitors.

Four years later Henry was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower of London (S305). He may have been happier there than battling for his throne. He was not born to reign, but rather, as Shakespeare makes him say, to lead a shepherd's life, watching his flocks, until the peacefully flowing years should--

"Bring white hairs unto a quiet grave."

See Henry's soliloquy on the field of Towton, beginning, "O God! methinks it were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain." Shakespeare's "Henry VI," Part III, Act II, scene v

304. Summary.

The history of the peiod is one of loss to England. The brilliant French conquests of Henry V (SS289, 290) slipped from the nerveless hands of his son, leaving France practically independent. The people's power to vote had been restricted (S297). The House of Commons had ceased to be democratic even in a moderate degree. Its members were all property holders elected by property holders (S297). Cade's rebellion was the sign of political discontent and the forerunner of civil war (S298).

The contests of the parties of the Red and White Roses drenched England's fair fields with the best blood of her own sons. The reign ends with King Henry in prison, Queen Margaret and Prince Edward fugitives, and the Yorkist, Edward IV, placed on the throne by the help of the powerful Earl of Warwick (S296).

Edward IV (House of York, White Rose)--1461-1483

305. Continuation of the War; Barnet; Death of Henry; Tewkesbury (1471).

During the whole of Edward IV's reign (S303) the war went on with varying success, but unvarying ferocity, until at last neither side would ask or give quarter. Some years after the accession of the new sovereign, the Earl of Warwick (S296) quarreled with him, thrust him from the throne, and restored Henry VI (S303).

But a few months later, at the battle of Barnet, near London (1471), Warwick, who was "the last of the great barons," was killed, and Henry, who had been led back to the Tower of London again (S303), died one of those "conveniently sudden deaths" which were then so common.

The heroic Queen Margaret (SS295, 303), however, would not give up the contest in behalf of her son's claim to the crown. But fate was against her. A few weeks after the battle of Barnet her army was utterly defeated at Tewkesbury (1471), her son Edward slain, and the Queen herself taken prisoner. (See map facing p. 172.)

She was eventually released on the payment of a large ransom, and returned to France, where she died broken-hearted in her native Anjou, prophesying that the contest would go on until the Red Rose, representing her party, should get a still deeper dye from the blood of her enemies.

306. The Introduction of Printing, 1477.

But an event was at hand of greater importance than any question of crowns or parties, though then none was wise enough to see its real significance. William Caxton, a London merchant, had learned the new art of printing with movable type at Bruges in Flanders (now Belgium). When he returned to his native country, he set up a small press within the grounds of Westminster Abbey.

The first printing in Europe was done in the early part of the fifteenth century from wooden blocks on which the words were cut. Movable types were invented about 1450.

There, at the sign of a shield bearing a red "pale," or band, he advertised his wares as "good chepe." He was not only printer, but translator and editor. King Edward gave him some royal patronage. His Majesty was willing to pay liberally for work which was not long before the clergy in France had condemned as a black art emanating from the devil. Many, too, of the English clergy regarded it with no very friendly eye, since it threatened to destroy the copying trade, of which the monks had well-nigh a monopoly (S154).

The first printed book which Caxton is known to have published in England was a small volume entitled "The Sayings of the Philosophers," 1477. This venture was followed in due time by Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (S253), and whatever other poetry, history, or classics seemed worthy of preservation; making in all nearly a hundred distinct works comprising more than eighteen thousand volumes.

"The dictes or sayengis of the philosophres, enprynted by me william Caxton at westmestre, the year of our lord MCCCCLxxvii."

Up to this time a book of any kind was a luxury, laboriously "written by the few for the few"; but from this date literature of all sorts was destined to multiply and fill the earth with many leaves and some good fruit.