character were alike feeble. At twenty-five he married the beautiful and unfortunate French Princess, Margaret of Anjou, who was by far the better man of the two. When years of disaster came, this dauntless "Queen of tears "headed councils, led armies, and ruled both King and kingdom. 296. Poverty of the Crown and Wealth of the Nobles. One cause of the weakness of the government was its poverty. The revenues of the Crown had been greatly diminished by gifts and grants to favorites. The King was obliged to pawn his jewels and the silver plate from his table to pay his wedding expenses; and it is said on high authority 1 that the royal couple were sometimes in actual want of a dinner. 1 2 On the other hand, the Earl of Warwick and other great lords had made fortunes out of the French wars, and lived in regal splendor. The Earl, it is said, had at his different castles and his city mansion in London upwards of thirty thousand men in his service. Their livery, or uniform, a bright red jacket with the Warwick arms a bear erect holding a ragged staff — embroidered on it in white, was seen, known, and feared throughout the country. Backed by such forces it was easy for the Earl and other powerful lords to overawe kings, parliaments, and courts. Between the heads of the great houses quarrels were constantly breaking out. The safety of the people was endangered by these feuds, which became more and more violent, and often ended in bloodshed and murder. 297. Disfranchisement of the Common People, 1430. With the growth of power on the part of the nobles, there was also imposed for the first time a restriction on the right of the people to vote for members of Parliament. Up to this period all freemen might take part in the election of representatives chosen by the counties to sit in the House of Commons. A law was now passed forbidding any one to vote at these elections unless he was a resident of the county and possessed 1 Fortescue, on the "Governance of England" (Plummer). 2 First, by furnishing troops to the government, the feudal system having now so far decayed that many soldiers had to be hired; secondly, by the plunder of French cities; thirdly, by ransoms obtained from noblemen taken prisoners. 1422-1461] CADE'S REBELLION (1450) 159 of landed property yielding an annual income of forty shillings ($200).1 Subsequently it was further enacted that no county candidate should be eligible unless he was a man of means and social standing. These two measures were blows against the free self-government of the nation, since their manifest tendency was to make the House of Commons represent the property rather than the people of the country ($319). (See, too, Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xiii, § 14.) 298. Cade's Rebellion (1450). A formidable rebellion broke out in Kent (1450), then, as now, one of the most independent and democratic counties in England. The leader was Jack Cade, who called himself by the popular name of Mortimer (§ 257, note 1, and § 279). He claimed to be cousin to Richard, Duke of York, a nephew of that Edmund Mortimer, now dead, whom Henry IV had unjustly deprived of his succession to the crown. Cade, who was a mere adventurer, was quite likely used as a tool by plotters much higher than himself. By putting him forward they could judge whether the country was ready for a revolution and change of sovereigns. Wat Tyler's rebellion, seventy years before (§ 250), was almost purely social in its character, having for its object the emancipation of the enslaved laboring classes. Cade's insurrection was, on the contrary, almost wholly political. His chief complaint was that the people were not allowed their free choice in the election of representatives, but were forced by the nobility to choose candidates they did not want. Other grievances for which reform was demanded were excessive taxation and the rapacity of the evil counselors who controlled the King. Cade entered London with a body of twenty thousand men under strict discipline. Many of the citizens sympathized with Cade's projects of reform, and were ready to give him a welcome. He took formal possession of the place by striking his sword on London Stone, a Roman monument still standing, which then 1 The income required by the statute was forty shillings, which, says Freeman, we may fairly call forty pounds of our present money. See E. A. Freeman's "Growth of the English Constitution," p. 97. marked the center of the ancient capital, — saying, as Shakespeare reports him, "Now is Mortimer lord of this city.' After three days of riot and the murder of the King's treasurer, the rebellion came to an end through a general pardon. Cade, however, endeavored to raise a new insurrection in the south, but was shortly after captured, and died of his wounds. 299. Wars of the Roses, 1455-1485. The real significance of Cade's insurrection is that it showed the widespread feeling of discontent caused by misgovernment, and that it served as an introduction to the long and dreary period of civil strife known as the Wars of the Roses. So long as the English nobles had France for a fighting ground, French cities to plunder, and French captives to hold for heavy ransoms, they were content to let matters go on quietly at home. But that day was over. Through the bad management, if not through the positive treachery, of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, the French conquests had been lost. Henry VI, a weak king, at times insane, sat on the English throne (§ 295), while Richard, Duke of York, a really able man and a descendant of the Mortimers (see table, p. 161), was, as many believed, unlawfully excluded from it. This fact in itself would have furnished a plausible pretext for hostilities, even as far back as Cade's rising. But the birth of a son to Henry (1453) probably gave the signal for the outbreak, since it cut off all hopes which Richard's friends may have had of his peaceful succession. 2 300. The Scene in the Temple Garden. Shakespeare represents the smoldering feud between the rival houses of Lancaster and 1" Now is Mortimer lord of this city, and here, sitting upon London Stone, I charge and command that, at the city's cost, this conduit runs nothing but claret wine this first year of our reign; and now it shall be treason for any man to call me other than Lord Mortimer."— Shakespeare's "Henry VI," Part II, Act IV, scene vi. It is noticeable that the great dramatist expresses no sympathy in this play with the cause of the people. In fact he ridicules Cade and his movement. In the same spirit he does not mention the Great Charter in his "King John," while in his "Richard II" he passes over Wat Tyler without a word. Perhaps the explanation may be found in the fact that Shakespeare lived in an age when England was threatened by both open and secret enemies. The need of his time was a strong, steady hand at the helm; it was no season for reform or change of any sort; on this account he may have thought it his duty to be silent in regard to democratic risings and demands in the past (§ 313, note 2). 2 Prince Edward. See Genealogical Table, p. 161, under Henry VI. 1422-1461] SCENE IN THE TEMPLE GARDEN 161 York (both of whom it should be remembered were descendants of Edward III)1 as breaking into an angry quarrel in the Temple Garden, London, when Richard, Duke of York, says: "Let him that is a true-born gentleman, And stands upon the honor of his birth, If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, From off this brier pluck a white rose with me." 2 8 To this challenge John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, a descendant of the house of Lancaster, who has just accused Richard of being the dishonored son of a traitor, replies: "Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me." 1 Table showing the descendants of Edward III, with reference to the claims of Lancaster and York to the crown: * Inherited the title of Duke of York from his father's brother, Edward, Duke of York, who died without issue. Richard's father, the Earl of Cambridge, had forfeited his title and estates by treason, but Parliament had so far limited the sentence that his son was not thereby debarred from inheriting his uncle's rank and fortune. Richard, Duke of York, now represented the direct hereditary line of succession to the crown, while Henry VI and his son represented that established by Parliament through acceptance of Henry IV (§ 279). † John, Earl of Somerset, was an illegitimate half brother of Henry IV's, but was, in 1397, declared legitimate by act of Parliament and a papal decree. 2 Shakespeare's "Henry VI," Part I, Act II, scene iv. 8 John, Duke of Somerset, died 1448. He was brother of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, who was slain at St. Albans, 1455. A little later on the Earl of Warwick rejoins: "This brawl to-day, Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden, 301. The Real Object of the Wars of the Roses. The wars, however, did not directly originate in this quarrel, but rather in the strife for power between Edmund, Duke of Somerset (John's brother), and Richard, Duke of York. Each desired to get the control of the government, though at first neither appears to have openly aimed at the crown. During King Henry's attack of insanity (1453) Richard was appointed Protector of the realm, and shortly afterward the Duke of Somerset, the King's particular favorite and chief adviser, was cast into prison on the double charge of having culpably lost Normandy and embezzled public moneys. When Henry recovered (1455), he released Somerset and restored him to office. Richard protested, and raising an army in the north, marched toward London. He met the royalist forces at St. Albans; a battle ensued, and Somerset was slain. During the next thirty years the war raged with more or less fury between the parties of the Red Rose (Lancaster) and the White Rose (York). The first maintained that Parliament had the right to choose whatever king it saw fit, as in Henry IV's case (§ 279); the second insisted that the succession should be determined by strict hereditary descent, as represented in the claim of Richard.2 But beneath the surface the contest was not for principle, but for place and spoils. The great nobles, who during the French wars (§ 288) 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, 1 Shakespeare's "Henry VI," Part I, Act II, scene iv. 2 See Genealogical Table, p. 161. |