Short History of the English People,
chapter 5, section 3._
"When Parliament assembled it proved itself as hostile as the
crown to the conceding any of the demands of the people; both
were faithful to all the records of history in similar cases;
they would have belied all experience if, being victorious,
they had consented to the least concession to the vanquished.
The upper classes repudiated the recognition of the rights of
the poor to a degree, which in our time would be considered
sheer insanity. The king had annulled, by proclamation to the
sheriffs, the charters of manumission which he had granted to
the insurgents, and this revocation was warmly approved by
both Lords and Commons, who, not satisfied with saying that
such enfranchisement could not be made without their consent,
added, that they would never give that consent, even to save
themselves from perishing altogether in one day. There was, it
is true, a vague rumour about the propriety and wisdom of
abolishing villanage; but the notion was scouted, and the
owners of serfs showed that they neither doubted the right by
which they held their fellow-creatures in a state of slavery,
nor would hesitate to increase the severity of the laws
affecting them. They now passed a law by which 'all riots and
rumours, and other such things were turned into high treason';
this law was most vaguely expressed, and would probably
involve those who made it in inextricable difficulties. It was
self-apparent, that this Parliament acted under the impulses
of panic, and of revenge for recent injuries. ... It might be
said that the citizens of the municipalities wrote their
charters of enfranchisement with the very blood of their lords
and bishops; yet, during the worst days of oppression, the
serfs of the cities had never suffered the cruel excesses of
tyranny endured by the country people till the middle of the
fifteenth century. And, nevertheless, the long struggles of
the townships, despite the bloodshed and cruelties of the
citizens, are ever considered and narrated as glorious
revolutions, whilst the brief efforts of the peasants for
vengeance, which were drowned in their own blood, have
remained as a stigma flung in the face of the country
populations whenever they utter a word claiming some
amelioration in their condition. Whence the injustice? The
bourgeoisie was victorious and successful. The rural
populations were vanquished and trampled upon. The
bourgeoisie, therefore, has had its poets, historians, and
flatterers, whilst the poor peasant, rude, untutored, and
ignorant, never had a lyre nor a voice to bewail his
lamentable sorrows and sufferings."
_Prof. De Vericour,
Wat Tyler
(Royal Historical Society, Transactions,
number 8, volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_G. Lechler,
John Wiclif,
chapter 9, section 3._
_C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 2, chapter 1._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1383.
The Bishop of Norwich's Crusade in Flanders.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1383.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1388.
The Merciless or Wonderful Parliament.
See PARLIAMENT, THE WONDERFUL.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1399.
Accession of King Henry IV.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1399-1471.
House of Lancaster.
This name is given in English history to the family which
became royal in the person of Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of
Lancaster, who deposed his cousin, Richard II., or forced him
to abdicate the throne, and who was crowned king (Henry IV.),
Oct. 11, 1399, with what seemed to be the consent of the
nation. He not only claimed to be the next in succession to
Richard, but he put forward a claim of descent through his
mother, more direct than Richard's had been, from Henry III.
"In point of fact Henry was not the next in succession. His
father, John of Gaunt [or John of Ghent, in which city he was
born], was the fourth son of Edward III., and there were
descendants of that king's third son, Lionel Duke of Clarence,
living. ... At one time Richard himself had designated as his
successor the nobleman who really stood next to him in the
line of descent. This was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, the
same who was killed by the rebels in Ireland. This Roger had
left a son Edmund to inherit his title, but Edmund was a mere
child, and the inconvenience of another minority could not
have been endured."
_J. Gairdner,
Houses of Lancaster and York,
chapter 2._
{818}
As for Henry's pretensions through his mother, they were
founded upon what Mr. Gairdner calls an "idle story," that
"the eldest son of Henry III. was not king Edward, but his
brother Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, who was commonly
reputed the second son; and that this Edmund had been
purposely set aside on account of his personal deformity. The
plain fact of the matter was that Edmund Crouchback was six
years younger than his brother Edward I.; and that his surname
Crouchback had not the smallest reference to personal
deformity, but only implied that he wore the cross upon his
back as a crusader." Mr. Wylie (History of England under Henry
IV., volume 1, chapter 1) represents that this latter claim
was put forward under the advice of the leading jurists of the
time, to give the appearance of a legitimate succession;
whereas Henry took his real title from the will and assent of
the nation. Henry IV. was succeeded by his vigorous son, Henry
V. and he in turn by a feeble son, Henry VI., during whose
reign England was torn by intrigues and factions, ending in
the lamentable civil wars known as the "Wars of the Roses,"
the deposition of Henry VI. and the acquisition of the throne
by the "House of York," in the persons of Edward IV. and
Richard III. It was a branch of the House of Lancaster that
reappeared, after the death of Richard III. in the royal
family better known as the Tudors.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1400-1436.
Relations with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1400-1436.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1402-1413.
Owen Glendower's Rebellion in Wales.
See WALES: A. D.1402-1413.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1403.
Hotspur's Rebellion.
The earl of Northumberland and his son, Henry Percy, called
"Hotspur," had performed great services for Henry IV., in
establishing and maintaining him upon the throne. "At the
outset of his reign their opposition would have been fatal to
him; their adhesion ensured his victory. He had rewarded them
with territory and high offices of trust, and they had by
faithful services ever since increased their claims to
gratitude and consideration. ... Both father and son were
high-spirited, passionate, suspicious men, who entertained an
exalted sense of their own services and could not endure the
shadow of a slight. Up to this time [early in 1403] not a
doubt had been cast on their fidelity. Northumberland was
still the king's chief agent in Parliament, his most valued
commander in the field, his Mattathias. It has been thought
that Hotspur's grudge against the king began with the notion
that the release of his brother-in-law, Edmund Mortimer [taken
prisoner, the year before, by the Welsh], had been neglected
by the king, or was caused by Henry's claim to deal with the
prisoners taken at Homildon; the defenders of the Percies
alleged that they had been deceived by Henry in the first
instance, and only needed to be persuaded that Richard lived
in order to desert the king. It is more probable that they
suspected Henry's friendship, and were exasperated by his
compulsory economies. ... Yet Henry seems to have conceived no
suspicion. ... Northumberland and Hotspur were writing for
increased forces [for the war with Scotland]. ... On the 10th
of July Henry had reached Northamptonshire on his way
northwards; on the 17th he heard that Hotspur with his uncle
the earl of Worcester were in arms in Shropshire. They raised
no cry of private wrongs, but proclaimed themselves the
vindicators of national right: their object was to correct the
evils of the administration, to enforce the employment of wise
counsellors, and the proper expenditure of public money. ...
The report ran like wildfire through the west that Richard was
alive, and at Chester. Hotspur's army rose to 14,000 men, and
not suspecting the strength and promptness of the king, he sat
down with his uncle and his prisoner, the earl of Douglas,
before Shrewsbury. Henry showed himself equal to the need.
From Burton-on-Trent, where on July 17 he summoned the forces
of the shires to join him, he marched into Shropshire, and
offered to parley with the insurgents. The earl of Worcester
went between the camps, but he was either an impolitic or a
treacherous envoy, and the negotiations ended in mutual
exasperation. On the 21st the battle of Shrewsbury was fought;
Hotspur was slain; Worcester was taken and beheaded two days
after. The old earl, who may or may not have been cognizant of
his son's intentions from the first, was now marching to his
succour. The earl of Westmoreland, his brother-in-law, met him
and drove him back to Warkworth. But all danger was over. On
the 11th of August he met the king at York, and submitted to
him."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 18, section 632._
ALSO IN:
_J. H. Wylie,
History of England under Henry IV.,
volume 1, chapter 25._
_W. Shakespeare,
King Henry IV.,
part 1._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1413.
Accession of King Henry V.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1413-1422.
Parliamentary gains under Henry V.
"What the sword had won the sword should keep, said Henry V.
on his accession; but what was meant by the saying has its
comment in the fact that, in the year which witnessed his
victory at Agincourt, he yielded to the House of Commons the
most liberal measure of legislation which until then it had
obtained. The dazzling splendour of his conquests in France
had for the time cast into the shade every doubt or question
of his title, but the very extent of those gains upon the
French soil established more decisively the worse than
uselessness of such acquisitions to the English throne. The
distinction of Henry's reign in constitutional history will
always be, that from it dates that power, indispensable to a
free and limited monarchy, called Privilege of Parliament; the
shield and buckler under which all the battles of liberty and
good government were fought in the after time. Not only were
its leading safeguards now obtained, but at once so firmly
established, that against the shock of incessant resistance in
later years they stood perfectly unmoved. Of the awful right
of impeachment, too, the same is to be said. It was won in the
same reign, and was never afterwards lost."
_J. Forster,
Historical and Biographical Essays,
volume 1, page 207._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1415-1422.
Conquests of Henry V. in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1415; and 1417-1422.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1422.
Accession of King Henry VI.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1431-1453.
Loss of English conquests and possessions in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453,
and AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453.
{819}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1450.
Cade's Rebellion.
A formidable rebellion broke out in Kent, under the leadership
of one Jack Cade, A. D. 1450. Overtaxation, the bad management
of the council, the extortion of the subordinate officers, the
injustice of the king's bench, the abuse of the right of
purveyance, the "enquestes" and amercements, and the
illegitimate control of elections were the chief causes of the
rising of 1450. "The rising was mainly political, only one
complaint was economical, not a single one was religious. We
find not a single demand for new legislation. ... The movement
was by no means of a distinctly plebeian or disorderly
character, but was a general and organized rising of the
people at large. It was a political upheaval. We find no trace
of socialism or of democracy. ... The commons in 1450 arose
against Lancaster and in favor of York. Their rising was the
first great struggle in the Wars of the Roses."
_Kriehn,
Rising in 1450,
Chapter IV., VII._
Cade and his rebels took possession of London; but they were
beaten in a battle and forced to quit the city. Cade and some
followers continued to be turbulent and soon afterwards he was
killed.
_J. Gairdner,
Houses of Lancaster and York,
chapter 7, section 6._
ALSO IN:
_C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
3d series, chapter 7._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1455.
Demoralized state of the nation.
Effects of the wars in France.
"The whole picture of the times is very depressing on the
moral if not on the material side. There are few more pitiful
episodes in history than the whole tale of the reign of Henry
VI., the most unselfish and well-intentioned king that ever
sat upon the English throne--a man of whom not even his
enemies and oppressors could find an evil word to say; the
troubles came, as they confessed, 'all because of his false
lords, and never of him.' We feel that there must have been
something wrong with the heart of a nation that could see
unmoved the meek and holy king torn from wife and child, sent
to wander in disguise up and down the kingdom for which he had
done his poor best, and finally doomed to pine for five years a
prisoner in the fortress where he had so long held his royal
Court. Nor is our first impression concerning the
demoralisation of England wrong. Every line that we read bears
home to us more and more the fact that the nation had fallen
on evil times. First and foremost among the causes of its
moral deterioration was the wretched French War, a war begun
in the pure spirit of greed and ambition,--there was not even
the poor excuse that had existed in the time of Edward
III.--carried on by the aid of hordes of debauched foreign
mercenaries ... and persisted in long after it had become
hopeless, partly from misplaced national pride, partly because
of the personal interests of the ruling classes. Thirty-five
years of a war that was as unjust as it was unfortunate had
both soured and demoralised the nation. ... When the final
catastrophe came and the fights of Formigny [or Fourmigny] and
Chatillon [Castillon] ended the chapter of our disasters, the
nation began to cast about for a scapegoat on whom to lay the
burden of its failures. ... At first the unfortunate Suffolk
and Somerset had the responsibility laid upon them. A little
later the outcry became more bold and fixed upon the
Lancastrian dynasty itself as being to blame not only for
disaster abroad, but for want of governance at home. If King
Henry had understood the charge, and possessed the wit to
answer it, he might fairly have replied that his subjects must
fit the burden upon their own backs, not upon his. The war had
been weakly conducted, it was true; but weakly because the men
and money for it were grudged. ... At home, the bulwarks of
social order seemed crumbling away. Private wars, riot, open
highway robbery, murder, abduction, armed resistance to the
law, prevailed on a scale that had been unknown since the
troublous times of Edward II.--we might almost say since the
evil days of Stephen. But it was not the Crown alone that
should have been blamed for the state of the realm. The nation
had chosen to impose over-stringent constitutional checks on
the kingly power before it was ripe for self-government, and
the Lancastrian house sat on the throne because it had agreed
to submit to those checks. If the result of the experiment was
disastrous, both parties to the contract had to bear their
share of the responsibility. But a nation seldom allows that
it has been wrong; and Henry of Windsor had to serve as a
scapegoat for all the misfortunes of the realm, because Henry
of Bolingbroke had committed his descendants to the unhappy
compact. Want of a strong central government was undoubtedly
the complaint under which England was labouring in the middle
of the 15th century, and all the grievances against which
outcry was made were but symptoms of one latent disease. ...
All these public troubles would have been of comparatively
small importance if the heart of the nation had been sound.
The phenomenon which makes the time so depressing is the
terrible decay in private morals since the previous century.
... There is no class or caste in England which comes well out
of the scrutiny. The Church, which had served as the conscience
of the nation in better times, had become dead to spiritual
things. It no longer produced either men of saintly life or
learned theologians or patriotic statesmen. ... The baronage
of England had often been unruly, but it had never before
developed the two vices which distinguished it in the times of
the Two Roses--a taste for indiscriminate bloodshed and a turn
for political apostacy. ... Twenty years spent in contact with
French factions, and in command of the godless mercenaries who
formed the bulk of the English armies, had taught our nobles
lessons of cruelty and faithlessness such as they had not
before imbibed. ... The knights and squires showed on a
smaller scale all the vices of the nobility. Instead of
holding together and maintaining a united loyalty to the
Crown, they bound themselves by solemn sealed bonds and the
reception of 'liveries' each to the baron whom he preferred.
This fatal system, by which the smaller landholder agreed on
behalf of himself and his tenants to follow his greater
neighbour in peace and war, had ruined the military system of
England, and was quite as dangerous as the ancient feudalism.
... If the gentry constituted themselves the voluntary
followers of the baronage, and aided their employers to keep
England unhappy, the class of citizens and burgesses took a
very different line of conduct. If not actively mischievous,
they were solidly inert. They refused to entangle themselves
in politics at all. They submitted impassively to each ruler
in turn, when they had ascertained that their own persons and
property were not endangered by so doing. A town, it has been
remarked, seldom or never stood a siege during the Wars of the
Roses, for no town ever refused to open its gates to any
commander with an adequate force who asked for entrance."
_C. W. Oman,
Warwick the King-maker,
chapter 1._
{820}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.
The Wars of the Roses.