MORE SANGUINARY TRIUMPHS: ONWARD MARCH OF CIVILIZATION GRAPHICALLY
DELINEATED WITH THE HISTORIAN'S USUAL COMPLETENESS.
The Plantagenet period saw the establishment of the House of Commons,
and cut off the power of the king to levy taxes without the consent of
Parliament. It also exchanged the judicial rough-and-tumble on horseback
for the trial by jury. Serfdom continued, and a good horse would bring
more in market than a man.
Agriculture was still in its infancy, and the farmer refused to adopt a
new and attractive plough because it did not permit the ploughman to
walk near enough to his team, that he might twist the tail of the
patient bullock.
The costumes of the period seem odd, as we look back upon them, for the
men wore pointed shoes with toes tied to the girdle, and trousers and
coat each of different colors: for instance, sometimes one sleeve was
black and the other white, while the ladies wore tall hats, sometimes
two feet high, and long trains. They also carried two swords in the
girdle, doubtless to protect them from the nobility.
[Illustration: SLAVES WERE BOUGHT AND SOLD AT THE FAIRS.]
Each house of any size had a "pleasance," and the "herberie," or physic
garden, which was the pioneer of the pie-plant bed, was connected with
the monasteries.
[Illustration: ASTROLOGY WAS THE FAVORITE STUDY OF THOSE TIMES.]
Roger Bacon was thrown into prison for having too good an education.
Scientists in those days always ran the risk of being surprised, and
more than one discoverer wound up by discovering himself in jail.
Astrology was a favorite amusement, especially among the young people.
Henry IV., son of John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III., became king
in 1399, though Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, and great-grandson of
Lionel, the third son of Edward III., was the rightful heir. This boy
was detained in Windsor Castle by Henry's orders.
[Illustration: HENRY PROTECTS THE CHURCH FROM HERESY.]
Henry succeeded in catching a heretic, in 1401, and burned him at the
stake. This was the first person put to death in England for his
religious belief, and the occasion was the origin of the epitaph, "Well
done, good and faithful servant."
Conspiracies were quite common in those days, one of them being
organized by Harry Percy, called "Hotspur" because of his irritability.
The ballad of Chevy Chase was founded upon his exploits at the battle of
Otterburn, in 1388. The Percys favored Mortimer, and so united with the
Welsh and Scots.
A large fight occurred at Shrewsbury in 1403. The rebels were defeated
and Percy slain. Northumberland was pardoned, and tried it again,
assisted by the Archbishop of York, two years later. The archbishop was
executed in 1405. Northumberland made another effort, but was defeated
and slain.
In 1413 Henry died, leaving behind him the record of a fraudulent
sovereign who was parsimonious, sour, and superstitious, without virtue
or religion.
He was succeeded by his successor, which was customary at that time.
Henry V. was his son, a youth who was wild and reckless. He had been in
jail for insulting the chief-justice, as a result of a drunken frolic
and fine. He was real wild and bad, and had no more respect for his
ancestry than a chicken born in an incubator. Yet he reformed on taking
the throne.
[Illustration: HENRY V. HAD ON ONE OCCASION BEEN COMMITTED TO PRISON.]
Henry now went over to France with a view to securing the throne, but
did not get it, as it was occupied at the time. So he returned; but at
Agincourt was surprised by the French army, four times as large as his
own, and with a loss of forty only, he slew ten thousand of the French
and captured fourteen thousand. What the French were doing while this
slaughter was going on the modern historian has great difficulty in
figuring out. This battle occurred in 1415, and two years after Henry
returned to France, hoping to do equally well. He made a treaty at
Troyes with the celebrated idiot Charles VI., and promised to marry his
daughter Catherine, who was to succeed Charles upon his death, and try
to do better. Henry became Regent of France by this ruse, but died in
1422, and left his son Henry, less than a year old. The king's death was
a sad blow to England, for he was an improvement on the general run of
kings. Henry V. left a brother, the Duke of Bedford, who became
Protector and Regent of France; but when Charles the Imbecile died, his
son, Charles VII., rose to the occasion, and a war of some years began.
After some time, Bedford invaded southern France and besieged Orléans.
[Illustration: HENRY, PROCLAIMED REGENT OF FRANCE, ENTERED PARIS IN
TRIUMPH.]
Joan of Arc had been told of a prophecy to the effect that France could
only be delivered from the English by a virgin, and so she, though only
a peasant girl, yet full of a strange, eager heroism which was almost
inspiration, applied to the king for a commission.
[Illustration: JOAN OF ARC INDUCES THE KING TO BELIEVE THE TRUTH OF HER
MISSION.]
Inspired by her perfect faith and godlike heroism, the French fought
like tigers, and, in 1429, the besiegers went home. She induced the king
to be crowned in due form at Rheims, and asked for an honorable
discharge; but she was detained, and the English, who afterwards
captured her, burned her to death at Rouen, in 1431, on the charge of
sorcery. Those who did this afterwards regretted it and felt mortified.
Her death did the invaders no good; but above her ashes, and moistened
by her tears,--if such a feat were possible,--liberty arose once more,
and, in 1437, Charles was permitted to enter Paris and enjoy the town
for the first time in twenty years. In 1444 a truce of six years was
established.
Henry was a disappointment, and, as Bedford was dead, the Duke of
Gloucester, the king's uncle, and Cardinal Beaufort, his guardian, had,
up to his majority, been the powers behind the throne.
Henry married Margaret of Anjou, a very beautiful and able lady, who
possessed the qualities so lacking in the king. They were married in
1445, and, if living, this would be the four hundred and fifty-first
anniversary of their wedding. It is, anyway. (1896.)
The provinces of Maine and Anjou were given by the king in return for
Margaret. Henry continued to show more and more signs of fatty
degeneration of the cerebrator, and Gloucester, who had opposed the
marriage, was found dead in his prison bed, whither he had been sent at
Margaret's request. The Duke of York, the queen's favorite, succeeded
him, and Somerset, another favorite, succeeded York. In 1451 it was
found that the English had lost all their French possessions except
Calais.
Things went from bad to worse, and, in 1450, Jack Cade headed an
outbreak; but he was slain, and the king showing renewed signs of
intellectual fag, Richard, Duke of York, was talked of as the people's
choice on account of his descent from Edward III. He was for a few days
Protector, but the queen was too strongly opposed to him, and he
resigned.
[Illustration: RICHARD AND HIS ADHERENTS RAISING AN ARMY FOR THE REDRESS
OF GRIEVANCES.]
He then raised an army, and in a battle at St. Albans, in 1455,
defeated the royalists, capturing the king. This was the opening of the
War of the Roses,--so called because as badges the Lancastrians wore a
red rose and the Yorkists a white rose. This war lasted over thirty
years, and killed off the nobility like sheep. They were, it is said,
virtually annihilated, and thus a better class of nobility was
substituted.
The king was restored; but in 1460 there occurred the battle of
Northampton, in which he was defeated and again taken prisoner by the
Earl of Warwick.
[Illustration: BY REQUEST OF MARGARET, HIS HEAD WAS REMOVED FROM HIS
BODY TO THE GATES OF YORK.]
Margaret was a woman of great spirit, and when the Duke of York was
given the throne she went to Scotland, and in the battle of Wakefield
her army defeated and captured the duke. At her request he was beheaded,
and his head, ornamented with a paper crown, placed on the gates of
York, as shown in the rather life-like--or death-like--etching on the
preceding page.
The queen was for a time successful, and her army earned a slight
reputation for cruelty also; but Edward, son of the late Duke of York,
embittered somewhat by the flippant death of his father, was soon
victorious over the Lancastrians, and, in 1461, was crowned King of
England at a good salary, with the use of a large palace and a good well
of water and barn.