CHAPTER XXXVI.

LOSS OF FRANCE AND TROUBLES IN ENGLAND.

End of the Hundred Years' war. Margaret of Anjou. Death of Gloucester and Suffolk. Cade's revolt. The principal actors in the Wars of the Roses.

the French.

The English did not profit by the cruel sacrifice of the Maid of Orleans. After her death their affairs in France went on as badly as possible; there were no more famous battles or sieges; both countries were nearly exhausted; but the French gradually gained ground, and the English lost. The Duke of Bedford seemed almost the Progress of only man who could accomplish anything either in England or France, and in his absence from either country everything there went wrong; but at last he died, and all the prospects of the English in France died with him. The Duke of Burgundy, who was their most important and powerful ally, but who had begun to cool in his friendship of late, now at once did what was his plain duty, broke with the English and sided with his own country.

Before, however, he would make peace with Charles, who, while he was Dauphin, had murdered the duke's father on the bridge of Montereau, he forced him to humble himself in the dust for that wicked act, and make what amends he now could. He was obliged to say that at that time he was very young, and was guided by evil counsellors. He was to found a chapel and a convent, and to set up a stone cross in the middle of the bridge. The Dean of Paris, as representing the king, was obliged to kneel down before the duke, praying for his mercy for the murder. The duke was then appeased, and the peace was made.

After that union there was no more hope for the English, though they did not give in for a long time. There were two parties, one of which wished to make Parties in peace, and to save what they still could; the head of this party was Cardinal Beaufort, the Bishop of Win

England.

chester; the other were for fighting on, and trying to get all that they had hoped for in the victorious days of Henry V. The head of the war party was the proud, ambitious Duke

of Gloucester.

The young king, meanwhile, had grown to manhood, but he was very different from his father or any of his family. He was very religious; indeed, after his death, he Character was looked on as almost a saint; but he was weakof the king. minded, and at times quite imbecile (this was attributed to his descent from the mad king of France). Every writer gives just the same impression of him; perhaps the best description is this, given by Baker: "He was tall of stature, spare and slender of body, of a comely countenance, and all parts well proportioned. For endowments of mind, he had virtues enough to make him a saint, but not to make him a god, as kings are said to be gods. . . . He was not sensible of what the world calls honor, accounting the greatest honor to consist in humility. His greatest imperfection was that he had in him too much of the log and too little of the stork; for he would not move but as he was moved, and had rather be devoured than he would devour. He was not so stupid not to know prosperity from adversity, but he was so devout to think nothing adversity which was not a hindrance to devotion. He was fitter for a priest than a king; for a sacrifice than a priest. He had one immunity peculiar to himself, that no man could ever be revenged on him, seeing he never offered any man an injury. By being innocent as a dove he kept his crown upon his head so long, but if he had been wise as a serpent he might have kept it on longer."

Henry was sure to be under the sway of some one of a stronger character than his own. For a long time everything was in the hands of the Duke of Gloucester or Cardinal Beaufort. As the cardinal grew older, another man rose to power on his side, the Earl of Suffolk. He The Earl of thought that if the king of England were married to a French princess it would go a great way towards making peace; and he contrived to find a wife for him so exactly the reverse of himself in character, that in their after lives she was like the husband, and he the wife.

Suffolk.

She was the daughter of a French prince belonging to the family of Anjou, who had many high-sounding titles, being called the king of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem. But these

1445.

marries

were empty names, and he was in reality the poorest and most unlucky of princes. He was in prison when his daughter Margaret was born. She was now fif- The king teen years old, and her father, though not in prison, Margaret was still very poor. The English had lost nearly all of Anjou. they had ever won in France, but part of Anjou and Maine still belonged to them. It was now settled that Henry should marry the Princess Margaret, and give over those provinces to her father in return. This marriage treaty was far from popular in England, especially with the war party. Instead of a grand alliance, and a bride who brought a dowry with her, such as the kings of England were accustomed to, here was a penniless bride, to whose father the English were to give up some of the most important parts of France which still remained to them. The Duke of Gloucester was furious, and the two parties hated each other more than ever.

The new queen, whose character soon began to show itself, of course took part with Suffolk, who had made the match for her, and she looked on the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester as her enemies and rivals. This duchess was not the same whose marriage had so nearly caused a broil with the Duke of Burgundy some years before. The " good Duke Humphrey" seemed to have forgotten all about her, and had afterwards married an English lady, Eleanor Cobham. Until Henry VI. should marry and have a son, the next heir to the throne was the Duke of Gloucester, and his wife was the

Gloucester.

first lady in the land. Whether she affronted the young Queen Margaret, and taunted her with her poverty (as she is made to do in the play), or not, she was certainly The Duchan ambitious and unscrupulous woman, and was not ess of likely to look with much favor on a marriage which took away her precedence, and would most probably destroy all hope of her husband ever rising to be king of England. It began to be rumored that she had taken counsel with witches and magicians, and that they had made a waxen image of the king, which being set before a slow fire, and gradually wasting away, the king's life would waste away with it. Every one was quite ready to believe it. The duchess and her confederates were seized, examined, and found guilty. The sorcerer and the witch were put to death; the duchess was made to do public penance, walking barefoot through the streets of London, carrying a taper, and pursued by the shouts and mockery of the mob. After

this she was sent into perpetual imprisonment in the Isle of Man, which was much more remote in the days before

steam.

fort.

Not long afterwards the duke himself was deprived of his offices and charged with high treason. It is impossible to make out what he had really done, or if he had done anything; but he was sent to prison, and then that happened to him which generally happened in those days to eminent people whose enemies contrived to imprison them. In a short time it was made known that he was dead, just as 1447. Deaths of it had been with that other Duke of Gloucester, Gloucester and Beau- who was put in prison at Calais in Richard II.'s time. No one had much doubt that he had been murdered, and it was believed that Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Suffolk, if not the queen herself, were guilty of his death. About six weeks after, the cardinal himself died. Terrible stories were told about his death-bed, and that he was haunted by the ghost of his murdered nephew, though no one thought of the poor Maiden, whom his cruelty had doomed to a fearful death at Rouen. These stories, however, though they show the popular feeling with regard to the duke and the cardinal, were not true in fact; it appears that Beaufort died in a perfectly calm and decorous manner. But the death of the Duke of Gloucester settled nothing; a still more dangerous person came to the front in his place the Duke of York, the son of that conspirator The Duke Richard who had been put to death at the beginof York. ning of Henry V.'s reign; the descendant of those

Mortimers who had been always standing like dark shadows behind the throne of the Lancaster princes. Probably the claims of the Mortimers would never have been heard of again if Henry VI. had been like his father and grandfather. But he being so weak and helpless, and the country so divided and discontented, there was an opening for an ambitious prince. The Duke of York, however, made no sign of aiming to become more than the head of the party which opposed the queen and the peace with France. For a long time his principal rival was the Duke of Somerset, who was a relation of Cardinal Beaufort, and, like him, descended from John of Gaunt.

English affairs in France were going from most of the blame was laid on the Duke of turn came to be charged with high treason.

bad to worse; Suffolk, and his He was trying