HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



year of his age, leaving the throne to an infant 

 nine months old, who was proclaimed as HENRY 

 VI. king of France and England. 



Under Henry VI. whose power was for some 

 time in the hands of his uncle, the Duke of Bed- 

 ford, the English maintained their footing in 

 France for several years ; and at the battle of 

 Yerneuil, in 1424, rivalled the glory of Crecy and 

 Poitiers. In 1428^ when France seemed com- 

 pletely sunk beneath the English rule, the inter- 

 ests of the native prince were suddenly revived 

 by a peasant-girl of sixteen, named Joan of Arc, 

 who declared herself to have been commissioned 

 by Heaven to save her country; and entering into 

 the French army, was the cause of several signal 

 reverses to the English. By her enthusiastic 

 exertions, and the trust everywhere reposed in her 

 supernatural character, Charles VII. was crowned 

 at Rheims in 1430. Being soon after taken 

 prisoner while heading a sally from Compiegne, 

 the heroic maiden was, by the English, condemned 

 for witchcraft, and burned, May 30, 1431. Never- 

 theless, about the year 1453, the French monarch 

 had retrieved the whole of his dominions from 

 the English, with the exception of Calais. 



Henry VI. was remarkable for the extreme 

 weakness of his character. His cousin, Richard, 

 Duke of York, descended from an elder son of 

 Edward III. and therefore possessed of a superior 

 title to the throne, conceived that Henry's imbe- 

 cility afforded a good opportunity for asserting 

 what he thought his birthright. Then commenced 

 the famous Wars of the Roses, as they were called, 

 from the badges of the families of York and 

 Lancaster the former of which was a white, 

 while the latter was a red rose. In 1455, at St 

 Albans, the duke gained a decisive victory over 

 the forces of Henry. In some succeeding engage- 

 ments the friends of Henry were victorious ; and 

 at length, in the battle of Wakefield (December 

 24, 1460), the forces of the Duke of York were 

 signally defeated, and himself, with one of his 

 sons, taken and put to death. His pretensions 

 were then taken up by his eldest son Edward, 

 who, with the assistance of the Earl of Warwick, 

 gained such advantages next year that, entering 

 London, he was declared king, 1461. Before this 

 was accomplished, many thousands had fallen on 

 both sides. Henry, who cared little for the pomp 

 of sovereignty, was confined in the Tower. 



Scotland, in the meantime (1424), had redeemed 

 her king from his captivity in England ; and that 

 prince, styled JAMES I. had proved a great legis- 

 lator and reformer, not to speak of his personal 

 accomplishments in music and literature, which 

 surpassed those of every contemporary monarch. 

 James did much to reduce the Highlands to an 

 obedience under the Scottish government, and also 

 to break up the enormous power of the nobles. 

 By these proceedings, however, he excited a deep 

 hatred in the bosoms of some of his subjects ; and 

 in 1437 he fell a victim to assassination at Perth. 

 He was succeeded by his infant son, JAMES II. 

 who was unfortunately killed, in the flower 

 of his age, by the bursting of a cannon before 

 Roxburgh Castle. His successor, JAMES III. was 

 also a minor, and on reaching man's estate, 

 proved to be a weak, though not ill-meaning 

 prince. He fell a victim, in 1488, to a conspiracy 

 formed by his subjects, and which was led by his 

 eldest son. 



HOUSE OF YORK. 



Edward, of the House of York, styled EDWARD 

 IV. who commenced his reign in the nineteenth 

 year of his age, was for ten years perpetually 

 disturbed by renewed attempts of the Lancastrian 

 party, of which he mercilessly sacrificed many 

 thousands who fell into his hands. At length, 

 his marriage with the widow of Sir John Grey, a 

 Lancastrian ; the honours he showered on her 

 relatives ; and the marriage concluded by him 

 between his sister Margaret and the Duke of 

 Burgundy, while the Earl of Warwick was in 

 France sent there to obtain the hand of a French 

 prince for that princess offended Warwick, who 

 had been chiefly instrumental in placing him on 

 the throne. That nobleman, aided by Edward's 

 own brother, George, Duke of Clarence, who had 

 married one of his daughters, raised an insur- 

 rection against him, and in eleven days was 

 master of the kingdom, while Edward had to 

 take refuge in the dominions of the Duke of 

 Burgundy. Henry VI. was then restored, and 

 Wanvick acquired the title of King-maker. Nine 

 months after (1471), Edward landed with a 

 small body of followers, and having called his 

 partisans around him, overthrew and killed 

 Warwick, who had been deserted by Clarence. 

 Margaret of Anjou, who had fought battles for 

 her husband in almost every province of England, 

 gathered a new army, and opposed Edward at 

 Tewkesbury, where she was completely defeated. 

 Her son and husband were taken ; the former was 

 murdered in cold blood ; and the latter died in 

 the Tower, assassinated, it is said, by Edward's 

 younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester ; 

 and she herself spent the remainder of her singular 

 life in France. Edward reigned, a profligate and 

 a tyrant, till 1483, when he died in the forty- 

 second year of his age. He had previously 

 caused his brother, the equally profligate Duke of 

 Clarence, to be drowned, according to the popular 

 story, in a butt of Malmsey wine. 



During the reign of Edward IV. the plague 

 frequently broke out in England, and carried off 

 immense numbers of the people. It was particu- 

 larly fatal in London, and in all other places 

 where many houses were huddled closely together, 

 with imperfect means of cleaning and ventilation. 

 It was calculated that the disease, on one occasion 

 in this reign, destroyed as many lives as the 

 fifteen years' war. 



EDWARD V. the eldest son of Edward IV. was 

 a boy of eleven years when he fell heir to the 

 crown, which he never wore. His uncle, Richard, 

 Duke of Gloucester, called ' Crook-back,' and pic- 

 tured as a blood-thirsty and deformed wretch, 

 soon after contrived to obtain the chief power, and 

 also to cause the murder of the young king and 

 his still younger brother in the Tower, in less than 

 three months after the former had been crowned. 

 He then himself mounted the throne under the 

 title of RICHARD III. and reigned for two years. 

 In 1485, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who 

 on the father's side was a grandson of Owen 

 Tudor and Katharine, widow of Henry V. and 

 on the mother's, a descendant, through the Beau- 

 fort line, of John of Gaunt, resolved to make 

 an attempt upon the English crown, as the 

 representative of the House of Lancaster. Having 

 landed with about 2000 followers at Milford- 



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