INTRODUCTORY. 1 7 



'the English conquests in France. As it was, not only was the 

 marriage of the portionless Margaret no gain to England, but it 

 was a positive loss, a loss of territory, of honour, and of the hope 

 of a settlement which might have been made on the lines of the 

 great peace of Bretigny. 



Those numerous soldiers of fortune, who had been de- 

 moralised by a prolonged war, and who now lacked employ- 

 ment, whose expectations were now to be unsatisfied or unsated, 

 were thrown upon England. Here the government was utterly 

 unpopular, the king was loaded with debt, the exchequer was 

 empty, the country was sullen, dissatisfied, and dishonoured, 

 and factions, bitterer than any which England had ever known, 

 were rapidly marshalling themselves against each other. We 

 are told that families were divided on the great question between 

 the rival houses, and that father and son often met in mortal 

 combat. Such are always the risks of civil war, and such 

 might have been its events. But I find no trace of anything 

 more than discontent with the government up to the time 

 of York's second protectorate. 



The rising of Cade, who assumed the name of Mortimer, is 

 supposed to have been the revival of those claims to the throne, 

 which the House of Mortimer had made more than a generation 

 before. But the complaints of the Commons of Kent/ and 

 ' the requests of the Captain of the great assembly in Kent/ 

 point to social and political grievances. If the story of Mortimer 

 were to be believed, the rising of Cade was as much directed 

 against the Duke of York, now heir presumptive, as against the 

 dynasty still on the throne a . Margaret had been married to 

 the king for five years and was childless, for Edward of Lan- 

 caster was not born till Oct. 23, 1453. That there were persons 

 who sustained the title of Richard from the days when he was 

 a friendless and nameless youth is highly probable. But unless 

 every protestation which he made was false and treacherous, 



1 The proposal of Young, member for Bristol, that York should be declared heir 

 apparent, if it be a fact, seems to me to point as much against pretenders such as C:i''e, 

 as it does to partisanship towards the Duke of York. 

 VOL. IV. C 



