DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. JJ 



in such a war as that of the houses of York and Lancaster, it 

 should be remembered that the genealogical pretext was no 

 more than a pretext, that if the house of Lancaster had been 

 vigorous, capable, and fortunate, we should no more have 

 heard of the house of York, than we have heard of other far 

 more legitimate pretenders, since the death of the Duke of 

 Gloucester gave the throne of England to a remote German 

 scion of the Stuart family, when lineal descendants of the 

 Plantagenets were still alive, when descendants of the Tudor 

 stock were still possessed of a parliamentary title, and twenty 

 or thirty legitimate descendants of Charles and James might 

 have preferred and proved their claims in a court of law. 

 London was at any rate very wealthy, and held between the 

 contending factions the balance of the succession. 



I was at first sight very much struck at another fact. The 

 city of the county of York is a tolerably large tract, containing 

 nearly 3000 acres. This city contributes largely to the assess- 

 ment, and at a far higher rate than it did in 1341, for among 

 the cities which are separately assessed at that time, Bristol 

 takes rank in quantity before York. Now the proportions are 

 reversed. Norwich, which is not separately assessed in 1341, 

 comes next after York in 1453, and is distant from York by 

 exactly the same amount that Bristol is from it. There 

 can be no doubt that these two towns, after London, were 

 the richest in the kingdom. York was doubtless attached 

 strongly to its duke, and the Duke of York had every motive 

 to encourage what was still popular in England, the war for 

 the recovery of the French dominions. Norwich was attached 

 to the House of Mowbray, the hereditary and irreconcileable 

 enemy of the House of Lancaster, and the Norfolk family of 

 Cromwell was at once opulent and attached to the Yorkist 

 party, or rather inveterately hostile to the faction which had 

 successively for its head Suffolk and Somerset. Still, apart 

 from sympathy (and this counted for a good deal in the ap- 

 portionment of local taxation), there is nothing beyond what 

 we might expect in the great opulence of London, and in 



