II. ENGLAND.
WAR OF THE ROSES: THE HOUSE OF YORK.—The crown in England had come to be considered as the property of a family, to which the legitimate heir had a sacred claim. The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) grew out of family rivalries. It was a fight among nobles. But other reasons were not without influence. The party of York (whose badge was the white rose) was the popular party, which had its strength in Kent and in the trading cities. It went for reform of government. The party of Lancaster (whose badge was the red rose) was the more conservative party, having its strength among the barons of the North. Richard, Duke of York, thought that he had a better claim to the English crown than Henry VI., because his ancestor, Lionel, was an older son of Edward III. than John of Gaunt, the ancestor of Henry. The king was insane at times, and Richard was made Protector or Regent of Parliament. But Henry, becoming better, drove him from his presence. He organized an insurrection, but was defeated in a battle at Wakefield by the troops of the strong-hearted queen. He was crowned with a wreath of grass, and then beheaded. His brave son, Rutland, was killed as he fled. But Richard's eldest son, Edward—Edward IV. (1461-1483)—supported by the powerful Earl of Warwick, "the king-maker," defeated the queen at Towton, took possession of the throne, and imprisoned Henry VI., who had fallen into imbecility. Edward was popular because he kept order. But the favors which he lavished on the Woodvilles, relatives of his Lancastrian wife Elizabeth, enabled the opposing party, to which Warwick deserted, to get the upper hand (1470); and Edward fled to Holland. But he soon returned, and won the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury (1471). Henry VI. was secretly murdered in the Tower. The house of York was now in the ascendant. A quarrel between the king and his ambitious brother Clarence, who had married Warwick's daughter, led to the trial and condemnation of Clarence, who was put to death in the Tower. It was during the reign of Edward IV. that Caxton set up the first printing-press in England. After Edward his brother reigned, Richard III. (1483-1485), a brave but merciless man, who made his way to the throne by the death of the two young princes Edward and Richard, whose murder in the Tower he is with good reason supposed to have procured. He had pretended that Edward IV. had never been lawfully married to their mother. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, descended by his mother from John of Gaunt, aided by France, landed in Wales, and won a victory at Bosworth over the adherents of the white rose,—a victory which gave him a kingdom and a crown. Thus the house of Lancaster in the person of Henry VII. (1485-1509), gained the throne. He married Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV., and so the two hostile houses were united. He was the first of the TUDOR kings.
CHARACTER OF THE CIVIL WARS.—The Wars of the Roses are, in certain respects, peculiar. They extended over a long period, but did not include more than three years of actual fighting. The battles were fierce, and the combatants unsparing in the treatment of their foes. Yet the population of the country did not diminish. Business and the administration of justice went on as usual. Trade began to be held in high esteem, and traders to amass wealth. The number of journeymen and day-laborers increased, and there was a disposition to break through the guild laws.
EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WARS.—The most striking result of the civil wars was the strengthening of the power of the king. Not more than thirty of the old nobles survived. Laws were made forbidding the nobles to keep armed "retainers;" and against "maintenance," or the custom of nobles to promise to support, in their quarrels or law-cases, men who adhered to them. The court of the Star Chamber was set up to prevent these abuses. It was turned into an instrument of tyranny in the hands of the kings. Henry VII. extorted from the rich, "benevolences," or gifts solicited by the king, which the law authorized him to collect as a tax. He contrived to get money in such ways, and thus to carry forward the government without Parliament, which met only once during the last thirteen years of his reign. Royal power, in relation to the nobles, was further exalted by the introduction of cannon into warfare, which only the king possessed. Two pretenders to the throne, Lambert Simnel (1487), and Perkin Warbeck (1492), were raised up; but the efforts made to dethrone Henry proved abortive. He kept watch over his enemies at home and abroad, and punished all resistance to his authority. Circumstances enabled the founder of the Tudor line to exalt the power of the king over the heads of both the nobles and the commons.