Things went from bad to worse, and, in 1450, Jack Cade headed an outbreak; but he was slain, and the king showing renewed signs of intellectual fag, Richard, Duke of York, was talked of as the people's choice on account of his descent from Edward III. He was for a few days Protector, but the queen was too strongly opposed to him, and he resigned.
[Illustration: RICHARD AND HIS ADHERENTS RAISING AN ARMY FOR THE REDRESS
OF GRIEVANCES.]
He then raised an army, and in a battle at St. Albans, in 1455, defeated the royalists, capturing the king. This was the opening of the War of the Roses,—so called because as badges the Lancastrians wore a red rose and the Yorkists a white rose. This war lasted over thirty years, and killed off the nobility like sheep. They were, it is said, virtually annihilated, and thus a better class of nobility was substituted.
The king was restored; but in 1460 there occurred the battle of
Northampton, in which he was defeated and again taken prisoner by the
Earl of Warwick.
[Illustration: BY REQUEST OF MARGARET, HIS HEAD WAS REMOVED FROM HIS
BODY TO THE GATES OF YORK.]
Margaret was a woman of great spirit, and when the Duke of York was given the throne she went to Scotland, and in the battle of Wakefield her army defeated and captured the duke. At her request he was beheaded, and his head, ornamented with a paper crown, placed on the gates of York, as shown in the rather life-like—or death-like—etching on the preceding page.
The queen was for a time successful, and her army earned a slight reputation for cruelty also; but Edward, son of the late Duke of York, embittered somewhat by the flippant death of his father, was soon victorious over the Lancastrians, and, in 1461, was crowned King of England at a good salary, with the use of a large palace and a good well of water and barn.
CHAPTER XVI.
UNPLEASANT CAPRICES OF ROYALTY: INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING AS A SUBSIDIARY AID IN THE PROGRESS OF EMANCIPATION.
Henry VI. left no royal record worth remembering save the establishment of Eton and King's Colleges. Edward IV., who began his reign in 1461, was bold and active. Queen Margaret's army of sixty thousand men which attacked him was defeated and half her forces slaughtered, no quarter being given.