Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses

by Emily Sarah Holt

[#] He was born at Cotton, in Suffolk, and baptized in that church on "The Feast of St. Michael in Monte Tumba" [Oct. 16] 1396. (Prob. Ætatit Willielmi Ducis Suffolk, 5 H. V. 63.)

[#] Published among the Paston Letters.

But now another and a more serious complication was added to those already existing. The dispossessed heir of the elder branch, Richard Duke of York, had much to forgive the House of Lancaster. He had the memory of a murdered father and a long-imprisoned mother ever fresh before him. His claim was only through the female line, as the son of a daughter of the son of a daughter of Lionel Duke of Clarence, the second son of Edward III. who attained manhood, and who had predeceased his father. In respect of the male line, he was descended from a younger brother[#] of the grandfather of Henry VI. It was therefore only as the representative of Duke Lionel that he could put forward any claim at all. But Richard was not good at forgiving. And when, as if for the purpose of further entangling matters, and suggesting to Richard the very idea which he afterwards carried into action, Henry VI. was seized with an attack of that temporary insanity which he inherited from his maternal grandfather, Richard, as his next male relative, was placed in the position of Regent: a state of things so entirely suited to his wishes that when, the King having recovered, he was summoned to resign his charge, Richard coolly expressed his perfect satisfaction with the position of governor, and his intention to remain such, since he considered himself to be, as heir general of Duke Lionel, much more rightfully King of England than the cousin who had displaced him.

[#] Edmund Duke of York.

The first sensation of Henry VI., on hearing this calm assertion of Richard, was simply one of unbounded amazement.

"My grandfather," said he, "held the crown for twelve years, and my father for ten, and I have held it for twenty-three: and all that time you and your fathers have kept silence, and not one word of this have I ever heard before. What mean you, fair cousin, to prefer such a claim against the Lord's Anointed?"

It was not quite the fact that Richard's fathers had kept absolute silence, since his uncle, Edmund Earl of March, had been put forward as a claimant for the throne, just fifty years before:[#] but in all probability the King was entirely justified in stating that the idea was new to him. It is not likely that those about him from infancy would have allowed him to become familiar with it, since his delicate sense of right and justice was—in their eyes—the most tiresome thing about him. But the question was not in his hands for decision. Had it been so, no man would ever have heard of the Wars of the Roses. King Henry "had no sense of honour," which probably means that ambition, self-seeking, and aggressiveness were feelings utterly unknown to him. "Yea, let him take all," would have been the language of his lips and heart, so long as he had left to him a quiet home in some green nook of England, the wife and child whom he dearly loved, a few books, and peace. At times God's providence decrees peace as the lot of such men. At other rimes it seems to be the one thing with which they must not be trusted. They are tossed perpetually on the waves of this troublesome world, "emptied from vessel to vessel," never suffered to rest. This last was the destiny of Henry VI. For him, it was the way home to the Land of Peace, where there is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. For four hundred years his spirit has dwelt in the eternal peace of Paradise; God has comforted him for ever.

[#] A full account of this transaction will be found in "The White Rose of Langley."

It was an unfortunate thing for Richard of York that he had married a woman who acted toward his ambitious aspirations not as a bridle, but as a spur. Cicely Neville, surnamed from her great beauty The Rose of Raby, was a woman who, like two of her descendants, would have "died to-morrow to be a queen to-day," and would have preferred "to eat dry bread at a king's table, rather than feast at the board of an elector."[#] Of all members of the royal family of England, this lady is to my knowledge the only one who ever styled herself in her own charters "the right high and right excellent Princesse." The Rose of Raby was not the only title given her. To the vulgar in the neighbourhood where her youth was spent she was also known as Proud Cis. And every act of her life tends to show the truth of the title.

[#] The words first quoted were spoken by Anne Princess of Orange, eldest daughter of George II.; the latter by Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, eldest daughter of James I.