The expression used in the lords' address to the duke of Gloucester, relative to the young king, that he was far gone and grown in person, wit, and understanding, was not thrown out in mere flattery. In two years the party hostile to Gloucester's influence had gained ground enough to abrogate his office of protector, leaving only the honorary title of chief counsellor.[y] For this the king's coronation, at eight years of age, was thought a fair pretence; and undoubtedly the loss of that exceedingly limited authority which had been delegated to the protector could not have impaired the strength of government. This was conducted as before by a selfish and disunited council; but the king's name was sufficient to legalize their measures, nor does any objection appear to have been made in parliament to such a mockery of the name of monarchy.
Henry's mental derangement.
Duke of York made protector.
In the year 1454, the thirty-second of Henry's reign, his unhappy malady, transmitted perhaps from his maternal grandfather, assumed so decided a character of derangement or imbecility, that parliament could no longer conceal from itself the necessity of a more efficient ruler. This assembly, which had been continued by successive prorogations for nearly a year, met at Westminster on the 14th of February, when the session was opened, by the duke of York, as king's commissioner. Kemp, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of England, dying soon afterwards, it was judged proper to acquaint the king at Windsor by a deputation of twelve lords with this and other subjects concerning his government. In fact, perhaps, this was a pretext chosen in order to ascertain his real condition. These peers reported to the lords' house, two days afterwards, that they had opened to his majesty the several articles of their message, but "could get no answer ne sign for no prayer ne desire," though they repeated their endeavours at three different interviews. This report, with the instruction on which it was founded, was, at their prayer, entered of record in parliament. Upon so authentic a testimony of their sovereign's infirmity, the peers, adjourning two days for solemnity or deliberation, "elected and nominated Richard duke of York to be protector and defender of the realm of England during the king's pleasure." The duke, protesting his insufficiency, requested "that in this present parliament, and by authority thereof, it be enacted that, of yourself and of your ful and mere disposition, ye desire, name, and call me to the said name and charge, and that of any presumption of myself I take them not upon me, but only of the due and humble obeisance that I owe to do unto the king our most dread and sovereign lord, and to you the peerage of this land, in whom by the occasion of the infirmity of our said sovereign lord resteth the exercise of his authority, whose noble commandments I am as ready to perform and obey as any of his liegemen alive, and that, at such time as it shall please our blessed Creator to restore his most noble person to healthful disposition, it shall like you so to declare and notify to his good grace." To this protestation the lords answered that, for his and their discharge, an act of parliament should be made conformably to that enacted in the king's infancy, since they were compelled by an equal necessity again to choose and name a protector and defender. And to the duke of York's request to be informed how far the power and authority of his charge should extend, they replied that he should be chief of the king's council, and "devised therefore to the said duke a name different from other counsellors, not the name of tutor, lieutenant, governor, nor of regent, nor no name that shall import authority of governance of the land; but the said name of protector and defensor;" and so forth, according to the language of their former address to the duke of Gloucester. An act was passed accordingly, constituting the duke of York protector of the church and kingdom, and chief counsellor of the king, during the latter's pleasure; or until the prince of Wales should attain years of discretion on whom the said dignity was immediately to devolve. The patronage of certain spiritual benefices was reserved to the protector according to the precedent of the king's minority, which parliament was resolved to follow in every particular.[z]
It may be conjectured, by the provision made in favour of the prince of Wales, then only two years old, that the king's condition was supposed to be beyond hope of restoration. But in about nine months he recovered sufficient speech and recollection to supersede the duke of York's protectorate.[a] The succeeding transactions are matter of familiar, though not, perhaps, very perspicuous history. The king was a prisoner in his enemies' hands after the affair at St. Albans,[] when parliament met in July, 1455. In this session little was done, except renewing the strongest oaths of allegiance to Henry and his family. But the two houses meeting again after a prorogation to November 12, during which time the duke of York had strengthened his party, and was appointed by commission the king's lieutenant to open the parliament, a proposition was made by the commons that, "whereas the king had deputed the duke of York as his commissioner to proceed in this parliament, it was thought by the commons that, if the king hereafter could not attend to the protection of the country, an able person should be appointed protector, to whom they might have recourse for redress of injuries; especially as great disturbances had lately arisen in the west through the feuds of the earl of Devonshire and Lord Bonvile."[c] The archbishop of Canterbury answered for the lords that they would take into consideration what the commons had suggested. Two days afterwards the latter appeared again with a request conveyed nearly in the same terms. Upon their leaving the chamber, the archbishop, who was also chancellor, moved the peers to answer what should be done in respect of the request of the commons; adding that "it is understood that they will not further proceed in matters of parliament, to the time that they have answer to their desire and request." This naturally ended in the reappointment of the duke of York to his charge of protector. The commons indeed were determined to bear no delay. As if ignorant of what had been resolved in consequence of their second request, they urged it a third time, on the next day of meeting; and received for answer that "the king our said sovereign lord, by the advice and assent of his lords spiritual and temporal being in this present parliament, had named and desired the duke of York to be protector and defensor of this land." It is worthy of notice that in these words, and indeed in effect, as appears by the whole transaction, the house of peers assumed an exclusive right of choosing the protector, though, in the act passed to ratify their election, the commons' assent, as a matter of course, is introduced. The last year's precedent was followed in the present instance, excepting a remarkable deviation; instead of the words "during the king's pleasure," the duke was to hold his office "until he should be discharged of it by the lords in parliament."[d]
This extraordinary clause, and the slight allegations on which it was thought fit to substitute a vicegerent for the reigning monarch, are sufficient to prove, even if the common historians were silent, that whatever passed as to this second protectorate of the duke of York was altogether of a revolutionary complexion. In the actual circumstances of civil blood already spilled and the king in captivity, we may justly wonder that so much regard was shown to the regular forms and precedents of the constitution. But the duke's natural moderation will account for part of this, and the temper of the lords for much more. That assembly appears for the most part to have been faithfully attached to the house of Lancaster. The partisans of Richard were found in the commons and among the populace. Several months elapsed after the victory of St. Albans before an attempt was thus made to set aside a sovereign, not labouring, so far as we know, under any more notorious infirmity than before. It then originated in the commons, and seems to have received but an unwilling consent from the upper house. Even in constituting the duke of York protector over the head of Henry, whom all men despaired of ever seeing in a state to face the dangers of such a season, the lords did not forget the rights of his son. By this latter instrument, as well as by that of the preceding year, the duke's office was to cease upon the prince of Wales arriving at the age of discretion.
Duke of York's claim to the crown.
But what had long been propagated in secret, soon became familiar to the public ear; that the duke of York laid claim to the throne. He was unquestionably heir general of the royal line, through his mother, Anne, daughter of Roger Mortimer earl of March, son of Philippa, daughter of Lionel duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. Roger Mortimer's eldest son, Edmund, had been declared heir presumptive by Richard II.; but his infancy during the revolution that placed Henry IV. on the throne had caused his pretensions to be passed over in silence. The new king however was induced by a jealousy natural to his situation to detain the earl of March in custody. Henry V. restored his liberty; and, though he had certainly connived for a while at the conspiracy planned by his brother-in-law the earl of Cambridge and Lord Scrope of Masham to place the crown on his head, that magnanimous prince gave him a free pardon, and never testified any displeasure. The present duke of York was honoured by Henry VI. with the highest trusts in France and Ireland; such as Beaufort and Gloucester could never have dreamed of conferring on him if his title to the crown had not been reckoned obsolete. It has been very pertinently remarked that the crime perpetrated by Margaret and her counsellors in the death of the duke of Gloucester was the destruction of the house of Lancaster.[e] From this time the duke of York, next heir in presumption while the king was childless, might innocently contemplate the prospect of royalty; and when such ideas had long been passing through his mind, we may judge how reluctantly the birth of prince Edward, nine years after Henry's marriage, would be admitted to disturb them. The queen's administration unpopular, careless of national interests, and partial to his inveterate enemy the duke of Somerset;[f] the king incapable of exciting fear or respect; himself conscious of powerful alliances and universal favour; all these circumstances combined could hardly fail to nourish those opinions of hereditary right which he must have imbibed from his infancy.
The duke of York preserved through the critical season of rebellion such moderation and humanity that we may pardon him that bias in favour of his own pretensions to which he became himself a victim. Margaret perhaps, by her sanguinary violence in the Coventry parliament of 1460, where the duke and all his adherents were attainted, left him not the choice of remaining a subject with impunity. But with us, who are to weigh these ancient factions in the balance of wisdom and justice, there should be no hesitation in deciding that the house of Lancaster were lawful sovereigns of England. I am, indeed, astonished that not only such historians as Carte, who wrote undisguisedly upon a Jacobite system, but even men of juster principles, have been inadvertent enough to mention the right of the house of York. If the original consent of the nation, if three descents of the crown, if repeated acts of parliament, if oaths of allegiance from the whole kingdom, and more particularly from those who now advanced a contrary pretension, if undisturbed, unquestioned possession during sixty years, could not secure the reigning family against a mere defect in their genealogy, when were the people to expect tranquillity? Sceptres were committed, and governments were instituted, for public protection and public happiness, not certainly for the benefit of rulers, or for the security of particular dynasties. No prejudice has less in its favour, and none has been more fatal to the peace of mankind, than that which regards a nation of subjects as a family's private inheritance. For, as this opinion induces reigning princes and their courtiers to look on the people as made only to obey them, so, when the tide of events has swept them from their thrones, it begets a fond hope of restoration, a sense of injury and of imprescriptible rights, which give the show of justice to fresh disturbances of public order, and rebellions against established authority. Even in cases of unjust conquest, which are far stronger than any domestic revolution, time heals the injury of wounded independence, the forced submission to a victorious enemy is changed into spontaneous allegiance to a sovereign, and the laws of God and nature enjoin the obedience that is challenged by reciprocal benefits. But far more does every national government, however violent in its origin, become legitimate, when universally obeyed and justly exercised, the possession drawing after it the right; not certainly that success can alter the moral character of actions, or privilege usurpation before the tribunal of human opinion, or in the pages of history, but that the recognition of a government by the people is the binding pledge of their allegiance so long as its corresponding duties are fulfilled.[g] And thus the law of England has been held to annex the subject's fidelity to the reigning monarch, by whatever title he may have ascended the throne, and whoever else may be its claimant.[h] But the statute of 11th of Henry VII. c. 1, has furnished an unequivocal commentary upon this principle, when, alluding to the condemnations and forfeitures by which those alternate successes of the white and red roses had almost exhausted the noble blood of England, it enacts that "no man for doing true and faithful service to the king for the time being be convict or attaint of high treason, nor of other offences, by act of parliament or otherwise."
War of the Lancastrians and Yorkists.