At Richard's accession we may pause to glance at the condition of the people of England 420 years ago, not in any minute detail, not probing the matter to any depth, but with the object of having the general surroundings in our minds, while contemplating the brief reign of our last Plantagenet.
The Lancastrian usurpation, effected by Henry of Bolingbroke (Duke of Lancaster), caused much ruthless slaughter, and led to the atrocious Act De heretico comburendo, passed to secure the support of the clergy for the usurper. His son, Henry of Monmouth, was a fanatic, but otherwise a man of a far nobler nature than his father. He secured his position by a popular but most unjust war with France, and by his own fascinating personality. From his landing at Havre to the death of Talbot at Châtillon, this war covered a period of thirty-eight years, from 1415 to 1453. It did not, however, exhaust the wealth of the country, nor did the other more odious policy of the Lancastrians in passing an Act for the burning of heretics, destroy all freedom of thought. But the war filled the country with lawless military adventurers, and the persecution unsettled men's minds.
The cause of the War of the Roses was the misgovernment of the faction which ruled in the name of Henry of Windsor, the feeble-minded grandson of Charles VI. of France, whose malady he inherited. Recognition during half a century had made the parliamentary title of the usurpers secure. Owing to the absence of an hereditary title, the House of Commons had never been more powerful. The Speakers were practically Chancellors of the Exchequer, and prepared the budgets. Speaker Tresham, who was murdered in 1450 by Lord Grey de Ruthyn, was the first to propose a graduated income tax, and was a great statesman. But the House was not strong enough to control an unprincipled executive. The usurpation would never have been challenged, after a Parliamentary recognition of sixty years, if the administration of the usurping faction had not been intolerably bad. The Duke of York was the rightful hereditary heir to the throne. His grandfather had been recognised as heir by a Parliament of Richard II. The Duke was a just and moderate statesman. Until a month before the battle of Wakefield his sole purpose had been the reform of abuses.
The war, however, was not a war of the people. Although London warmly supported the house of York, it was a war fought out by two parties of the nobles and their retainers, including some old veterans of the French war. The struggle did not in the least degree affect the ordinary life of England. Mr. Thorold Rogers tells us that, though he has read hundreds of documents compiled for private inspection only, chiefly manorial accounts, covering the whole period of the war, he has never met a single allusion to the troubles. 'The people,' he adds, 'were absolutely indifferent. Except the outrages of Margaret's army in 1461, no injury was done to neutrals. The war was as little injurious to the great mass of the people, in its immediate effects, as summer lightning. It had no bearing on work or wages.'
The Peerage
It is also a mistake, though a frequently reiterated one, that the English nobility, as a class, was almost destroyed by the War of the Roses. Nothing of the sort happened. Several noblemen fell in battle, others lost their lives on the scaffold. There are long lists of traitors in the bills of attainder. But the death of a nobleman did not include the deaths of his heirs; and most of those who were attainted eventually received pardons. After the heat of battle was over, Edward IV. was placable and good-natured. He never refused a petition for pardon.[[1]] Only two peerages became extinct from causes connected with the war. The Beauforts came to an end, and the Tiptoft peerage lapsed, the accomplished Earl of Worcester being childless. The lay peerage, including peers temporarily under attainder, numbered fifty-four on the accession of Richard III., quite as numerous as it was before the war.
We have not, therefore, to contemplate a devastated country and a decimated peerage at the time when our last Plantagenet King ascended the throne. England was fairly prosperous, and the numbers and wealth of the nobility had not been reduced. But how different was the whole face of the country! The outlines of the hills are alone the same. There were immense areas of forest and swamp where now the landscape consists of enclosed fields like a green chessboard. There were few enclosures,[[2]] but tracts of common land for each manor, and cultivation in long strips near the villages and manor houses. The beaten tracks, some following the lines of the old Roman roads leading to the towns and castles, were often almost impassable in winter. King Richard was the first to establish any kind of post. The scenery was very beautiful on the hills and in the forests, in the quiet valleys, and in the swampy fens. Wild animals, many now extinct, were then abundant, hunted occasionally, but, to a great extent, left in peace over vast areas of absolute solitude. It was a very beautiful England, but how utterly different from the England of the twentieth century!
The noble and gentle families passed most of their time in their counties, hawking and hunting, mustering their armed retainers, often disputing about their respective rights, sometimes trying to settle disputes by force regardless of law. Yet many were law-abiding and maintainers of the King's peace, and a few were giving some attention to the new learning to which Caxton was now opening the door. Some of the elders had seen service in the French war which came to an end thirty years before. Only a great noble could raise or command a military force, but reliance was placed on the experience of some veteran, such as Hall or Trollope, to organise and direct as chief of the staff. In those troublous days the King might, at any time, have to send forth commissions of array.
Castles