The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Ebert to Estremadura / Volume 4, Part 2

by Various

The reign of his son Edward II was unfortunate to himself and to his kingdom. He made a feeble attempt to carry out his father's last and earnest request to prosecute the war with Scotland, but the English were almost constantly unfortunate; and at length, at Bannockburn (1314), they were defeated by Robert Bruce, which ensured the independence of Scotland. The king soon proved incapable of regulating the lawless conduct of his barons; and his wife, a woman of a bold, intriguing disposition, joined in the confederacy against him, which resulted in his imprisonment and death in 1327.

The reign of Edward III was as brilliant as that of his father had been the reverse. The main projects of the third Edward were directed against France, the crown of which he claimed in 1328 in virtue of his mother, the daughter of King Philip. The victory won by the Black Prince at Crécy (1346), the capture of Calais (1347), and the victory of Poitiers (1356), ultimately led to the Peace of Brétigny in 1360, by which Edward III received all the west of France on condition of renouncing his claim to the French throne. (See Brétigny.) Before the close of his reign, however, these advantages were all lost again, save a few principal towns on the coast.

Edward III was succeeded in 1377 by his grandson Richard II, son of Edward the Black Prince. The people of England now began to show, though in a turbulent manner, that they had acquired just notions of government. In 1380 an unjust and oppressive poll-tax brought their grievances to a head, and 100,000 men, under Wat Tyler, marched towards London (1381). Wat Tyler was killed while conferring with the king, and the prudence and courage of Richard appeased the insurgents. Despite his conduct on this occasion, Richard was deficient in the vigour necessary to curb the lawlessness of the nobles. In 1398 he banished his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke; and on the death of the latter's father, the Duke of Lancaster, unjustly appropriated his cousin's patrimony. To avenge the injustice Bolingbroke landed in England during the king's absence in Ireland, and at the head of 60,000 malcontents compelled Richard to surrender. He was confined in the Tower, and despite the superior claims of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, Henry was appointed king (1399), the first of the House of Lancaster. Richard was, in all probability, murdered early in 1400.

The manner in which the Duke of Lancaster,

now Henry IV, acquired the crown rendered his reign extremely turbulent, but the vigour of his administration quelled every insurrection. The most important—that of the Percies of Northumberland, Owen Glendower, and Douglas of Scotland—was crushed by the battle of Shrewsbury (1403). During the reign of Henry IV the clergy of England first began the practice of burning heretics under the Act de haeretico comburendo, passed in the second year of his reign. The Act was chiefly directed against the Lollards, as the followers of Wycliffe now came to be called. Henry died in 1413, leaving his crown to his son, Henry V, who revived the claim of Edward III to the throne of France in 1415, and invaded that country at the head of 30,000 men. The disjointed councils of the French rendered their country an easy prey; the victory of Agincourt was gained in 1415; and after a second campaign a peace was concluded at Troyes in 1420, by which Henry received the hand of Katherine, daughter of Charles VI, was appointed regent of France during the reign of his father-in-law, and declared heir to the throne on his death. The two kings, however, died within a few weeks of each other in 1422, and the infant son of Henry thus became King of England (as Henry VI) and France at the age of nine months.

England, during the reign of Henry VI, was subjected, in the first place, to all the confusion incident to a long minority, and afterwards to all the misery of a civil war. Henry allowed himself to be managed by anyone who had the courage to assume the conduct of his affairs, and the influence of his wife, Margaret of Anjou, a woman of uncommon capacity, was of no advantage either to himself or the realm. In France (1422-53) the English forces lost ground, and were finally expelled by the celebrated Joan of Arc, Calais alone being retained. The rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450 was suppressed, only to be succeeded by more serious trouble. In that year Richard, Duke of York, the father of Edward, afterwards Edward IV, began to advance his pretensions to the throne, which had been so long usurped by the House of Lancaster. His claim was founded on his descent from the third son of Edward III, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was his great-great-grandfather on the mother's side, while Henry was the great-grandson on the father's side of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward III. Richard of York was also grandson on the father's side of Edmund, fifth son of Edward III. The wars which resulted, called the Wars of the Roses, from the fact that a red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster and a white one that of the House of York, lasted for thirty years, from the first battle of St. Albans, 22nd May, 1455, to the battle of Bosworth, 22nd Aug., 1485. Henry VI was twice driven from the throne (in 1461 and 1471) by Edward of York, whose father had previously been killed in battle in 1460. Edward of York reigned as Edward IV from 1461 till his death in 1483, with a brief interval in 1471; and was succeeded by two other sovereigns of the House of York, first his son Edward V, who reigned for eleven weeks in 1483; and then by his brother Richard III, who reigned from 1483 till 1485, when he was defeated and slain on Bosworth field by Henry Tudor, of the House of Lancaster, who then became Henry VII.

Henry VII was at this time the representative of the House of Lancaster, and in order at once to strengthen his own title, and to put an end to the rivalry between the Houses of York and Lancaster, he married, in 1486, Elizabeth, the sister of Edward V and heiress of the House of York. His reign was disturbed by insurrections attending the impostures of Lambert Simnel (1487), who pretended to be a son of the Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, and of Perkin Warbeck (1488), who affirmed that he was the Duke of York, younger brother of Edward V; but neither of these attained any magnitude. The king's worst fault was the avarice which led him to employ in schemes of extortion such instruments as Empson and Dudley. His administration throughout did much to increase the royal power and to establish order and prosperity. He died in 1509.

The authority of the English Crown, which had been so much extended by Henry VII, was by his son Henry VIII exerted in a tyrannical and capricious manner. The most important event of the reign was undoubtedly the Reformation; though it had its origin rather in Henry's caprice and in the casual situation of his private affairs than in his conviction of the necessity of a reformation in religion, or in the solidity of reasoning employed by the reformers. Henry had been espoused to Catherine of Spain, who was first married to his elder brother Arthur, a prince who died young. Henry became disgusted with his queen, and enamoured of one of her maids of honour, Anne Boleyn. He had recourse, therefore, to the Pope to dissolve a marriage which had at first been rendered legal only by a dispensation from the Pontiff; but, failing in his desires, he broke away entirely from the Holy See, and in 1534 got himself recognized by Act of Parliament as the head of the English Church. He died in 1547. He was married six times, and left three children, each of whom reigned in turn. These were: Mary, by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon; Elizabeth, by his second wife, Anne Boleyn; and Edward, by his third wife, Jane Seymour.

Edward, who reigned first, with the title of Edward VI, was nine years of age at the time of his succession, and died in 1553, when he was only sixteen. His short reign, or rather the reign of the Earl of Hertford, afterwards Duke of Somerset, who was appointed regent, was distinguished chiefly by the success which attended the measures of the reformers, who acquired great part of the power formerly engrossed by the Catholics. The intrigues of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, during the reign of Edward, caused Lady Jane Grey to be declared his successor; but her reign, if it could be called such, lasted only a few days. Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, was placed upon the throne, and Lady Jane Grey and her husband were both executed. Mary, a bigoted Catholic, seems to have wished for the crown only for the purpose of re-establishing the Roman Catholic faith. Political motives had induced Philip of Spain to accept of her as a spouse; but she could never prevail on her subjects to allow him any share of power. She died in 1558.