The Earl of 29. But for a long time the most important person in all these conflicts was neither king, queen, nor prince. Of all the nobles at this time, the richest, the most powerful, and the most popular was the Earl of Warwick, of whom Hume says he was the greatest as well as the last of those mighty barons who formerly overawed the crown. He was the head of one of the greatest and richest of all the families in England, and was related to nearly all the others. Fuller can hardly find words enough to tell his greatness. "This was that Neville," he says, "who for extraction, estate, alliance, dependents, wisdom, valour, success, and popularity was superior to any English subject since the Conquest. People's love he chiefly purchased by his hospitality, keeping so open house that he was most welcome who brought the best stomach with him, the earl charitably believing that all who were men of teeth were men of arms. Any that looked like a man might have in his house a full half-yard of roast meat, namely, so much as he could strike through and carry away on his dagger. The bear was his crest, and it may be truly said that when the bear roared the lion of the forest trembled, the kings of England themselves being at his disposal." He had houses and castles in several parts of England, and altogether it was believed that 30,000 persons lived at his cost, and were more devoted to him than to any king or prince; so that he could do more than any one else for whichever side he favoured. For a long time he was on the White Rose side, and it was through his help and support that Edward of York was made king. But when, afterwards, Edward gave him offence he changed sides, joined himself to Margaret of Anjou, turned Edward out, brought Henry VI. from his prison, and set him on the throne again. For these exploits he was called the "king-maker." At last, in the great fight of Barnet, Warwick was killed, and could make no more kings, though no doubt he had still many schemes in his busy brain, for he had married his two daughters to two princes; one of the House of York, and one of the House of Lancaster; and one of those was Queen of England in course of time. 30. There is one other person who must be mentioned, the Earl of Richmond. We have not forgotten Queen Katherine, Henry V.'s French bride. After his death she had married a Welsh gentleman named Tudor. Though Richmond. Henry of it was very common in those days for members of the royal house to marry those who were not royal, so that half the noble families in England were related to the king, still they generally only allied themselves with the high nobility, and this marriage of Queen Katherine was considered as greatly beneath her dignity, so that she fell into a sort of disrepute, and we hear no more about her, though she was probably much happier as a private lady than any of the unhappy queens who succeeded her. Her sons by the Welsh marriage were of course halfbrothers to Henry VI., and one of them was made Earl of Richmond, and married to a lady of the House of Lancaster, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. And though such a distant and lefthanded sort of relation, the son of those two came forward by and bye as the representative of the House of Lancaster, and became King of England in the end. 31. As for the rest of the actors in this great tragedy, we find that the Percies, perhaps remembering Henry V.'s generosity, were faithful to the House of Lancaster, but most of the nobility seem to have been guided by only selfish motives, and became as fickle and treacherous as they were cruel. LECTURE XXXVII.-WARS OF THE ROSES. The old nobility and their armies. End of the feudal system. Causes of the war. Condition of the people. Edward IV. His marriage. Vicissitudes. 1. Ir is hardly necessary to study and recollect all about these twelve battles,* and the changes and chances of the war. Sometimes one side conquered, and sometimes the other; in the end we may say neither, or perhaps both conquered, since a member of the House of Lancaster, marrying a member of the House of York, became undisputed king. But though we may be inclined to say then that the wars were all for nothing, and nothing came of them, they had in reality a very great effect on the whole future history and state of England. After those wars were over England was much more like what she is now, than she ever could have been without them. The armies. 2. In all the past history we have seen what an enormous power the nobles possessed; how they could help or hinder the king and the government just as they chose; how they rebelled and led armies about, fighting each other, or fighting the king, just as it happened; or if they had a strong, clever king, whom they respected, following him and fighting for him. How different all that is from anything we ever see or hear of now. Imagine now if we were to hear that some great duke or earl was going to lead an army against the government! We all know it is impossible. Dukes and earls have no armies now. They may give their opinions, and advice, and vote in their own House; they may serve in the queen's army, as any other gentleman may, and that is all they can do. But up till this time the great lords had always little armies, or even rather large armies sometimes, of their own. They were bound indeed to have them; it was on that very condition they held their estates. The theory of the feudal system was, that the vassals A list of them will be found at the end of this lecture. * BB of the king were obliged to furnish so many men to help him in his wars. But when they did not like the king it was quite as probable that they would fit out those said men to oppose him, as we know Percy and the others did in the reign of Henry IV. If there were a rival claimant to the throne, some of the nobles would take one side and some the other, according as it suited their interest, or, perhaps, according as they thought was their duty. 3. In such times a rich nobleman, who had a large following, who could make himself popular, and perhaps hire many other soldiers besides his own under-vassals and tenants, would be very powerful indeed, even more powerful than the king himself, like Warwick, the king-maker. In those days there was no regular standing army, such as we have now, nor was there indeed for some hundreds of years after this. At that time everybody was a soldier, and nobody was a soldier. We can see how they managed in the play of Henry VI. In the course of this war Henry hears that his rival, Edward, has just landed from the Continent. He has no army ready at the moment, but he says, "Let's levy troops, and beat him back again." Then he and his friends arrange how to levy these troops. Each of the noblemen is to go to the place where he has most influence, and muster up his friends and their followers. The Earl of Warwick says "In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends, Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war; 4. So when the nobles went to muster up an army, the ploughmen, the weavers, the labourers of all sorts would leave their work and follow them to fight. They were doubtless better soldiers than such men would be at present, for they were regularly trained and practised at certain times, and every man knew, more or less, how to fight, though they were not like the disciplined regiments we have now. In a little while, after a battle or two, perhaps, they would go back again to their work, to their ploughs or their looms. There were some regular soldiers too, whose regular profession was war, "companions," as they were called, who were trained men, but who belonged to no side, and no chief, and could be hired by any party, city, or rich man who wanted them; and who, when wanted by no one, generally became brigands. The nobles. 5. At the time of the Wars of the Roses all the principal nobles of the kingdom took one side or the other, either that of York or Lancaster; each brought his little army behind him, and it was they who fought those twelve battles. At the end of the wars they were nearly all gone, all killed. The family feeling was very strong in those times, and it was a point of honour for a man to revenge the deaths of his relations; then the other side would revenge themselves in return, till we can hardly believe the men who worked these cruel deeds could have called themselves Christians at all. Thus one nobleman, Lord Clifford, had his father killed by the Yorkists. In revenge he stabbed that poor boy the Duke of Rutland, the son of the Duke of York. Afterwards, in revenge for that, he was himself killed by Rutland's brother. Thus the war became bitterly cruel and savage. Alas for chivalry! 6. In looking over the pedigrees of those great old families it is quite startling to see how many times we read "killed at Tewkesbury," "killed at St. Albans," "beheaded after Wakefield," and the like. No less than four dukes of Somerset, one after the other, perished in these wars. The end of it was that the old nobility was almost destroyed, and the feudal system vanished for ever. Things began to be much more like what they are now; so this period is generally looked on as the end of the middle ages, and the beginning of modern times. Causes of the war. 7. We cannot suppose the great nobles, or anybody else, would have taken all this trouble, raised their armies, and hurried about all over the country, fighting, killing, and being killed, all for love of Henry or Edward, Lancaster or York. Had there not been some grave causes of discontent, it is pretty certain both York and Mortimer would have been forgotten, now that the Lancasters had been sitting on the throne for fifty years, whatever their exact rights might have been in the onset. But there was in fact a great deal of discontent, and a spirit of entire disaffection spread abroad among the nation. Every one was ashamed and disgusted at the disgraceful end of the French war, and the pride of the people was not much comforted by the death of the Duke of Suffolk, or the Bishop of Chichester. The state of England itself was also unsatisfactory. Jack Cade and the Kentish men, as we saw, had |