A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  husband's coming to the throne, he being the next heir. She was

  charged with having, by the help of a ridiculous old woman named

  Margery (who was called a witch), made a little waxen doll in the

  King's likeness, and put it before a slow fire that it might

  gradually melt away. It was supposed, in such cases, that the

  death of the person whom the doll was made to represent, was sure

  to happen. Whether the duchess was as ignorant as the rest of

  them, and really did make such a doll with such an intention, I

  don't know; but, you and I know very well that she might have made

  a thousand dolls, if she had been stupid enough, and might have

  melted them all, without hurting the King or anybody else.

  However, she was tried for it, and so was old Margery, and so was

  one of the duke's chaplains, who was charged with having assisted

  them. Both he and Margery were put to death, and the duchess,

  after being taken on foot and bearing a lighted candle, three times

  round the City, as a penance, was imprisoned for life. The duke,

  himself, took all this pretty quietly, and made as little stir

  about the matter as if he were rather glad to be rid of the

  duchess.

  But, he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble long. The

  royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores were very

  anxious to get him married. The Duke of Gloucester wanted him to

  marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac; but, the Cardinal and

  the Earl of Suffolk were all for MARGARET, the daughter of the King

  of Sicily, who they knew was a resolute, ambitious woman and would

  govern the King as she chose. To make friends with this lady, the

  Earl of Suffolk, who went over to arrange the match, consented to

  accept her for the King's wife without any fortune, and even to

  give up the two most valuable possessions England then had in

  France. So, the marriage was arranged, on terms very advantageous

  to the lady; and Lord Suffolk brought her to England, and she was

  married at Westminster. On what pretence this queen and her party

  charged the Duke of Gloucester with high treason within a couple of

  years, it is impossible to make out, the matter is so confused;

  but, they pretended that the King's life was in danger, and they

  took the duke prisoner. A fortnight afterwards, he was found dead

  in bed (they said), and his body was shown to the people, and Lord

  Suffolk came in for the best part of his estates. You know by this

  time how strangely liable state prisoners were to sudden death.

  If Cardinal Beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him no

  good, for he died within six weeks; thinking it very hard and

  curious - at eighty years old! - that he could not live to be Pope.

  This was the time when England had completed her loss of all her

  great French conquests. The people charged the loss principally

  upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had made those easy terms

  about the Royal Marriage, and who, they believed, had even been

  bought by France. So he was impeached as a traitor, on a great

  number of charges, but chiefly on accusations of having aided the

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  French King, and of designing to make his own son King of England.

  The Commons and the people being violent against him, the King was

  made (by his friends) to interpose to save him, by banishing him

  for five years, and proroguing the Parliament. The duke had much

  ado to escape from a London mob, two thousand strong, who lay in

  wait for him in St. Giles's fields; but, he got down to his own

  estates in Suffolk, and sailed away from Ipswich. Sailing across

  the Channel, he sent into Calais to know if he might land there;

  but, they kept his boat and men in the harbour, until an English

  ship, carrying a hundred and fifty men and called the Nicholas of

  the Tower, came alongside his little vessel, and ordered him on

  board. 'Welcome, traitor, as men say,' was the captain's grim and

  not very respectful salutation. He was kept on board, a prisoner,

  for eight-and-forty hours, and then a small boat appeared rowing

  toward the ship. As this boat came nearer, it was seen to have in

  it a block, a rusty sword, and an executioner in a black mask. The

  duke was handed down into it, and there his head was cut off with

  six strokes of the rusty sword. Then, the little boat rowed away

  to Dover beach, where the body was cast out, and left until the

  duchess claimed it. By whom, high in authority, this murder was

  committed, has never appeared. No one was ever punished for it.

  There now arose in Kent an Irishman, who gave himself the name of

  Mortimer, but whose real name was JACK CADE. Jack, in imitation of

  Wat Tyler, though he was a very different and inferior sort of man,

  addressed the Kentish men upon their wrongs, occasioned by the bad

  government of England, among so many battledores and such a poor

  shuttlecock; and the Kentish men rose up to the number of twenty

  thousand. Their place of assembly was Blackheath, where, headed by

  Jack, they put forth two papers, which they called 'The Complaint

  of the Commons of Kent,' and 'The Requests of the Captain of the

  Great Assembly in Kent.' They then retired to Sevenoaks. The

  royal army coming up with them here, they beat it and killed their

  general. Then, Jack dressed himself in the dead general's armour,

  and led his men to London.

  Jack passed into the City from Southwark, over the bridge, and

  entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men not

  to plunder. Having made a show of his forces there, while the

  citizens looked on quietly, he went back into Southwark in good

  order, and passed the night. Next day, he came back again, having

  got hold in the meantime of Lord Say, an unpopular nobleman. Says

  Jack to the Lord Mayor and judges: 'Will you be so good as to make

  a tribunal in Guildhall, and try me this nobleman?' The court

  being hastily made, he was found guilty, and Jack and his men cut

  his head off on Cornhill. They also cut off the head of his sonin-

  law, and then went back in good order to Southwark again.

  But, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an unpopular

  lord, they could not bear to have their houses pillaged. And it

  did so happen that Jack, after dinner - perhaps he had drunk a

  little too much - began to plunder the house where he lodged; upon

  which, of course, his men began to imitate him. Wherefore, the

  Londoners took counsel with Lord Scales, who had a thousand

  soldiers in the Tower; and defended London Bridge, and kept Jack

  and his people out. This advantage gained, it was resolved by

  divers great men to divide Jack's army in the old way, by making a

  great many promises on behalf of the state, that were never

  intended to be performed. This DID divide them; some of Jack's men

  saying that they ought to take the conditions which were offered,

  and others saying that they ought not, for they were only a snare;

  some going home at once; others staying where they were; and all

&
nbsp; doubting and quarrelling among themselves.

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  Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a pardon,

  and who indeed did both, saw at last that there was nothing to

  expect from his men, and that it was very likely some of them would

  deliver him up and get a reward of a thousand marks, which was

  offered for his apprehension. So, after they had travelled and

  quarrelled all the way from Southwark to Blackheath, and from

  Blackheath to Rochester, he mounted a good horse and galloped away

  into Sussex. But, there galloped after him, on a better horse, one

  Alexander Iden, who came up with him, had a hard fight with him,

  and killed him. Jack's head was set aloft on London Bridge, with

  the face looking towards Blackheath, where he had raised his flag;

  and Alexander Iden got the thousand marks.

  It is supposed by some, that the Duke of York, who had been removed

  from a high post abroad through the Queen's influence, and sent out

  of the way, to govern Ireland, was at the bottom of this rising of

  Jack and his men, because he wanted to trouble the government. He

  claimed (though not yet publicly) to have a better right to the

  throne than Henry of Lancaster, as one of the family of the Earl of

  March, whom Henry the Fourth had set aside. Touching this claim,

  which, being through female relationship, was not according to the

  usual descent, it is enough to say that Henry the Fourth was the

  free choice of the people and the Parliament, and that his family

  had now reigned undisputed for sixty years. The memory of Henry

  the Fifth was so famous, and the English people loved it so much,

  that the Duke of York's claim would, perhaps, never have been

  thought of (it would have been so hopeless) but for the unfortunate

  circumstance of the present King's being by this time quite an

  idiot, and the country very ill governed. These two circumstances

  gave the Duke of York a power he could not otherwise have had.

  Whether the Duke knew anything of Jack Cade, or not, he came over

  from Ireland while Jack's head was on London Bridge; being secretly

  advised that the Queen was setting up his enemy, the Duke of

  Somerset, against him. He went to Westminster, at the head of four

  thousand men, and on his knees before the King, represented to him

  the bad state of the country, and petitioned him to summon a

  Parliament to consider it. This the King promised. When the

  Parliament was summoned, the Duke of York accused the Duke of

  Somerset, and the Duke of Somerset accused the Duke of York; and,

  both in and out of Parliament, the followers of each party were

  full of violence and hatred towards the other. At length the Duke

  of York put himself at the head of a large force of his tenants,

  and, in arms, demanded the reformation of the Government. Being

  shut out of London, he encamped at Dartford, and the royal army

  encamped at Blackheath. According as either side triumphed, the

  Duke of York was arrested, or the Duke of Somerset was arrested.

  The trouble ended, for the moment, in the Duke of York renewing his

  oath of allegiance, and going in peace to one of his own castles.

  Half a year afterwards the Queen gave birth to a son, who was very

  ill received by the people, and not believed to be the son of the

  King. It shows the Duke of York to have been a moderate man,

  unwilling to involve England in new troubles, that he did not take

  advantage of the general discontent at this time, but really acted

  for the public good. He was made a member of the cabinet, and the

  King being now so much worse that he could not be carried about and

  shown to the people with any decency, the duke was made Lord

  Protector of the kingdom, until the King should recover, or the

  Prince should come of age. At the same time the Duke of Somerset

  was committed to the Tower. So, now the Duke of Somerset was down,

  and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, the

  King recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the

  Queen used her power - which recovered with him - to get the

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  Protector disgraced, and her favourite released. So now the Duke

  of York was down, and the Duke of Somerset was up.

  These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole nation into

  the two parties of York and Lancaster, and led to those terrible

  civil wars long known as the Wars of the Red and White Roses,

  because the red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster, and

  the white rose was the badge of the House of York.

  The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen of the

  White Rose party, and leading a small army, met the King with

  another small army at St. Alban's, and demanded that the Duke of

  Somerset should be given up. The poor King, being made to say in

  answer that he would sooner die, was instantly attacked. The Duke

  of Somerset was killed, and the King himself was wounded in the

  neck, and took refuge in the house of a poor tanner. Whereupon,

  the Duke of York went to him, led him with great submission to the

  Abbey, and said he was very sorry for what had happened. Having

  now the King in his possession, he got a Parliament summoned and

  himself once more made Protector, but, only for a few months; for,

  on the King getting a little better again, the Queen and her party

  got him into their possession, and disgraced the Duke once more.

  So, now the Duke of York was down again.

  Some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these constant

  changes, tried even then to prevent the Red and the White Rose

  Wars. They brought about a great council in London between the two

  parties. The White Roses assembled in Blackfriars, the Red Roses

  in Whitefriars; and some good priests communicated between them,

  and made the proceedings known at evening to the King and the

  judges. They ended in a peaceful agreement that there should be no

  more quarrelling; and there was a great royal procession to St.

  Paul's, in which the Queen walked arm-in-arm with her old enemy,

  the Duke of York, to show the people how comfortable they all were.

  This state of peace lasted half a year, when a dispute between the

  Earl of Warwick (one of the Duke's powerful friends) and some of

  the King's servants at Court, led to an attack upon that Earl - who

  was a White Rose - and to a sudden breaking out of all old

  animosities. So, here were greater ups and downs than ever.

  There were even greater ups and downs than these, soon after.

  After various battles, the Duke of York fled to Ireland, and his

  son the Earl of March to Calais, with their friends the Earls of

  Salisbury and Warwick; and a Parliament was held declaring them all

  traitors. Little the worse for this, the Earl of Warwick presently

  came back, landed in Kent, was joined by the Archbishop of

  Canterbury and other powerful noblemen and gentlemen, engaged the

  King's forces at Northampton, signally defeated them, and took the


  King himself prisoner, who was found in his tent. Warwick would

  have been glad, I dare say, to have taken the Queen and Prince too,

  but they escaped into Wales and thence into Scotland.

  The King was carried by the victorious force straight to London,

  and made to call a new Parliament, which immediately declared that

  the Duke of York and those other noblemen were not traitors, but

  excellent subjects. Then, back comes the Duke from Ireland at the

  head of five hundred horsemen, rides from London to Westminster,

  and enters the House of Lords. There, he laid his hand upon the

  cloth of gold which covered the empty throne, as if he had half a

  mind to sit down in it - but he did not. On the Archbishop of

  Canterbury, asking him if he would visit the King, who was in his

  palace close by, he replied, 'I know no one in this country, my

  lord, who ought not to visit ME.' None of the lords present spoke

  a single word; so, the duke went out as he had come in, established

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  himself royally in the King's palace, and, six days afterwards,

  sent in to the Lords a formal statement of his claim to the throne.

  The lords went to the King on this momentous subject, and after a

  great deal of discussion, in which the judges and the other law

  officers were afraid to give an opinion on either side, the

  question was compromised. It was agreed that the present King

  should retain the crown for his life, and that it should then pass

  to the Duke of York and his heirs.

  But, the resolute Queen, determined on asserting her son's right,

  would hear of no such thing. She came from Scotland to the north

  of England, where several powerful lords armed in her cause. The

  Duke of York, for his part, set off with some five thousand men, a

  little time before Christmas Day, one thousand four hundred and

  sixty, to give her battle. He lodged at Sandal Castle, near

  Wakefield, and the Red Roses defied him to come out on Wakefield

  Green, and fight them then and there. His generals said, he had

  best wait until his gallant son, the Earl of March, came up with

  his power; but, he was determined to accept the challenge. He did

  so, in an evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, two

  thousand of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he himself was