September 3, 2025 • 17 mins
Explore the tumultuous era of the Wars of the Roses, a dramatic culmination of the Hundred Years War. Following the death of the formidable King Edward III in 1377, his young grandson Richard II ascends the throne, only to face challenges due to his misrule. The rise of the Lancastrians culminates in the downfall of Richard, while Henry Vs legendary victory at the Battle of Agincourt is overshadowed by his untimely death, leaving a vulnerable child king in his wake. As the specter of madness looms over Henry VI, the stage is set for a bitter internal conflict that will engulf the realm. (Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section forty one of the Houses of Lancaster and York
by James Gerdner. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami, Chapter ten, Part three, Second Invasion of Richmond,
Richard's overthrow and death. Thus Richard had obtained an almost
(00:21):
bloodless triumph. He passed on to Exeter, where he received
the congratulations of the citizens, and a purse of two
hundred gold nobles was presented to him. In January fourteen
eighty four, a parliament met at Westminster, which confirmed his
title to the crown and passed an Act of Attainder
(00:41):
against the Earl of Richmond and his adherents. Upwards of
ninety persons were by this act branded as traitors and
deprived of all their lands and honors. But the Countess
of Richmond, Henry's mother, who had been the chief organizer
of the whole rebellion, was treated with leniency out of
consideration for her husband, Lord Stanley. Her lands were given
(01:06):
to her husband for life, and he undertook to be
responsible for her conduct in the future. Another act of
this parliament was to abolish the oppressive kind of taxation
introduced by Edward the fourth under the name of Benevolences, which,
though they were professedly free will offerings, had been really
(01:27):
exacted under so much pressure as to reduce many persons
from affluence to poverty. Before the Parliament separated, the lords
all took an oath of allegiance not only to Richard
as king, but to his son Edward, Prince of Wales
as heir apparent, to whom they promised fealty after Richard's death.
(01:48):
But within a few weeks the young Prince died after
a brief illness, and Richard was childless, as the children
of Edward the Fourth had been declared illegitimate and those
of the Duke of Clarence could not inherit by reason
of their father's attainder. Richard then recognized as his heir
(02:08):
John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, son of the
Duke of Suffolk. Meanwhile, the Earl of Richmond was busy
preparing for a second attempt at invasion. On Christmas Day,
fourteen eighty four, he had held a meeting with his
principal adherents in Wren Cathedral, where he took oath to
marry Princess Elizabeth as soon as he should obtain possession
(02:32):
of the crown. Richard made application to the Duke of
Brittany to deliver him up into his hands, but the Earl,
having received warning, escaped into the dominions of Charles the eighth,
the new King of France, who had just succeeded his
father Louis the eleventh, where he was soon rejoined by
about three hundred of his followers. Richard, however, endeavored to
(02:56):
defeat his designs in another way. He summoned a Council
of the Lord's Spiritual and Temporal then in London, together
with the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city, and
took oath in their presence that if the five daughters
of Dame Elizabeth Gray, meaning by that name the Queen Dowager,
whom he no longer recognized as such, would come out
(03:17):
of sanctuary and place themselves under his protection, he would
not only assure them of life and liberty, but provide
them with husbands as they came of age, and give
each of them a marriage portion of the value of
two hundred marks a year. He also engaged to allow
Elizabeth herself a pension of seven hundred marks a year
(03:38):
for life. This offer the Queen Dowager and her daughters
thought it well to accept, and accordingly came out of sanctuary.
It seems extraordinary that after the murder of her sons,
the Queen Dowager should ever have been induced to repose
the slightest confidence in Richard, And yet there appears to
(04:01):
be no doubt of the fact that some time after
this she was nearly won over by his blandishments to
break off her compact with Henry, whose cause she probably
considered hopeless. She wrote to her son, the Marquess of
Dorset in France, to withdraw himself from the Earl of
Richmond's company, and Dorset had, in consequence, secretly left Paris,
(04:24):
where the Earl was then staying, and was hastening toward
Flanders on his way to England, when the French King's counsel,
at the Earl's urgent request, caused his flight to be arrested.
It is even asserted that Richard attained such favor with
the Queen Dowager that, in order to prevent her daughter's
marriage with the Earl of Richmond, he proposed, in the
(04:46):
expectation of his own Queen's death, to marry her himself.
And this project, as the chronicles relate, was actually approved
by the mother. Although very abhorrent to the feelings of
the princess herself, such a story seems almost too monstrous
to be believed. Perhaps the truth may be that immediately
(05:07):
after his queen's death, Richard did make some advances of
the kind which, even under these circumstances, were disgraceful enough,
and the indignation they aroused may have caused the story
to be exaggerated. Certain it is that the king felt
it necessary to make a public disavowal of the intention
(05:27):
within a very few weeks after his wife's death. But
whatever arts Richard used cajolery, promises, bribes, or threats to
turn enemies into friends, or to defeat the plans of
his opponents, they never were successful, except partially and for
a time. Sir Thomas Moore, a great wit and genius,
(05:49):
who in those days was a child, but afterwards wrote
a life of King Richard from the information of persons
than living, says of him that with large gifts he
got him una steadfast friendship for which he was fain
to pill and spoil in other places, and get him
steadfast hatred before his brief reign came to an end.
(06:11):
He found himself obliged to replenish his empty exchequer by
having recourse once more to those detested benevolences which he
had promised in Parliament should never again be levied. Such measures,
of course, made him more than ever unpopular at home,
while the preparations of the Earl of Richmond abroad continually
(06:32):
gave him more anxiety. The Earl of Oxford, who had
given much trouble to his brother Edward fourth, had been
committed to the custody of Sir James Blunt, governor of
Amis Castle near Calais, brother of the Lord Montjoy. Sir
James released his prisoner and both offered their services to
the Earl of Richmond. The Castle of Ames was afterwards
(06:56):
recovered into the King's hands, but only on condition that
the garrison should be allowed to depart with bag and baggage.
By repeated proclamations, Richard called upon his subjects to resist
the intended invasion of Richmond with all their force. He
denounced the Earl and his followers as men who had
(07:16):
forsaken their true allegiance, and put themselves in subjection to
the French king. He pointed out that owing to the
illegitimacy of the Beauforts, Henry could have no claim to
the crown, and that even on the father's side, he
was come of bastard blood. He declared that he had
bargained to give up forever all claims hitherto made by
(07:38):
the Kings of England, either to the Crown of France,
the Duchy of Normandy, Gascony, or even Calais. Richmond, however,
had sent messages into England by which he was assured
of a considerable amount of support, and he borrowed money
from the King of France, with which he fitted out
a small fleet at Ufleur, and embarked for Wales, where
(07:59):
his own uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, possessed great influence. Richard,
knowing of the intended invasion, but being uncertain where his
enemy might land, had taken up his position in the
center of the kingdom, Following a plan first put in
use by his brother Edward during the Scotch War. He
(08:20):
had stationed messengers at intervals of twenty miles along all
the principal roads to the coast to bring him early intelligence.
But Henry landed on August first, fourteen eighty five, at
Milford Haven, at the farthest extremity of South Wales, where
perhaps Richard had least expected him, and so small was
(08:41):
the force by which he was accompanied that the news
did not at first give the King very much anxiety.
He professed great satisfaction that his adversary was now coming
to bring matters to the test of battle. The Earl, however,
was among friends from the moment he landed. Brook was
his native town, and the inhabitants expressed their willingness to
(09:04):
serve his uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, as their natural
and immediate lord. The very men whom Richard had placed
to keep the country against them at once joined this party,
and he passed on to Shrewsbury with little or no opposition.
The King's unsteadfast friendships, on the other hand, were now
rapidly working his ruin. His own Attorney General Morgan Kidwelly,
(09:28):
had been in communication with the enemy before he landed. Richard, however,
was very naturally suspicious of Lord Stanley, his rival's stepfather, who,
though he was steward of the royal household, had asked
leave shortly before the invasion to go home and visit
his family in Lancashire. This the King granted only on
(09:50):
the condition that he would send his son, George, Lord
Strange to him at Nottingham in his place. Lord Strange
was accordingly sent to the King King, but when the
news arrived of Henry's landing, Richard desired the presence of
his father. Also, Stanley pretended illness, an excuse which could
not fail to increase the King's suspicions. His son, at
(10:14):
the same time made an attempt to escape, and, being captured,
confessed that he himself and his uncle Sir William Stanley,
had formed a project with others to go over to
the enemy. But he protested his father's innocence and assured
the King that he would obey his summons. He was
made to understand that his own life depended on his
(10:35):
doing so, and he wrote a letter to his father accordingly. Richard,
having mustered his followers at Nottingham, went on to Lester
to meet his antagonist, and encamped at Bosworth On the
night of August twenty first, The Earl of Richmond had
arrived near the same place with an army of five
thousand men, which is supposed to have been not more
(10:57):
than half that of the king. That day, however, Lord
Stanley had come to the Earl secretly at Atherstone to
assure him of his support in the coming battle. He
and his brother Sir William were each at the head
of a force not far off, and were only temporizing
to save the life of his son, Lord Strange. This
(11:19):
information relieved Henry's mind of much anxiety, for at various
times since he landed he had felt serious misgivings about
the success of the enterprise. The issue was now to
be decided on the following day. Early in the morning,
both parties prepared for the battle. Richard arose before daybreak,
(11:40):
much agitated, it is said, by dreadful dreams that had
haunted his imagination in the night time, but he entered
the field wearing his crown upon his head and encouraged
his troops with an eloquent harangue. There was, however, treason
in his camp, and many of his followers were only
seeking an opportunity to desert and take part with the enemy.
(12:06):
A warning, indeed, had been conveyed by an unknown hand
to his foremost supporter, the Duke of Norfolk in the
following rhyme, which was discovered the night before written on
the door of his tent, Jack of Norfolk be not
too bold for dick and thy master is bought and sold.
(12:26):
Lord Stanley, who had drawn up his men at about
equal distance from both armies, received messages early in the
morning from both leaders desiring his immediate assistance. His policy, however,
was to stand aloof to the very last moment, and
he replied in each case that he would come at
a convenient opportunity. Dissatisfied with this answer, Richard ordered his
(12:52):
son to be beheaded, but was persuaded to suspend the
execution of the order till the day should be decided.
After a discharge of arrows on both sides, the army
soon came to a hand to hand encounter. Lord Stanley
joined the Earl in the midst of the engagement, and
the Earl of Northumberland, on whose support Richard had relied,
(13:14):
stood still with all his followers and looked on the
day was going hard against the King. Norfolk fell in
the thickest of the fight, and his son, the Earl
of Surrey, after fighting with great valor, was surrounded and
taken prisoner. Richard endeavored to single out his adversary, whose
position on the field was pointed out to him. He
(13:37):
suddenly rushed upon Henry's bodyguard and unhorsed successively two of
his attendants, one of whom the Earl's standard bearer, fell
dead to the ground. The Earl himself was in great danger,
but that Sir William Stanley, who had hitherto abstained from
joining the combat, now endeavored to surround the king with
(13:58):
his force of three thousand men. Richard perceived that he
was betrayed, and, crying trees and treason, endeavored only to
sell his life as dearly as possible. Overpowered by numbers,
he fell dead in the midst of his enemies. The
battered crown that had fallen from Richard's head was picked
(14:19):
up upon the field of battle, and Sir William Stanley
placed it upon the head of the conqueror, who was
saluted as king by his whole army. The body of Richard,
on the other hand, was treated with a degree of
indignity which expressed but too plainly the disgust excited in
the minds of the people by his inhuman tyranny. It
(14:41):
was stripped naked and thrown upon a horse, a halter
being placed round the neck, and in that fashion carried
into Lester, where it was buried with little honor in
the Greyfriar's Church. Such was the end of the last
King of England of the line of the Plantagenets. In
warlike qualities, he was not inferior to the best of
(15:03):
his predecessors, but his rule was such as alienated the
hearts of the greater part of his subjects, and caused
him to be remembered as a monster. In person too,
he is represented to have been deformed, with the right
shoulder higher than the left, and he is traditionally regarded
as a hunchback. But it may be that even his
(15:25):
bodily defects were exaggerated. After he was gone. Stories got
abroad that he was born with teeth and hair coming
down to his shoulders, and that his birth was attended
by other circumstances altogether repugnant to the order of nature.
One fact that can hardly be a misstatement is that
(15:45):
he was small of stature, which makes it all the
more remarkable that in this last battle he overthrew in
personal encounter a man of great size and strength. Named
Sir John Cheney, he was in fact a great soldier
king in whom alike the valor and the violence of
his race had been matured and brought to a climax
(16:07):
by civil wars and family dissensions. It was inevitable that
kings of this sort should give place to kings of
a different stamp. His rival, Henry henceforth King Henry the Seventh,
inaugurated a new era in which prudence and policy were
made to serve the interests of peace and secure the throne,
(16:29):
even with a doubtful title against the convulsions to which
it had been hitherto exposed. By his marriage with the
Princess Elizabeth, he was considered to have at length united
the houses of York and Lancaster, and he left to
his son, Henry the Eighth, who succeeded him, a title
almost as free from dispute or cavil as that of
(16:51):
any king in more recent times. The civil wars, in
fact had worked themselves out. The too powerful nobility had
destroyed each other in these internissin struggles, and as the
lords of each party were attainted by turns, their great
estates were confiscated and passed into the hands of the crown.
(17:12):
This gave the tutor sovereigns an advantage which they knew
well how to use. Watchful and suspicious of their nobility,
they understood, as few other sovereigns did, the value of property,
and under Henry the Eighth, the English monarchy attained a
power and absolutism unparalleled before or since. End of Section
(17:36):
forty one.
Section forty one of the Houses of Lancaster and York
by James Gerdner. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami, Chapter ten, Part three, Second Invasion of Richmond,
Richard's overthrow and death. Thus Richard had obtained an almost
(00:21):
bloodless triumph. He passed on to Exeter, where he received
the congratulations of the citizens, and a purse of two
hundred gold nobles was presented to him. In January fourteen
eighty four, a parliament met at Westminster, which confirmed his
title to the crown and passed an Act of Attainder
(00:41):
against the Earl of Richmond and his adherents. Upwards of
ninety persons were by this act branded as traitors and
deprived of all their lands and honors. But the Countess
of Richmond, Henry's mother, who had been the chief organizer
of the whole rebellion, was treated with leniency out of
consideration for her husband, Lord Stanley. Her lands were given
(01:06):
to her husband for life, and he undertook to be
responsible for her conduct in the future. Another act of
this parliament was to abolish the oppressive kind of taxation
introduced by Edward the fourth under the name of Benevolences, which,
though they were professedly free will offerings, had been really
(01:27):
exacted under so much pressure as to reduce many persons
from affluence to poverty. Before the Parliament separated, the lords
all took an oath of allegiance not only to Richard
as king, but to his son Edward, Prince of Wales
as heir apparent, to whom they promised fealty after Richard's death.
(01:48):
But within a few weeks the young Prince died after
a brief illness, and Richard was childless, as the children
of Edward the Fourth had been declared illegitimate and those
of the Duke of Clarence could not inherit by reason
of their father's attainder. Richard then recognized as his heir
(02:08):
John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, son of the
Duke of Suffolk. Meanwhile, the Earl of Richmond was busy
preparing for a second attempt at invasion. On Christmas Day,
fourteen eighty four, he had held a meeting with his
principal adherents in Wren Cathedral, where he took oath to
marry Princess Elizabeth as soon as he should obtain possession
(02:32):
of the crown. Richard made application to the Duke of
Brittany to deliver him up into his hands, but the Earl,
having received warning, escaped into the dominions of Charles the eighth,
the new King of France, who had just succeeded his
father Louis the eleventh, where he was soon rejoined by
about three hundred of his followers. Richard, however, endeavored to
(02:56):
defeat his designs in another way. He summoned a Council
of the Lord's Spiritual and Temporal then in London, together
with the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city, and
took oath in their presence that if the five daughters
of Dame Elizabeth Gray, meaning by that name the Queen Dowager,
whom he no longer recognized as such, would come out
(03:17):
of sanctuary and place themselves under his protection, he would
not only assure them of life and liberty, but provide
them with husbands as they came of age, and give
each of them a marriage portion of the value of
two hundred marks a year. He also engaged to allow
Elizabeth herself a pension of seven hundred marks a year
(03:38):
for life. This offer the Queen Dowager and her daughters
thought it well to accept, and accordingly came out of sanctuary.
It seems extraordinary that after the murder of her sons,
the Queen Dowager should ever have been induced to repose
the slightest confidence in Richard, And yet there appears to
(04:01):
be no doubt of the fact that some time after
this she was nearly won over by his blandishments to
break off her compact with Henry, whose cause she probably
considered hopeless. She wrote to her son, the Marquess of
Dorset in France, to withdraw himself from the Earl of
Richmond's company, and Dorset had, in consequence, secretly left Paris,
(04:24):
where the Earl was then staying, and was hastening toward
Flanders on his way to England, when the French King's counsel,
at the Earl's urgent request, caused his flight to be arrested.
It is even asserted that Richard attained such favor with
the Queen Dowager that, in order to prevent her daughter's
marriage with the Earl of Richmond, he proposed, in the
(04:46):
expectation of his own Queen's death, to marry her himself.
And this project, as the chronicles relate, was actually approved
by the mother. Although very abhorrent to the feelings of
the princess herself, such a story seems almost too monstrous
to be believed. Perhaps the truth may be that immediately
(05:07):
after his queen's death, Richard did make some advances of
the kind which, even under these circumstances, were disgraceful enough,
and the indignation they aroused may have caused the story
to be exaggerated. Certain it is that the king felt
it necessary to make a public disavowal of the intention
(05:27):
within a very few weeks after his wife's death. But
whatever arts Richard used cajolery, promises, bribes, or threats to
turn enemies into friends, or to defeat the plans of
his opponents, they never were successful, except partially and for
a time. Sir Thomas Moore, a great wit and genius,
(05:49):
who in those days was a child, but afterwards wrote
a life of King Richard from the information of persons
than living, says of him that with large gifts he
got him una steadfast friendship for which he was fain
to pill and spoil in other places, and get him
steadfast hatred before his brief reign came to an end.
(06:11):
He found himself obliged to replenish his empty exchequer by
having recourse once more to those detested benevolences which he
had promised in Parliament should never again be levied. Such measures,
of course, made him more than ever unpopular at home,
while the preparations of the Earl of Richmond abroad continually
(06:32):
gave him more anxiety. The Earl of Oxford, who had
given much trouble to his brother Edward fourth, had been
committed to the custody of Sir James Blunt, governor of
Amis Castle near Calais, brother of the Lord Montjoy. Sir
James released his prisoner and both offered their services to
the Earl of Richmond. The Castle of Ames was afterwards
(06:56):
recovered into the King's hands, but only on condition that
the garrison should be allowed to depart with bag and baggage.
By repeated proclamations, Richard called upon his subjects to resist
the intended invasion of Richmond with all their force. He
denounced the Earl and his followers as men who had
(07:16):
forsaken their true allegiance, and put themselves in subjection to
the French king. He pointed out that owing to the
illegitimacy of the Beauforts, Henry could have no claim to
the crown, and that even on the father's side, he
was come of bastard blood. He declared that he had
bargained to give up forever all claims hitherto made by
(07:38):
the Kings of England, either to the Crown of France,
the Duchy of Normandy, Gascony, or even Calais. Richmond, however,
had sent messages into England by which he was assured
of a considerable amount of support, and he borrowed money
from the King of France, with which he fitted out
a small fleet at Ufleur, and embarked for Wales, where
(07:59):
his own uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, possessed great influence. Richard,
knowing of the intended invasion, but being uncertain where his
enemy might land, had taken up his position in the
center of the kingdom, Following a plan first put in
use by his brother Edward during the Scotch War. He
(08:20):
had stationed messengers at intervals of twenty miles along all
the principal roads to the coast to bring him early intelligence.
But Henry landed on August first, fourteen eighty five, at
Milford Haven, at the farthest extremity of South Wales, where
perhaps Richard had least expected him, and so small was
(08:41):
the force by which he was accompanied that the news
did not at first give the King very much anxiety.
He professed great satisfaction that his adversary was now coming
to bring matters to the test of battle. The Earl, however,
was among friends from the moment he landed. Brook was
his native town, and the inhabitants expressed their willingness to
(09:04):
serve his uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, as their natural
and immediate lord. The very men whom Richard had placed
to keep the country against them at once joined this party,
and he passed on to Shrewsbury with little or no opposition.
The King's unsteadfast friendships, on the other hand, were now
rapidly working his ruin. His own Attorney General Morgan Kidwelly,
(09:28):
had been in communication with the enemy before he landed. Richard, however,
was very naturally suspicious of Lord Stanley, his rival's stepfather, who,
though he was steward of the royal household, had asked
leave shortly before the invasion to go home and visit
his family in Lancashire. This the King granted only on
(09:50):
the condition that he would send his son, George, Lord
Strange to him at Nottingham in his place. Lord Strange
was accordingly sent to the King King, but when the
news arrived of Henry's landing, Richard desired the presence of
his father. Also, Stanley pretended illness, an excuse which could
not fail to increase the King's suspicions. His son, at
(10:14):
the same time made an attempt to escape, and, being captured,
confessed that he himself and his uncle Sir William Stanley,
had formed a project with others to go over to
the enemy. But he protested his father's innocence and assured
the King that he would obey his summons. He was
made to understand that his own life depended on his
(10:35):
doing so, and he wrote a letter to his father accordingly. Richard,
having mustered his followers at Nottingham, went on to Lester
to meet his antagonist, and encamped at Bosworth On the
night of August twenty first, The Earl of Richmond had
arrived near the same place with an army of five
thousand men, which is supposed to have been not more
(10:57):
than half that of the king. That day, however, Lord
Stanley had come to the Earl secretly at Atherstone to
assure him of his support in the coming battle. He
and his brother Sir William were each at the head
of a force not far off, and were only temporizing
to save the life of his son, Lord Strange. This
(11:19):
information relieved Henry's mind of much anxiety, for at various
times since he landed he had felt serious misgivings about
the success of the enterprise. The issue was now to
be decided on the following day. Early in the morning,
both parties prepared for the battle. Richard arose before daybreak,
(11:40):
much agitated, it is said, by dreadful dreams that had
haunted his imagination in the night time, but he entered
the field wearing his crown upon his head and encouraged
his troops with an eloquent harangue. There was, however, treason
in his camp, and many of his followers were only
seeking an opportunity to desert and take part with the enemy.
(12:06):
A warning, indeed, had been conveyed by an unknown hand
to his foremost supporter, the Duke of Norfolk in the
following rhyme, which was discovered the night before written on
the door of his tent, Jack of Norfolk be not
too bold for dick and thy master is bought and sold.
(12:26):
Lord Stanley, who had drawn up his men at about
equal distance from both armies, received messages early in the
morning from both leaders desiring his immediate assistance. His policy, however,
was to stand aloof to the very last moment, and
he replied in each case that he would come at
a convenient opportunity. Dissatisfied with this answer, Richard ordered his
(12:52):
son to be beheaded, but was persuaded to suspend the
execution of the order till the day should be decided.
After a discharge of arrows on both sides, the army
soon came to a hand to hand encounter. Lord Stanley
joined the Earl in the midst of the engagement, and
the Earl of Northumberland, on whose support Richard had relied,
(13:14):
stood still with all his followers and looked on the
day was going hard against the King. Norfolk fell in
the thickest of the fight, and his son, the Earl
of Surrey, after fighting with great valor, was surrounded and
taken prisoner. Richard endeavored to single out his adversary, whose
position on the field was pointed out to him. He
(13:37):
suddenly rushed upon Henry's bodyguard and unhorsed successively two of
his attendants, one of whom the Earl's standard bearer, fell
dead to the ground. The Earl himself was in great danger,
but that Sir William Stanley, who had hitherto abstained from
joining the combat, now endeavored to surround the king with
(13:58):
his force of three thousand men. Richard perceived that he
was betrayed, and, crying trees and treason, endeavored only to
sell his life as dearly as possible. Overpowered by numbers,
he fell dead in the midst of his enemies. The
battered crown that had fallen from Richard's head was picked
(14:19):
up upon the field of battle, and Sir William Stanley
placed it upon the head of the conqueror, who was
saluted as king by his whole army. The body of Richard,
on the other hand, was treated with a degree of
indignity which expressed but too plainly the disgust excited in
the minds of the people by his inhuman tyranny. It
(14:41):
was stripped naked and thrown upon a horse, a halter
being placed round the neck, and in that fashion carried
into Lester, where it was buried with little honor in
the Greyfriar's Church. Such was the end of the last
King of England of the line of the Plantagenets. In
warlike qualities, he was not inferior to the best of
(15:03):
his predecessors, but his rule was such as alienated the
hearts of the greater part of his subjects, and caused
him to be remembered as a monster. In person too,
he is represented to have been deformed, with the right
shoulder higher than the left, and he is traditionally regarded
as a hunchback. But it may be that even his
(15:25):
bodily defects were exaggerated. After he was gone. Stories got
abroad that he was born with teeth and hair coming
down to his shoulders, and that his birth was attended
by other circumstances altogether repugnant to the order of nature.
One fact that can hardly be a misstatement is that
(15:45):
he was small of stature, which makes it all the
more remarkable that in this last battle he overthrew in
personal encounter a man of great size and strength. Named
Sir John Cheney, he was in fact a great soldier
king in whom alike the valor and the violence of
his race had been matured and brought to a climax
(16:07):
by civil wars and family dissensions. It was inevitable that
kings of this sort should give place to kings of
a different stamp. His rival, Henry henceforth King Henry the Seventh,
inaugurated a new era in which prudence and policy were
made to serve the interests of peace and secure the throne,
(16:29):
even with a doubtful title against the convulsions to which
it had been hitherto exposed. By his marriage with the
Princess Elizabeth, he was considered to have at length united
the houses of York and Lancaster, and he left to
his son, Henry the Eighth, who succeeded him, a title
almost as free from dispute or cavil as that of
(16:51):
any king in more recent times. The civil wars, in
fact had worked themselves out. The too powerful nobility had
destroyed each other in these internissin struggles, and as the
lords of each party were attainted by turns, their great
estates were confiscated and passed into the hands of the crown.
(17:12):
This gave the tutor sovereigns an advantage which they knew
well how to use. Watchful and suspicious of their nobility,
they understood, as few other sovereigns did, the value of property,
and under Henry the Eighth, the English monarchy attained a
power and absolutism unparalleled before or since. End of Section
(17:36):
forty one.
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