44 - Houses of Lancaster and York with the Conquest and Loss of France by James Gairdner

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.)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section forty four of the Houses of Lancaster and York
by James Gerdner. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami, Chapter twelve, conclusion, the fifteenth century was
not an age of really great men. Amid schisms in

(00:21):
the church, wars, rebellions, and disputed successions in every kingdom
of Europe, it seems to have been impossible for any
mind to realize to itself one grand idea, to work
out one great work, or to set forth one great thought.
The best minds of the age looked back upon the

(00:41):
past and regretted the chivalry that was passing away. Order
was the one great need of the time, and as
yet men could see no order, except of a kind
already past, recovery, which they were vainly endeavoring to restore.
So for the peace of the Church, they burned hairs
and put witches to open penance. While adhering to the

(01:04):
traditions of a moribund chivalry, they plunged Europe into war
and anarchy. The one direction in which there was a
visible movement in men's minds was in a revival of
ancient learning. Scholars were recovering lost literature to the world,
and the classic writers of ancient Rome were studied and
imitated in a way they had not been before. Greek

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two began to engage more attention in Europe after the
fall of Constantinople, for refugees carried the language and the
literature into Italy and elsewhere. The art of printing, first
used in Germany about the year fourteen forty, and brought
into England by Caxton in fourteen seventy four, helped to
multiply copies of the best ancient authors in England. After

(01:53):
the days of Gower and Chaucer, we had very little
literature that deserved the name. The prince poet of the
succeeding age was John Lydgate, a monk of Berry, whose
small lyric effusions, though not altogether contemptible, scarcely rank above mediocrity.
It is remarkable, however, that two foreign princes, James the

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First of Scotland and Charles, Duke of Orleons, each of
whom was for many years detained a prisoner in England,
each contributed to his native literature poetry that was far
from commonplace in religion. Men testified what was going on
beneath the surface, rather by acts than by words, men

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who felt more deeply than their neighbors, some neglected phase
of Christianity drifted away from the authority of the Church.
There were the Flagelens in Italy, the Lallards in England,
the Hussites in Bohemia. But their zeal was found to
be incompatible even with civil peace, and they were met

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by a spirit of persecution, in which it is to
be lamented that some of the noblest minds of the
day concurred. Such was John Gerson at the Council of Constance,
the man who, in defiance of danger, tore to rags
all the miserable special pleadings by which the creatures of John,
the fearless Duke of Burgundy sought to justify or extenuate

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the murder of his rival or Leon. Even he so
bold and upright in defense of public morals, took the
lead in the persecution of huss and Jerome of Prague.
A quieter mind was that of Thomas at Kempess, to whom,
as it is generally believed, the world is indebted for
the exquisitely beautiful book still so popular upon the imitation

(03:45):
of Christ. Nothing can excel it as an exposition of
that pure and peaceful devotion for which monasticism still offered
a safe asylum. Amid the perverseness and errors of the time.
Outside the cloister zeal was sure to be persecuted, even
if it endeavored to vindicate authority. Such was the fate

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of Reginald Peacock, Bishop of Chichester, a man not less
remarkable for his vigor of intellect than for his love
of toleration, who wrote a number of treatises in English
in defense of the Church against the Lollards. His object
was to win over heretics by reason instead of by
the fires of persecution. His arguments generally are remarkably clear

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and lucid, tending to show that the Lollard position was
founded upon an undue deference to the mere letter of Scripture,
and that the Bible was not given us to supersede
the use of our natural reason. But this mode of
treatment satisfied no one. During the short lull of the
Civil War in fourteen fifty seven, not long before the

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procession of the reconciled leaders of Saint Paul's, Bishop Peacock
was accused of heresy forced to recant for fear of martyrdom,
and deprived of his bishopric, the church declined to be
defended in the spirit of toleration. Thus whatever was noble
was distressed and persecuted. Commerce and money getting went on,

(05:18):
and the spirits of men, broken by invariable disappointment when
they attempted anything higher, became generally sordid and mercenary. Kings
grasped at territory instead of money. But in England they
soonest tired of the game, and even they in the
end joined in the general pursuit of wealth and preference

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to honor or reputation. Edward the fourth first set the
example of trafficking in war, which Lord Bacon notes as
a feature of the policy of Henry the seventh. Both
these kings raised great supplies from their own subjects, and
then accepted money from the enemy to forbear fighting. But

(06:00):
from the commercial enterprise of the day arose those discoveries
which in the end perhaps had most influence in the
formation of a new era. New coasts, new seas, new islands,
and in the end a complete new world, were successively revealed.
The thoughts of men were expanded, their imaginations fired with

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new ideas, old philosophies insensibly passed away, as the ambition,
the enterprise, and the avarice of a new generation found
channels which had been hitherto unknown. The world, even the
material world, was found to be much larger than had
been supposed. As for the world unseen, was it likely

(06:46):
that popes and councils had taken the true measure of that?
End of Section forty four read by Pamelinagami, M d.
And Encino, California, February first, two thousand twenty three. End
of the Houses of Lancaster and York with the Conquest
and Loss of France by James Gardner