The disaffection was by no means quieted. Complaints were bitter, that by repeated prorogations of Parliament supplies were obtained without any redress of grievances, and that the bishops and clergy sided with the oppressors. While public feeling was in this irritable condition, York, suddenly leaving his government of Ireland without leave, appeared on the Welsh border with 4000 of his vassals. In this threatening manner, and accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Devonshire and Salisbury, the whole clan of the Nevilles, and the Lords Cromwell[95] and Cobham, he appeared at Westminster. Meanwhile, Somerset, the acknowledged head of the rival party, returned from France, and received the office of Constable. The parties were assuming form, and a crisis was evidently at hand. York made a formal demand for the dismissal of Somerset and the punishment of the Duchess of Suffolk. As yet, however, the Government was strong enough to refuse these demands, and during the whole of the year 1451, without any public acts, the quarrel was becoming more embittered. In Devonshire Lord Bonville was at open war with the Earl of Devonshire. In the North, Percy, Lord Egremont, was fighting with the Earl of Salisbury. And in the winter, the Welsh vassals of York were gathered round the castle of Ludlow. Hitherto York and his partisans had persistently declared themselves the faithful servants of the Crown, interested only in the removal of the King’s bad ministers. None the less, in the beginning of the year 1452, Somerset and the King marched into the West, where York had been collecting his vassals, while York, moving in the opposite direction, passed the royal troops, and appeared in Kent, where he felt sure of support.

This summoned the King back towards London; he took up his position at Blackheath, and there received the demands of York, to which he consented, promising to imprison Somerset, and to form a new council. Trusting to this promise, York disbanded his army, and went to have an interview with the King. He there discovered, to his dismay, that he had been deceived. His rival was in the tent, and evidently still in favour. Hot words were exchanged, but ultimately York was compelled to renew his oath of loyalty, and the Somerset party for the instant triumphed. The next Parliament was strongly in their favour; the speaker, Thomas Thorpe, a strong partisan of the Lancastrians. The King’s half-brothers, the sons of Owen Tudor, (Edmund, Earl of Richmond, and Jasper, Earl of Pembroke,) were brought prominently forward as members of the royal house, and Cardinal Kemp, now Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor, declared that the Government would enforce peace by arms if necessary.

This triumph was of short duration. News arrived of the failure of the new expedition for the rescue of Guienne, and of the death of Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury, its leader, at Castillon. And worse than that, the King, who had all his life suffered both from bodily and intellectual weakness, fell into a condition of hopeless imbecility. Under these circumstances, the birth of a Prince called Edward, which might have added to the strength of the Lancastrian party, was but a source of weakness. York, as heir presumptive to the throne of a sickly monarch, might have been contented to wait; the birth of a new heir apparent urged him to do what he had to do quickly. The opportunity, too, now offered itself; during the imbecility of the King, some regent was wanted; there was no excuse for passing over York. An instant change of government was the consequence. Somerset was apprehended. Even the Parliament chosen under the Lancastrian influence could not refuse, after it had obtained proof of Henry’s folly, to appoint Richard. The amount of authority given him seems to have been exactly that which Gloucester had enjoyed. He was President of the Council, and chief executive officer. His office was terminable at the royal will. Though thus limited, his power was sufficient to enable him to change the constitution of the Council, to carry through a breach of Parliamentary privilege by imprisoning for a debt Thorpe the speaker, and on the death of Cardinal Kemp, to appoint his brother-in-law Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, to the chancellorship.

But the supremacy of York disappeared as suddenly as it had arisen. At the end of 1454, on Christmas Day, the King recovered his senses. Everything was immediately reversed. Somerset was taken from the Tower and declared innocent. York’s officers were displaced. True to the policy of his house, Henry restored the chancellorship to the Church by the appointment of Thomas Bouchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. But York had now determined upon an appeal to arms. Urged by fear of Somerset, and by dislike to the secondary position which the Prince’s birth had given him, and in company with the Nevilles, Lord Salisbury, and his son the Earl of Warwick, he advanced towards London, to forestall the action of the Parliament summoned to meet at Leicester, which he expected to be hostile to him. At the same time the royal troops were marching northward. The two forces consequently met. From Royston, York wrote a letter still declaring his loyalty, and stating his conditions. It was unanswered, and on the 21st of May the armies met at St. Albans. The King had with him the Dukes of Somerset and Buckingham, the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Devonshire, Stafford, Dorset, Wiltshire, Clifford, and Sudely. The battle was fought in the town, and the victory, chiefly owing to Warwick, fell to the Duke of York. Somerset, Northumberland, and Clifford fell. Most of the other leaders were wounded, and the King himself was suffering from an arrow wound when York and the Nevilles came to him, knelt before him, begged his favour, and carried him with them in apparent harmony to London.

On examining the chief names which occur as those of the leaders on either side in this the first battle of the Wars of the Roses, it will be seen that it was the Nevilles and Norfolk chiefly on whom York relied; his own relations, the Percies, and other gentlemen of the North, which constituted the strength of Henry’s party. There seem to have been three principles of division at work—family, geographical position, political views; and with regard to family, it would seem that the quarrel was one of very long standing, dating back as far as the reign of Richard II. It has been already pointed out that there was constantly some branch or other of the Plantagenet party in opposition to the reigning branch, which took for its cry reform of government and the good cause of England. In Richard II.’s reign Gloucester had represented this party. If we take the names of the Lords Appellant in the year 1387, we find them to be Gloucester and Derby, Plantagenets; Warwick, a Beauchamp; Nottingham, a Mowbray; and Arundel. Now, of these, the second, Derby, became afterwards King as Henry IV., and the opposition which he had at one time helped to direct was turned against himself and his family. The families of Mowbray and of Arundel had coalesced in the Duke of Norfolk. The heiress of the Beauchamps had married the Earl of Salisbury’s son Richard Neville, who with his wife had inherited the title of Warwick. The addition therefore to the party was that of the important family of the Nevilles, which had been consistently faithful to Henry IV. But this family had now become allied by marriage with the Duke of York himself (who had married Cecily Neville), with the Duke of Norfolk, and as we have seen with the family of Beauchamp. In addition to this, the fact that the rival house of the Percies had since the restoration of the son of Hotspur been firm supporters of the Lancastrian dynasty, would have been enough to put the Nevilles on the opposite side. The two families had ever been rivals for the chief influence in the North of England; and even now Lord Egremont, a Percy, was at open war with the Earl of Salisbury in the neighbourhood of York. Of the leaders appearing on the side of Henry, Northumberland was a Percy, and therefore enemy of the Nevilles; Somerset was a Beaufort, and of the Lancastrian house; Pembroke and Richmond were the King’s half-brothers; Clifford was one of the great lords of the North, and an opponent of the Nevilles; Wiltshire was James Butler of Ormond, of that family whose misgovernment York had been sent to cure. Of Buckingham and the Staffords, whose mother was a Plantagenet, it may be supposed that in the family quarrel they preferred the reigning house.

This seems to lead to the conclusion that in the main the war was a fight of faction, a tissue of hereditary family rivalries resting upon merely personal grounds. But beyond these there were geographical and political reasons which had their influence on the bulk of the nation. The demand for reform of government, the support given to the national prejudice in favour of continued war, and the opposition to the strong Church views of the Government, had rendered the party of York distinctly the popular one. The North of England was always more subject than the South to baronial influence. It was in the South therefore, in Kent, and in the trading cities, that the strength of the Yorkist party chiefly lay. To this of course must be added the very large estates held by York himself, as the heir of the Mortimers in the West; and the vast property of the various branches of the Nevilles. On the other hand, the Lancastrian party was that of the lower nobility, and of the Church, and found its strength in the baronial North. Politically, to speak broadly, it was the party of the Conservative gentry and the High Church, pitted against the party of reform of Church and State headed by a few great nobles; geographically, it was the North withstanding the attacks of the South.

One effect of the battle of St. Albans was, that the King again sank into lethargy. Again, for a brief space, was the power of York irresistible; he was appointed by the Lords to his old position of Protector. He was still careful not to speak of his claim to the crown, and accepted the Protectorate only as the gift of both Houses of Parliament. Again, however, the King suddenly recovered. In February, York was removed from his protectorate, and the Queen and Somerset were again ruling. The following year, a great meeting of the Council was held at Coventry, where York and his friends were again compelled to renew their fealty. But the loss of life at St. Albans had rendered the party feud much more violent, and York was induced to believe that the Queen had aims against his life. He and his friends at once separated; York to his western castle of Wigmore, Salisbury to Middleham in Yorkshire, Warwick to Calais, of which town he was the governor. Whatever influence the King had seems to have been directed to produce reconciliation. For this purpose he induced, in January, the rival chiefs to meet in London. The peace of the town was intrusted to the citizens, and a solemn reconciliation brought about, based upon money payments to be made by the Yorkists to the sufferers at St. Albans. Meanwhile, Warwick, a lawless and independent person, was living as a sort of authorized pirate at Calais. He attacked a fleet of ships, as he believed Spanish; they afterwards proved to be Hanseatic vessels. He was consequently summoned to Court to explain his conduct. There a quarrel arose between his servants and those of the King, and at once the ephemeral reconciliation was destroyed.

Both parties prepared again for war. The Court having been told that Salisbury was going to Kenilworth to concert measures with Duke Richard, Lord Audley was sent with an armed force to intercept him. The consequence was the battle of Blore Heath on the confines of Shropshire, in which Salisbury was completely victorious. A general meeting of the three great Yorkist nobles took place at Ludlow, where Warwick brought his veterans from Calais, under Sir Andrew Trollope. Again the old proclamation against evil governors was issued; but for some unexplained reason Trollope suddenly deserted, and, deprived of their most trustworthy troops, the leaders thought it wise to fly. York took refuge in Ireland, with his son Edmund of Rutland, while his eldest son, Edward of March, with Warwick, found security in Calais. Their flight caused something like a revolution, so complete was the triumph of the Lancastrians. The Parliament was assembled at Coventry, probably with much illegal violence, and bills of attainder were passed against the Yorkist leaders. But Warwick was determined upon further action. Having command of the sea, he contrived an interview with Richard in Ireland, and accompanied by his father and the young Earl of March, he landed in Kent, where he was rapidly joined by the people, and appeared at the head of 30,000 men in London. Having captured the capital, with the exception of the Tower, which Lord Scales held, they advanced northwards. The two armies met in the neighbourhood of Northampton. The Lancastrians were strongly intrenched, but the intrenchment once broken through, a terrible slaughter ensued. Buckingham, Shrewsbury, Beaumont, and Egremont were slain. The wretched King was found deserted in his tent. Again the scene after St. Albans was repeated, and York, returning from Ireland, was once more master of affairs.

On the 7th of October a Parliament was held in London. All the acts of the Parliament of Coventry were annulled, on the ground that its members had been illegally elected, and in some instances that they had not been elected at all. And then first did York, who appears to have thought that all less decided measures had been tried in vain, bring forward a distinct claim to the throne. This claim he sent in writing to the House of Lords, with whom alone it was said the decision could lie, pointing out, what was undeniable, that his hereditary claim was better than that of Henry VI. The majority of the Lords were at heart Lancastrian. They had, moreover, again and again sworn fealty to the reigning house; and to their common sense as proprietors it seemed ridiculous that an undisturbed possession of more than fifty years, defended by numerous Acts of Parliament, should be set aside by mere hereditary claim. With the Yorkists triumphant, they were naturally disinclined to give any answer, but it was in vain they applied to the judges or to the crown lawyers. The judges declared the question beyond their cognizance, and the crown lawyers argued that it was therefore much more beyond theirs. Thrown back upon themselves, the Lords devised a compromise by which they could save their consciences with regard to the oath of fealty, and yet give effect to the hereditary claim, which was urged by such awkwardly strong supporters. They agreed that the King should hold the crown for life, that it should then pass to Richard and his heirs, that Richard should meanwhile be created Prince of Wales and heir presumptive, and be the practical ruler of the Kingdom. That in spite of his victorious position he should have been able only to secure this compromise, seems to prove the close equality of the parties, and perhaps, taken in connection with his previous action, the moderation of Richard.

The Queen had no intention of submitting to this verdict. Trusting to the power of the North, which was constantly true to her, and collecting round her all the great chiefs of her party, she moved to York. Richard at once determined to hasten against her. Salisbury accompanied him; Edward, his eldest son, was ordered to collect troops; Warwick was charged with the care of the King. With extreme rashness, York met vastly superior forces in the neighbourhood of Wakefield. Unexpectedly attacked, his little army was completely destroyed. He was himself taken prisoner, dragged with every sign of indignity before the Queen, mockingly crowned with a wreath of grass, and then beheaded. His second son, Rutland, but seventeen years of age, was killed in cold blood as he fled, and Salisbury, who was also captured, was beheaded at the demand of the people. March was collecting troops in the West when he heard of his father’s death, and hastening northwards, he suddenly turned upon a small pursuing force under Pembroke and Wiltshire, and completely defeated them at Mortimer’s Cross. The Queen’s army meanwhile pushed southward. The wild northerners seemed to fancy they were marching through a foreign country. The fiercest destruction and plundering marked the course of their march. To meet them, Norfolk and Warwick had come from London to St. Albans, and there a second battle was fought, this time with the complete defeat of the Yorkists. The King again fell into the hands of the Queen. This battle, as all the others during these wars, was marked by extraordinary destruction among the chiefs, and followed by vindictive executions. Had the Queen pushed direct to London the Yorkist party might have been destroyed. But she could not hold her wild troops in hand. Their devastations excited the anger of the people. All round London the populace rose, determined to avoid the government which promised to be so cruel. The young Earl of March, whom Warwick had joined with the remnant of his troops, took advantage of this feeling, and advanced triumphantly to the capital. At a meeting in Clerkenwell, the Chancellor, the Bishop of Exeter, explained the claims of the House of York. The question “Shall Edward be your King?” was received with general cries of approbation. The news was brought to the young prince in Baynard’s Castle, and the next day he ascended the throne in Westminster Hall, explained with his own lips his hereditary claims, and then proceeded to the Abbey where his coronation was performed.