1441. Prosecution of Eleanour Cobham. 1445. The king's marriage. 1447. Arrest and death of Gloucester. Beaufort dies. 1450. Fall of Suffolk. Jack Cade. Loss of Normandy. 1452. The duke of York imprisoned. 1453. Talbot slain in Guienne. The king's illness. 1455. Battle of St. Alban's. 1459. Battle of Blore-heath. Flight of the Yorkists. 1461. Battles of St. Alban's and Mortimer's Cross. AS HENRY VI. was but an infant when his father died, his uncle, John duke of Bedford, was made regent of France, and another of his uncles, Humphrey duke of Gloucester, governed England, in Bedford's absence, with the title of protector 1. In France, the English gained several victories over the adherents of Charles VII., the late Dauphin, whose Scotch auxiliaries, together with their leaders Buchan and Douglas, were destroyed at Verneuil, where Bedford defeated the duke of Alençon, and took him prisoner, Aug. 14242. Some years afterwards, Oct. 1428, they crossed the Loire, and laid siege to Orleans 3, the fall of which would have certainly been followed by the subjugation of France. At this crisis, the "maid of Orleans," Joan of Arc, a nobleminded peasant girl of Champagne, believed herself inspired from God to save her country, and to lead her sovereign in triumph to be crowned at Rheims. Mounted on a grey charger, armed as a knight, and with a holy banner 1 The late king had named Gloucester regent; but when parliament met, the house of peers overruled this, and appointed a council with the protector as president. 2 Peace had lately been made with the Scots, whose young king was ransomed, Sept. 1423. 3 Montacute, earl of Salisbury, who was killed by a cannon-shot, and the earl of Suffolk attacked the town, which was defended by Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans. K borne before her, she made her way into Orleans with a reinforcement; and was received by the French as a messenger from heaven, and dreaded by the English soldiers as a sorceress. Such was her bravery, and the enthusiasm which she kindled, that the siege was raised, May, 1429, and the king soon afterwards crowned at Rheims, which was recovered from the Burgundians. The next year, the maiden was taken prisoner by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English; and at last, she was cruelly burnt to death at Rouen as a witch, May, 1431. Though Bedford tried to cause a reaction by crowning young Henry at Paris, the power of England in France daily declined; particularly after his death, and the reconciliation of the duke of Burgundy with Charles VII. at Arras, Sept. 1435. At length, Normandy was lost, and Guienne soon followed; so that in the year 1453*, there remained nothing to Henry VI. but the town of Calais. During the minority of Henry, England had been disturbed by the dissensions of Gloucester and the chancellor, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester and afterwards cardinal, the son of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford. The prelate induced the council to exclude his ambitious nephew from the Tower; the duke in revenge got the citizens of London to shut their gates upon his uncle. To prevent a civil war, Bedford came over and settled the quarrel at the "Parliament of Bats "," at Leicester, March, 1426. Beaufort then resigned the seals, and went abroad for some years; but as the king grew 4 Lord Talbot was then slain in a last effort to recover Guienne, which had soon revolted against its new masters. 5 The duke married this mistress of his, and Richard II. legitimated the Beauforts, her children, excluding them, however, from the succession to the throne. 6 So called, because when swords were forbidden to be worn by the members, they came with clubs or bats. up, his party regained the ascendant. They accused Eleanour Cobham, once the mistress, and now the wife of Gloucester, of having fascinated her husband with the aid of Margery Jourdemain, witch of Eye, and of conspiring with Roger Bolingbroke, his chaplain, to shorten the king's life by means of sorcery; and she was made to do penance, and confined for life, Nov. 1441. It being of consequence to have a queen in their own interest, the king having inherited a tendency to madness from his grandfather Charles VI., they made choice of the strong-minded but unscrupulous Margaret of Anjou, and secured the match by a shameful treaty in which they restored Anjou and Maine to her impoverished father. Two years after this marriage, Gloucester himself was arrested for high treason, and in a few days was found dead in his bed, Feb. 1447. Cardinal Beaufort, however, did not much outlive his rival. The losses sustained in France made the government unpopular, and William de la Pole, the duke of Suffolk, who was the queen's favourite minister, was at length impeached by the commons. To save his life, he threw himself on the king's mercy, who banished him for five years; but while crossing the sea, he was intercepted by his foes, and his head was struck off, May, 1450. Lord Say, the treasurer, was also beheaded two months after 7 Gloucester had first married Jacqueline, the heiress of Hainault and Holland, widow of the dauphin John, when she had eloped to England from her new husband John duke of Brabant, a boy of sixteen. The duke of Burgundy took part with his cousin of Brabant, and after his death forced Jacqueline to declare himself her heir, A. D. 1428. Gloucester then married Eleanour, and Jacqueline one Frank of Bursellen! 8 Henry was to waste away in proportion as a waxen image of him was melted before a slow fire. The witch, of course, was burnt, and Roger hanged. 9 Daughter of Réné, duke of Anjou, and titular king of Jerusalem. wards at Cheapside, when an Irish adventurer named Jack Cade, who pretended to be a Mortimer and had raised an insurrection in Kent, had gotten possession of London. Cade's followers were guilty of some acts of pillage: the citizens rose against them, and the rebellion was suppressed. A more dangerous foe to the crown now appeared in the person of the true representative of the Mortimers, Richard duke of York1; who left his command in Ireland, and took up arms against his rival, Edmund Beaufort duke of Somerset, the successor to Suffolk in power and unpopularity 2. On the sham arrest of Somerset, he disbanded his forces, and found himself a prisoner, March, 1452. He was released, however, after solemnly taking the oaths of fealty at St. Paul's; and when the king fell for a short time into a state of idiotic lethargy, he was called into the council, and at length made protector by the parliament, March, 1454. But though Somerset had been imprisoned in his turn, he was soon restored when the king recovered; which so enraged the duke of York and his friends 3, that they rose in rebellion. After an attack on St. Alban's, in which Somerset was killed and the king himself wounded and taken prisoner, they succeeded in establishing their superiority, May, 1455. 1 Son of the late earl of Cambridge by Anne Mortimer. See P. 191. 2 After having forced the duke of York to give him up the government of Normandy, he had lost it to the French. The loss of France was a relief to the English treasury; but the nobles and their dependents missed the patronage of Normandy and Guienne. men. 3 York had the powerful support of the Nevilles, his wife's kinsThe chief of these was Richard, earl of Salisbury; one of whose sons, named likewise Richard, had married Anne Beauchamp the heiress of the Warwick family, and became the famous earl of Warwick, the "king-maker." The earl of Northumberland, lord Clifford, and the earl of Stafford, were also killed. ap Notwithstanding their success, and another short fit of madness, Henry, whose virtues had endeared him to his subjects, by degrees regained his power, and at length had reconciled all parties. But the queen was not to be trusted, and it was not long before the struggle was renewed. After defeating lord Audley at Blore-heath in Staffordshire, Sept. 1459, the earl of Salisbury formed a junction with the duke of York at Ludlow; where the proach of Henry at the head of 60,000 men, and the desertion of sir Andrew Trollope, filled the confederates with such alarm that they dispersed. York fled to Ireland, and his eldest son Edward earl of March, together with the earl of Warwick, found a refuge in Calais. In the mean time, a parliament was held at Coventry, in which such vindictive acts of attainder were passed, that the whole of the Yorkist party became desperate. But before many months were over, Warwick and young Edward had landed with 1500 men in Kent, and the citizens of London, and thousands of the discontented, had declared in their favour. They advanced against the royalists, who were entrenched at Northampton; and being aided by the treachery of lord Grey of Ruthyn, they forced the position, and took the king prisoner, July, 14605. He was compelled to call another parliament, and Richard of York openly claimed the throne. Even then, the regard which was felt for Henry preserved him the crown for his lifetime; and it was decided that on his death, the house of York should succeed. To this compromise, the queen, who with her son had escaped to Scotland, would not agree. She made her appearance in the north of England, where several of the adherents of the house of Lancaster were in arms; and 5 Humphrey, duke of Buckingham, was among the slain. He had been wounded at St. Alban's, where his son Stafford fell. • Somerset, Northumberland, and Clifford (the murderer of young |