George, born at Dublin in 1449, was created duke of Clarence, and also appointed lieutenant of Ireland (Feb. 28, 1462), soon after his brother's accession. He, however, conceived himself neglected and injured by the aggrandizement of the Woodvilles, and leagued with the earl of Warwick (whose daughter Isabel he married) first against them, and eventually against the king. His fickle temper led him to forsake Warwick shortly after, but his reconciliation with Edward was probably not sincere. A quarrel next arose with Richard, duke of Gloucester, concerning the Warwick estates, which Clarence endeavoured to secure ent rely to himself, and which Gloucester was resolved to share; then fresh dissensions occurred with the Woodvilles, Clarence apparently gave his sanction to an attempt to calculate "the death and final destruction of the king and prince," was thereupon convicted of treason, and was found dead in the Tower shortly after (Feb. 18, 14784). His wife and youngest child had died by poison about a year before, but he left a son and a daughter (Edward, earl of Warwick, and Margaret, countess of Salisbury), who both suffered death in the same prison under the Tudors.

Of the duke of York's daughters, Anne married Henry Holland, duke of Exetere, but obtained a divorce

d His death is commonly ascribed to the machinations of his brother Richard, but is more probably attributable to the Woodvilles; Anthony, Earl Rivers, had the grant of a part of his estates, the pretence being that Clarence had expressed a wish to that effect, in order to make amends for the "great injuries and migh y offences" he had formerly done to the earl and his family.

He was a Lancastrian, lived awhile in exile, in abject poverty, (see p. 79,) and returning in 1470, was wounded and left for dead at Barnet; he was conveyed to sanctuary at Westminster, but being

from him, and then married Sir Thomas St. Leger. She died in 1475, leaving by her second husband a daughter, Anne, who married Sir George Manners, the ancestor of the dukes of Rutland.

Elizabeth married John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and was the mother of John, earl of Lincoln, who was killed in the battle of Stoke; Edmund, earl of Suffolk, beheaded in 1513; Richard, known as the White Rose of England, killed in the battle of Pavia; Humphrey and Edward, who preserved their lives by entering the Church; and two daughters.

Margaret married Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and surviving him near thirty years died at Mechlin, in 1503.

The peculiar seat of the House of York was the castle of Fotheringhay, on the Nen, in Northamptonshire. The manor was granted by Edward III. to his son Edmund of Langley, who rebuilt great part of the castle, and commenced the foundation of a collegiate church, dedicated to the blessed Virgin and All Saints, which was carried on by his son, and completed by his grandson, Richard, whose body was, in 1466, buried there under a handsome shrine on the north side of the high altar. His wife, the duchess Cicely, and their son, the earl of Rutland, were buried beside him; but the college being suppressed under Edward VI., and its site granted to Dudley, duke of Northumberland, the church, as was but too usual, was dismantled, and the royal tombs fell

unable to obtain his pardon, his wife opposing it, he left his asylum, and was soon after found dead on the coast of Kent.

Some of the richly carved stalls have been preserved in the neighbouring churches of Hemington and Tansor; they are decorated with the Yorkist badges and crests.

to decay. At length Queen Elizabeth, visiting the spot, ordered the bodies to be removed to the parish church, where monuments, "by no means worthy," says Camden, "of such princes, sons of kings, and progenitors of kings of England," still exist to their memory.

So troubled a period as the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV. and Richard III., might seem little favourable to peaceful pursuits, yet considerable progress was made both in commerce and in the encouragement of learning. The Statute-book, particularly of the Yorkist princes, shews how carefully what were then conceived the true interests of the nation as to trade were legislated for; and the period which witnessed the foundation of numerous colleges and halls in both Universities, and of the public schools and library at Oxford, cannot justly be reproached as neglectful of the liberal arts. Indeed Edward and Richard were distinguished patrons of learning, although engaged in an almost incessant struggle for their lives. Edward pardoned the Lancastrian chancellor, Wayneflete, and the judge, Sir John Fortescue, though both his active opponents, apparently on account of their literary merits; and among his chief favourites were the accomplished scholar, John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, and Anthony Woodville, earl of Rivers, a gallant cavalier, though a man of doubtful character, but worthy of remembrance as the elegant

Lincoln, All Souls', and Magdalen Colleges, at Oxford; King's and Queens' Colleges and Catherine Hall, at Cambridge; and Eton College, still exist of the foundations of this era.

Caxton laments his death with simple earnestness: "O good blessed Lord God! what great loss was it of that noble, virtuous, and well-disposed lord, the earl of Worcester...... At his death the axe did at one blow cut off more learning than was in the heads of all the surviving nobility."

poet, the translator of moral works, and the generous patron of William Caxton, who introduced the art of printing to England under his auspices.

Nothing can be more unjust than the tone that modern historians in general have adopted towards the House of York, the members and the partisans of which are represented as guilty of innumerable crimes, many of them, in all probability, being mere inventions of writers in the interest of the Tudors, whose object in vilifying their predecessors is sufficiently obvious. Though the fact is indisputable that Richard, duke of York, was the legitimate king, and the Lancastrians mere intruders, he is ordinarily spoken of as a rebel, and thus is laid on him the odium of the murderous conflict, so well known as the War of the Roses, (in which, according to a vague, but probably not exaggerated estimate, 12 princes of the blood, 200 other nobles, and 100,000 of the knights, gentry, and common people perished,) when in reality this awful amount of bloodshed flowed from the treason of Henry of Bolingbroke. The falcon and fetterlock, the sun

in splendour, and the white rose (often with the emblem of the Passion in its centre,) are the peculiar badges of the House of York; many other emblems are found, but they are rather the personal distinctions of each prince, as the lion rampant argent, of the earl of March; the black bull, of Clarence; and the white boar, of Gloucester.

Crest of Mortimer.

EDWARD, the second son of Richard, duke of York, and Cicely, daughter of the earl of Westmoreland, was born at Rouen, April 29, 1441, while his father held the office of regent of France for Henry VI. He was obliged to flee to Calais when the Yorkist forces were dispersed in 1459, but returned in the following summer, when they gained a great victory at Northampton, and soon after the duke of York was recognised by the parliament as heir to the throne. At the end of the year the duke was killed at Wakefield, but Edward shortly after defeated the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross, and boldly advancing on London, in spite of a defeat experienced at St. Alban's by his chief partisan, the earl of Warwick, he entered the city Feb. 28, and was received as king March 4, 1461.

He had, however, to leave London almost immediately to meet the forces of Queen Margaret, and having defeated them at Towton, March 29, thus secured