第88章 ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH(7)

The Duke of York,joined by some other powerful noblemen of the White Rose party,and leading a small army,met the King with another small army at St.Alban's,and demanded that the Duke of Somerset should be given up.The poor King,being made to say in answer that he would sooner die,was instantly attacked.The Duke of Somerset was killed,and the King himself was wounded in the neck,and took refuge in the house of a poor tanner.Whereupon,the Duke of York went to him,led him with great submission to the Abbey,and said he was very sorry for what had happened.Having now the King in his possession,he got a Parliament summoned and himself once more made Protector,but,only for a few months;for,on the King getting a little better again,the Queen and her party got him into their possession,and disgraced the Duke once more.

So,now the Duke of York was down again.

Some of the best men in power,seeing the danger of these constant changes,tried even then to prevent the Red and the White Rose Wars.They brought about a great council in London between the two parties.The White Roses assembled in Blackfriars,the Red Roses in Whitefriars;and some good priests communicated between them,and made the proceedings known at evening to the King and the judges.They ended in a peaceful agreement that there should be no more quarrelling;and there was a great royal procession to St.

Paul's,in which the Queen walked arm-in-arm with her old enemy,the Duke of York,to show the people how comfortable they all were.

This state of peace lasted half a year,when a dispute between the Earl of Warwick (one of the Duke's powerful friends)and some of the King's servants at Court,led to an attack upon that Earl-who was a White Rose-and to a sudden breaking out of all old animosities.So,here were greater ups and downs than ever.

There were even greater ups and downs than these,soon after.

After various battles,the Duke of York fled to Ireland,and his son the Earl of March to Calais,with their friends the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick;and a Parliament was held declaring them all traitors.Little the worse for this,the Earl of Warwick presently came back,landed in Kent,was joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other powerful noblemen and gentlemen,engaged the King's forces at Northampton,signally defeated them,and took the King himself prisoner,who was found in his tent.Warwick would have been glad,I dare say,to have taken the Queen and Prince too,but they escaped into Wales and thence into Scotland.

The King was carried by the victorious force straight to London,and made to call a new Parliament,which immediately declared that the Duke of York and those other noblemen were not traitors,but excellent subjects.Then,back comes the Duke from Ireland at the head of five hundred horsemen,rides from London to Westminster,and enters the House of Lords.There,he laid his hand upon the cloth of gold which covered the empty throne,as if he had half a mind to sit down in it-but he did not.On the Archbishop of Canterbury,asking him if he would visit the King,who was in his palace close by,he replied,'I know no one in this country,my lord,who ought not to visit ME.'None of the lords present spoke a single word;so,the duke went out as he had come in,established himself royally in the King's palace,and,six days afterwards,sent in to the Lords a formal statement of his claim to the throne.

The lords went to the King on this momentous subject,and after a great deal of discussion,in which the judges and the other law officers were afraid to give an opinion on either side,the question was compromised.It was agreed that the present King should retain the crown for his life,and that it should then pass to the Duke of York and his heirs.