Part 46 (1/2)
_The Wars of the Roses_ (1455-1485).
GENERAL STATEMENT.--The Wars of the Roses is the name given to a long, shameful, and selfish contest between the adherents of the Houses of York and Lancaster, rival branches of the royal family of England. The strife, which was for place and power, was so named because the Yorkists adopted as their badge a white rose and the Lancastrians a red one.
The battle of Bosworth Field (1485) marks the close of the war. In this fight King Richard III., the last of the House of York, was overthrown and slain by Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, who was crowned on the field with the diadem which had fallen from the head of Richard, and saluted as King Henry VII., the first of the Tudors.
THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR.--The most important result of the Wars of the Roses was the ruin of the baronage of England. One-half of the n.o.bility was slain. Those that survived were ruined, their estates having been wasted or confiscated during the progress of the struggle. Not a single great house retained its old-time wealth and influence.
The second result of the struggle sprung from the first. This was the great peril into which English liberty was cast by the ruin of the n.o.bility. It will be recalled that it was the barons who forced the Great Charter from King John (see p. 479), and who kept him and his successors from reigning like absolute monarchs. Now that once proud and powerful baronage were ruined, and their confiscated estates had gone to increase the influence and patronage of the king. He being no longer in wholesome fear of Parliament, for the Commons were as yet weak and timid, did pretty much as he pleased, and became insufferably oppressive and tyrannical; raising taxes, for instance, without the consent of Parliament, and imprisoning and executing persons without due process of law. For the hundred years following the Wars of the Roses the government of England was rather an absolute than a limited monarchy. Not until the final Revolution of the seventeenth century (see Chap. LV.) did the people, by overturning the throne of the Stuarts, fully recover their lost liberties.
_Growth of the English Language and Literature._
THE LANGUAGE.--From the Norman Conquest to the middle of the fourteenth century there were in use in England three languages: Norman French was the speech of the conquerors and the medium of polite literature; Old English was the tongue of the common people; while Latin was the language of the laws and records, of the church services, and of the works of the learned.
Modern English is the Old English worn and improved by use, and enriched by a large infusion of Norman-French words, with less important additions from the Latin and other languages. It took the place of the Norman-French in the courts of law about the middle of the fourteenth century. At this time the language was broken up into many dialects, and the expression ”King's English” is supposed to have referred to the standard form employed in state doc.u.ments and in use at court.
EFFECT OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST ON ENGLISH LITERATURE.--The blow that struck down King Harold and his brave thanes on the field of Hastings silenced for the s.p.a.ce of about a century the voice of English literature. The tongue of the conquerors became the speech of the court, the n.o.bility, and the clergy; while the language of the despised English was, like themselves, crowded out of every place of honor. But when, after a few generations, the down-trodden race began to re-a.s.sert itself, English literature emerged from its obscurity, and with an utterance somewhat changed--yet it is unmistakably the same voice--resumes its interrupted lesson and its broken song.
CHAUCER (1328?-1400).--Holding a position high above all other writers of early English is Geoffrey Chaucer. He is the first in time, and, after Shakespeare, perhaps the first in genius, among the great poets of the English-speaking race. He is reverently called the ”Father of English Poetry.”
Chaucer stands between two ages, the mediaeval and the modern. He felt not only the influences of the age of Feudalism which was pa.s.sing away, but also those of the new age of learning and freedom which was dawning. It is because he reflects his surroundings so faithfully in his writings, that these are so valuable as interpreters of the period in which he lived.
Chaucer's greatest work is his _Canterbury Tales_, wherein the poet represents himself as one of a company of story-telling pilgrims who have set out from London on a journey to the tomb of Thomas Becket, at Canterbury.
[Ill.u.s.tration: STATUE OF WYCLIFFE. (From the Luther Monument at Worms.)]
WYCLIFFE AND THE REFORMATION (1324-1384).--Foremost among the reformers and religious writers of the period under review was Wycliffe, ”The Morning Star of the Reformation.” He gave the English people the first translation of the entire Bible in their native tongue. There was no press at that time to multiply editions of the book, but by means of ma.n.u.script copies it was widely circulated and read. Its influence was very great, and from its appearance may be dated the beginning of the Reformation in England.
The followers of Wycliffe became known as ”Lollards” (babblers), a term applied to them in derision. They grew to be very numerous, and threatened by their excesses and imprudent zeal the peace of the state. They were finally suppressed by force.
2. FRANCE.
BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH KINGDOM.--The kingdom of France begins properly with the accession of the first of the Capetian rulers, late in the tenth century. The Merovingian and Carolingian kings were simply German princes reigning in Gaul. The Capetians held the throne for more than three centuries, when they were followed by the Valois kings. The last of the main line of the Valois family gave way to the first of the Valois-Orleans sovereigns in 1498, which date may be allowed to mark the beginning of modern French history.
We shall now direct attention to the most important transactions of the period covered by the Capetian and Valois dynasties. Our aim will be to give prominence to those matters which concern the gradual consolidation of the French monarchy.
_France under the Capetians_ (987-1328).
[Footnote: Table of the Capetian Kings:-- Hugh Capet (the Great)... 987--996 Robert II. (the Sage) ... 996-1031 Henry I.... ... ... . 1031-1060 Philip I... ... ... . 1060-1108 Louis VI. (the Fat) ... . 1108-1137 Louis VII. (the Young)... 1137-1180 Philip II. (Augustus) ... 1180-1223 Louis VIII. (Lion-hearted). 1223-1226 Louis IX. (the Saint) ... 1226-1270 Philip III. (the Hardy) . . 1270-1285 Philip IV. (the Fair) ... 1285-1314 Louis X. (the Stubborn) . . 1314-1316 Philip V. (the Tall)... . 1316-1322 Charles IV.(the Handsome) . 1322-1328]
The first Capetian king differed from his va.s.sal counts and dukes simply in having a more dignified t.i.tle; his power was scarcely greater than that of many of the lords who paid him homage as their suzerain. The fourth king of the line (Philip I.) confessed that he had grown gray while trying to capture a castle which stood within sight of Paris; and evidently he had abandoned all hope of getting possession of it, for he charged his son, to whom he one day pointed it out, to watch it well. How various events and circ.u.mstances--conquests, treaties, politic marriage alliances, and unjust encroachments--conspired to build up the power of the kings will appear as we go on.
The most noteworthy events of the Capetian period were the acquisition by the French crown of the English possessions in France, the Holy Wars for the recovery of Jerusalem, the crusade against the Albigenses, and the creation of the States-General. Of these several matters we will now speak in order.
THE ENGLISH POSSESSIONS IN FRANCE.--The issue of the battle of Hastings, in 1066, made William of Normandy king of England. He ruled that country by right of conquest. But we must bear in mind that he still held his possessions in France as a fief from the French king, whose va.s.sal he was.
This was the beginning of the possessions on the continent of the English kings. Then, when Henry, Count of Anjou, came to the English throne as the first of the Plantagenets, these territories were greatly increased by the French possessions of that prince. The larger part of Henry's dominions, indeed, was in France, almost the whole of the western coast of the country being in his hands; but for all of this he, of course, paid homage to the French king.
As was inevitable, a feeling of intense jealousy sprang up between the two sovereigns. The French king was ever watching for some pretext upon which he might deprive his rival of his possessions in France. The opportunity came when King John, in 1199, succeeded Richard the Lion-hearted upon the English throne. That odious tyrant was accused, and doubtless justly, of having murdered his nephew Arthur. Philip Augustus, who then held the French throne, as John's feudal superior, ordered him to clear himself of the charge before his French peers. John refusing to do so, Philip declared forfeited all the lands he held as fiefs of the French Crown [Footnote: This was the second condemnation of John. A year before this time (in 1202), John having refused to answer a charge of tyranny preferred by the n.o.bles of Poitou, Philip had declared his fief to be forfeited. It was in the turmoil which followed this sentence, that Arthur was taken prisoner by John and afterwards murdered.], and thereupon proceeded to seize Normandy and other possessions of John in the North of France, leaving him scarcely anything save the Duchy of Aquitaine in the South. The annexation of these large possessions to the crown of France brought a vast accession of power and patronage to the king, who was now easily the superior of any of his great va.s.sals.
THE FRENCH AND THE CRUSADES.--The age of the Capetians was the age of the Crusades. These romantic expeditions, while stirring all Christendom, appealed especially to the ardent, imaginative genius of the Gallic race.