born to premacy between the rival dukes was at its height Henry became imbecile, and a few months thereafter the hopes of both were clouded by the birth, in October, 1453, of an heir to the An heir demented king. Somerset's unfortunate connection with the Henry VI., disasters in France, which at this juncture resulted in the Oct., 1453final loss of Aquitaine, now turned the tide against him. His arrest in December broke his power with the council, and in March of the next year York, whose influence was supreme, was chosen protector.1 The advantage thus gained York proby York was, however, of but short duration; early in 1455 the king recovered, the protectorate was terminated, and Somerset released from custody. No recourse now being left to York but arms, with Salisbury and Warwick at his back he marched upon the king, and in May the first battle With the of St. Alban's was fought, in which Somerset was slain and of St. AlYork completely victorious. With this fight, which was but ban's, May, little more than a skirmish, the civil war begins. tector. first battle 1455, civil war begins. tectorate. York, timid to the last in putting forward his claim to the York's royal office, demanded no more after his victory at St. Al- second proban's than the first place in the council, and the calling of a parliament to which he could appeal for an approval of his policy. The parliament which met in July 2 was prorogued until November, and in the interval the king again became insane, rendering necessary a second protectorate. At the request of the commons the lords nominated York as protector, and the king confirmed the nomination, with a subsequent proviso that the government should be vested in the council, with the duke as its head. The ascendency thus secured by York, who now held in his grasp the royal authority, the demented king, and the infant heir, forced the leadership of the Lancastrian cause upon its natural defender, the indomitable and despotic Margaret of Anjou. Fortune favored her Margaret at the outset in February, 1456, the king recovered his rea- leadership son, and the duke's second protectorate came suddenly to an of the Lanend. The three years of peace which now ensued, during cause. which a great formal pacification took place in March, 1458,5 4 Rot. Parl., V. pp. 321, 322; Fadera, xi. p. 373. i. 378, as to the towards the duke. their return, see Lingard, vol. iii. p. 209. Rot. Parl., v. p. 242. 2 Lords' Report, iv. p. 936. 8 Rot. Parl., v. 284-290; Fadera, xi. pp. 369, 370. See Paston Letters, queen's disposition 5 Fabyan, p. 464; Hall, p. 172; Paston Letters, i. pp. 424-427. assumes the castrian Battle of Flight of between York and Margaret, at St. Paul's, were simply the prelude during which both factions were marshalling their forces for the final appeal to arms. Despite the victory won by Salisbury over the forces of Lord Audley at Bloreheath, in Sept., 1459 September, 1459, the duke was soon driven through desertions to seek shelter in Ireland, while his great lieutenants, Salisbury and Warwick, took refuge at Calais. From these safe retreats York and Warwick were busy concerting a fresh attack upon the kingdom, while Margaret, in the parliament which met at Coventry in November, was striving to complete the ruin of the Yorkist lords by bills of attainder.1 In June, 1460, Warwick and Salisbury, with York's eldest son, the future Edward IV., landed in Kent, and, after publishing a manifesto 2 severely arraigning the royal advisers, marched with a great popular following at their backs upon London, where they were joyfully received early in July. On the 10th of that month a decisive battle was fought at NorthNorthamp ampton which resulted in a great slaughter of the Lancaston, July, trian lords, the capture of the king, and the flight of Margaret to Scotland. Richard's hour of triumph had now come, and with it came the necessity of propounding to the nation the definitive claim of his house to the royal office. In an assembly of estates which met on the 7th of October, after the repeal of the acts of the Coventry parliament, Richard, whose right as heir-presumptive to the crown by virtue of his descent from Edmund of Langley had been cut off by the birth of a son to Henry and Margaret, finally rested his claim to the crown solely upon his descent from Edward III. through the house of Mortimer.5 To Richard's claim as thus propounded the lords, who were consulted as to its sufficiency, stated five objections, which were scarcely so convincing as that of the king himself, who when questioned upon the subject thus replied: "My father was king; his father was also king; I myself have worn the crown forty York triumphs at 1460, and states his claim to the crown. 1 Rot. Parl., v. pp. 346–350. 2 Stow, pp. 407, 408; Eng. Chr., pp. 86, 87. 3 Eng. Chr., pp. 95-97; Worc., p. 773; Gregory, p. 207. Rot. Parl., v. p. 374. 5 Ibid., v. p. 375; Ibid., v. p. 376. The judges were consulted, but they replied that it was not a question for them to decide. On this subject it was that Sir John Fortescue afterwards wrote his Defensio Juris Domus Lancastria, which may be found in the first volume of the Clermont ed., 1869, pp. 505–516. secures the to the York after death. at Wakefield in years from my cradle: you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers have done the like to mine. How, then, can my right be disputed?" The answer to A comprothis cogent question was found in a compromise wherein mise which it was agreed that Henry should "keep the crown and his succession estate and dignity royal during his life, and the said duke house of and his heirs to succeed him in the same" at his death.2 Henry's This settlement, which forever cut off the rights of her son, was accepted by Margaret as a fresh challenge to arms. Rapidly gathering forces in the north in the king's name,3 in December she met York and Salisbury at Wakefield, and after a bloody fight York was slain and Salisbury captured York slain and beheaded at Pomfret. But the fall of the duke was no overthrow of the cause of York, it was simply an incident Dec., 1460. through which the leadership of that cause was transmitted to a more crafty, a more merciless, a more brilliant defender. The young Edward, who at the time of his father's fall was gathering forces on the Welsh marches, now took the lead, and in February, 1461, won a battle at Mortimer's Cross,5 just two weeks prior to Warwick's defeat in the second battle at St. Alban's. After that event Edward and Warwick joined forces and entered London, where on the 1st of March Chancellor Neville explained to an assembly of citizens the nature of Edward's title. On the 4th, after seizing the crown Edward IV. and sceptre of Edward the Confessor, he was proclaimed seizes the king at Westminster under the title of Edward IV. Thus, sceptre at not only without the authority of parliament, but in open de- ster, March fiance of the acts through which it had settled and confirmed virtue of the succession in the house of Lancaster, the heir of York his heredseized the crown and entered into possession of the royal office as an estate which he claimed belonged to him by the unaided force of his hereditary title. Although parliamentary sanction followed, Edward's reign, in contemplation of law, dates from the day upon which he asserted his hereditary 1 Blackm., 305; Lingard, vol. iii. p. Gregory, Chr., p. 215. Cf. Stubbs, Const. 223. Rot. Parl., v. 375-383. 8 Whethamstede, i. p. 381. Eng. Chr., p. 107. 5 W. Worc., pp. 775, 776; Eng. Chr., p. 110. 6 Hardyng, p. 406; Eng. Chr., p. 110; Whethamstede, i. pp. 405-407; Hist., vol. iii. p. 189. Although there crown and Westmin 4, 1461, by itary title. Decisive battle of Towton Field, March 29, 1461. Outline of tution by Sir John Fortescue. ster. claim by the seizure of the crown and sceptre at WestminBut although Edward was now king at London and in the south of England, the decisive struggle of the civil war was yet to come. Robbed of the capital, Margaret had withdrawn with her army to Yorkshire, the Lancastrian stronghold in the north, and there on the 29th of March, 1461, was fought the bloody battle of Towton Field, in which the two armies numbered together nearly one hundred and twenty thousand men.1 After a desperate conflict Edward was completely victorious: the Earl of Northumberland and the lords Wells and Neville were among the slain; the earls of Devonshire and Wiltshire were taken and executed; Margaret, with the king and heir, was forced to seek refuge in Scotland; the war of the succession was practically at an end,2 — the cause of Lancaster was lost. 7. No attempt to outline the form which the English conthe consti- stitutional system assumed during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries should fail to embrace some allusion to the accounts given of that system by Sir John Fortescue, the great Lancastrian lawyer, who attended Queen Margaret in her exile on the Continent, where he seems to have undertaken, for a time at least, the political education of the heir-apparent. From the De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, which was designed to instruct the prince how he should rule over the English; from the De Dominio Regali et Politico, a Treatise on Absolute and Limited Monarchy, and in particular on the Monarchy of England; and from the De Natura Legis Naturæ,3 — it is possible to draw something like a definite idea of the extent to which the English kingship had become limited towards the end of the fifteenth century by the growth of the parliament on the one hand, and by the growth of the system of legal administration on the other. Under the influence of mediæval political ideas, the writer divides all governments into three classes; the first of which he describes as regal government (dominium regale), the second as political government (domin1 See Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. P. 575. All govern ments di vided into three classes. By the surrender of Berwick to the Scots, in April, the fall of the house of Lancaster was recognized as final." Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 190, citing Hall, p. 256. 3 These three treatises are contained in the first volume of the sumptuous edition of the works of Sir John Fortescue, printed for private distribution by Lord Clermont in 1869 in two volumes quarto. The first volume of this, the only com plete edition of the works of Sir John, ium politicum), and the third as government of a mixed nature, regal and political (dominium regale et politicum).1 To the third class England belongs. The contrast is then sharply drawn between the absolute regal government of France, where the civil law prevails, and the limited regal and political monarchy of England, where the common law prevails.2 The maxim of the civilians, that "what has pleased the prince has the force of law,"3 has no place in the English system. The king of England is a rex politicus: he cannot, King of "at his pleasure, make any alterations in the laws of the England a rex politland, for the nature of his government is not only regal, but icus. political. Had it been merely regal, he would have a power to make what innovations and alterations he pleased in the laws of the kingdom, impose talliage and other hardships upon the people, whether they would or no, without their consent, which sort of government the civil laws point out when they declare Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem: Quod but it is much otherwise with a king whose government is principi placuit political, because he can neither make any alteration or legis habet change in the laws of the realm without the consent of the not an Eng subject, nor burden them, against their wills, with strange impositions; so that a people governed by such laws as are made by their own consent and approbation enjoy their properties securely, and without the hazard of being deprived of them, either by the king or any other." 5 In England the Limitations imposed king "cannot by himself or his ministers lay taxes, subsidies, upon the or any imposition of what kind soever, upon the subject; he crown by the parlia cannot alter the laws, or make new ones, without the express mentary consent of the whole kingdom in parliament assembled."6 Sir John, who had been chief justice of the king's bench, while explaining how the liberties of the nation as a whole were protected by the parliamentary system, did not forget to point out how the life, liberty, and property of the individual subject were guarded by the system of legal administration. bears the title, "The Works of Sir John Fortescue, Knight, Chief Justice of England and Lord Chancellor to King Henry the Sixth, now first collected and arranged by Thomas (Fortescue) Lord Clermont." 1 De Natura Legis Naturæ, i. 16; De Dominio Regali et Politico, c. I. 2 De Laudibus, cc. 35, 36. 8 Ibid., cc. 9, 35; De Nat. Leg. Nat., i. 28. 4 De Nat. Leg. Nat., i. 16. 5 De Laudibus, c. 9. • Ibid., c. 36. vigorem, lish maxim. |