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598, are said to have confessed. But much stronger evidence of the fact is, that there was an immediate rumour that the duke himself was preparing to pass over to England. The court immediately issued orders, in the king's name, to forbid his coming, and to oppose any armed attempt on his part. The duke defeated this scheme by coming without any retinue whatever, trusting to the good-will of the people. His confidence in thus coming at once to the very court, put the Government, which had shown such suspicion of him, completely in the wrong in the eye of the public; and advantage was taken of this by his partisans in all quarters to extol his open, honourable conduct, and to represent not only his superior right, but the benefit to the nation of removing an imbecile usurper, and a false, French-hearted queen who had brought such disgrace and trouble on the country, and placing on the throne an able and popular prince.

We are now on the eve of that great contest for the possession of the crown, which figures so eminently in our history as the Wars of the Roses; and it is important at the outset to make clear to ourselves what are the real grounds of the quarrel, and where lies the justice of the case. The usurpation of Henry IV., productive of very bloody consequences at the time, had nearly been forgotten through the brilliant successes of his son, Henry V.; but still the heirs of the true line, according to the doctrine of lineal descent, were in existence. The Mortimers, Earls of Marche, had been spared by the usurping family; and Richard, Duke of York, was now the representative of that line. To understand clearly how the Mortimers, and from them Richard, Duke of York, took precedence of Henry VI., according to lineal descent, we must recollect that Henry IV. was the son of John of Gaunt, who was the fourth son of Edward III. On the deposition of Richard II., who was the son of the Black Prince, the eldest son of Edward III., there was living the Earl of Marche, the grandson of Lionel, the third son of Edward III., who had clearly the right to precede Henry. This right had been, moreover, recognised by Parliament. But Henry of Lancaster, disregarding this claim, seized on the crown by force, yet took no care to destroy the true claimant. In course of time, the Duke of York, who was paternally descended from Edward Langley, the youngest son of Edward III., was also maternally the lineal descendant of Lionel, the third son through the daughter and heiress of Mortimer, the Earl of Marche. By this descent he preceded the descendants of Henry IV., and was by right of heirship the undoubted claimant of the crown.

The Marches had shown no disposition whatever to exert that right, and that had proved their safety. They had been for several centuries a particularly modest and unambitious race; and so long as the descendants of Henry IV. had proved able or popular monarchs, their claims would have lain in abeyance. But they were never forgotten; and now that the imbecility and long minority of Henry VI. had created strong factions, and disgusted the people, this claim was zealously revived. Henry IV. had, as we showed under his reign, one real and indefeasible claim to the throne, that of the election of the people, had he chosen to accept it; but this he proudly rejected, and took his stand on his lineal descent from Edward III., where the heirs of his uncle Lionel had entirely the advantage of him.

The people who had favoured, and would have adopted Henry IV., had now become alienated from the house of Lancaster, through the incapacity of the present king. Through that they had lost the whole of their ancient possessions, as well as their conquests in France. Nothing remained but heavy taxation and national exhaustion, as the consequence of all the wars in that kingdom. In this respect the very glory of Henry V. became the ruin of his son. While the people complained of their poverty and oppression in consequence of those wars, they were doubly harassed by the factious quarrels of the king's relatives. They had attached themselves to the Duke of Gloucester, and he had been murdered in consequence of these factions, and, as was generally believed, at the instigation of the queen. Queen Margaret, indeed, completed the alienation of the people from the House of Lancaster. She was not only French, a nation now in the worst odour with the people of England, but through her they had lost Maine and Anjou, the beginning of all their losses. Coming into the kingdom, not only without any fortune, but under these unlucky circumstances, she took no pains to conciliate the popular good-will. She was haughty, ambitious, and extremely vindictive. She made herself the mortal enemy of the "good Duke of Gloucester," and had the credit of compassing his death. She allied herself successively with the Dukes of Suffolk and of Somerset, noblemen not only of the most determined hostility to Gloucester, but especially connected with the loss of France. She had vowed vengeance against the Londoners and the men of Kent for their share in the unpopularity of her favourites, and the death of Suffolk; and was reported to be at once unfaithful to the king, and bent on ruling, through him, on principles of despotism which were foreign to all English ideas.

These circumstances now drew the hearts of the people as strongly towards the Duke of York as they had formerly been attracted to the house of Lancaster. They began to regard him with interest as a person whose rights to the throne had been unjustly overlooked. He was a man who seemed to possess much of the modest and amiable character of the Marches. He had been recalled from France, where he was ably conducting himself, as was believed, by the influence of the queen, and sent as governor into Ireland, as a sort of honourable banishment. But, though treated in a manner calculated to provoke him, he had retained the unassuming moderation of his demeanour. He had yet made no public pretensions to the crown, and, though circumstances seemed to invite him, showed no haste to seize it. There were many circumstances, indeed, which tended to make all parties hesitate to proceed to extremities. Though the queen was highly unpopular, Henry himself, though weak, was so amiable, pious and just, that the public, though groaning under the consequences of his weakness, yet retained much affection for him. There were also numbers of nobles of great influence who had benefited by the long minority of the king, and who, though they disliked the queen's party, were afraid of being called on, in case another dynasty was established, to yield up the valuable grants they had obtained.

Thus the kingdom was divided into three parties: those who took part with Somerset and the queen, those who inclined to the Duke of York, and those who, having