Page:The child's pictorial history of England; (IA childspictorialh00corn).pdf/128

 how much pleasure we should lose, if there were no books to tell us any thing.

18. There were books, certainly, before that time; but they were all written, and it took so long to copy them, that they were very expensive, so that none but very rich people could have even a few volumes.

19. Printed books were also, for a long time, much too dear to be in general use, but people of rank soon began to be much better educated than in former times, and their habits and manners became much improved in consequence.

20. Then a great many of the old Norman castles had been destroyed in the wars, which put an end, after a time, to the customs of chivalry; and the nobles, instead of sending their sons to be brought up for warlike knights, sent them to Oxford, or Cambridge, to become scholars; or to Eton College, which had been founded by Henry the Sixth.

21. King Edward died in 1483, when his eldest son, who is called Edward the Fifth, although he never was really king, was only thirteen years old; and he, and his younger brother, the Duke of York, were under the guardianship of their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was a very bad man.

22. Instead of protecting the fatherless chil