remarkable enthusiasm, originating in noble motives, has made her memory immortal.*

It may be observed of the French war, that prior to the death of Henry V. it had become extremely unpopular; in the last year of his reign a petition was presented to parliament, showing that the people were impoverished by the taxes raised to defray the military expenditure. In 1422 parliament, thinking that the war ought to support itself out of the conquered province, would only grant a fifteenth and the clergy a tenth, and passed an Act to check the export of money from the kingdom.

Burdensome and exhausting as the war was, it in some respect exerted a beneficial influence. It cannot be denied that the progress of order and the security of European states have been intimately connected with the development of military discipline and organisation. At an early period there was no standing military force or body of men exclusively trained to the use of arms apart from the general population; and in consequence of this defenceless condition, every community was at the mercy of any band of marauders who might confederate for its ravage and plunder. Such unpreparedness accounts for the inroads to which the western states of Europe were for a long period subjected by the Scandinavian nations, whose devastating armaments were often extremely insignificant in numerical force. An instance of this occurs in the history of France, which in the ninth century opposed a feeble resistance to the piratical incursions of the Normans. Upon one occasion, A. D. 865, a body of 200 Normans effected a landing to carry off some wine

*The relative force of states about this period (1454) has been estimated as under by Mr. Hallam :- "France, 30,000; England, 30,000; Scotland, 10,000; Portugal, 6,000. In 1414 the king of France had 2,000,000 ducats of revenue; England, 700,000; Spain, 3,000,000."- Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 493.

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from the vicinity of Paris, penetrated to the capital, and retired unmolested through the country with their booty." It was doubtless a similar absence of military and naval defences that for centuries disquieted England and rendered her a prey to the plundering descents of the Danes and Saxons.

In England, the conclusive settlement of the feudal system after the Conquest effectually protected the kingdom against its former irregular hordes of desolators. The great baronial domains and more numerous knightfees into which the country had been divided and subdivided, on tenure of military services, originated an organised and disciplined army, ready at the call of the sovereign to repel any danger. But this feudal militia did not long preserve its entirety of character, but speedily underwent a change, by the substitution of a pecuniary payment to the crown for military duties. From the time of Henry II. the escuage or commutation for personal services had become universal; consequently the royal army became a mercenary force composed of hired troops, the great portion of whom were knights and gentlemen serving for pay, and not by tenure or right of birth, preserving nothing of the feudal character.†

"It was not," as Mr. Hallam observes, "the nobility of England; not the feudal tenants, who won the battles of Crecy and Poictiers, for these were fully matched in the ranks of France; but the yeomen who drew the bow with strong and steady arms, accustomed to use it in their native fields, and rendered fearless by personal competence and civil freedom." At the subsequent battle of Agincourt the bold yeomen signalised their prowess.

Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 43.

† Ibid. vol. ii. p. 345.

F

"The English bowmen, as usual," says Lingard, " by the strength of their arms and stoutness of their hearts, did much to ensure the victory. As soon as they were within bowshot, they discharged such showers of their strong arrows of three feet long, that the French knights bent down their heads to avoid them. The cavalry tried to break the English line by a charge. They were repulsed with an array of pikes." The feudal militia continued in France long after it had been superseded in England by hired troops, composing a smaller but better disciplined army of freemen. This may partly account for the results of the famous battles referred to. The French gentlemen were not less courageous than those of England, but their followers, being mostly serfs, were no match for their emancipated opponents. Of the valiant knights of the middle ages, so renowned in the songs of which they were the theme and remunerators, it may not be improper to remark that they wore armour, while the common soldiers had no such protection.

The fierce spirit of the age, and its semi-barbarous character, unrelieved and unoccupied by the more refined and diversified pursuits which a superior civilisation affords, rendered war almost an indispensable excitement. The nation had complained of the ruinous tendency of the French war; but it was no sooner relieved from transmarine entanglements than it became embroiled in a far more destructive internal feud. This was the long and bloody struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, known as the war between the red and the white roses, from the devices which distinguished the conflicting combatants. This furious struggle lasted thirty years, was signalised by twelve pitched battles, cost the lives of eighty royal princes, and almost annihilated the ancient nobility. It was a question of right,

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originating in the rival claims to the throne of two noble families. Henry VI. descended from a fourth son of Edward III., but the Duke of York descended from a third son of that monarch. The Lancaster settlement was sanctioned by parliament, but the superior hereditary right of York was indisputable. His pretensions were supported by many of the principal nobility, among them the renowned Earl of Warwick, himself a host from his noble daring and captivating munificence. Thirty thousand persons are said to have daily fed at his tables in the different manors and castles he possessed in various parts of England. His profuse hospitality corrupted the people, since his numerous retainers were more devoted to his will than the prince or the law. He was, as Hume observes, "the greatest as well as the last of those mighty barons who formerly overawed the crown and rendered the people incapable of any settled system of civil government." The great national feud in which Warwick was so conspicuous, was finally terminated by a nuptial union, Henry VII. of Richmond marrying, in 1486, the princess Elizabeth; thus the heiress of the house of York became queen of England, and the long-desired blending of the roses accomplished.

In the preceding year the Earl of Richmond had won the decisive victory of Bosworth, which closed the dark career of the usurper, Richard III., whose history is more interesting as a dramatic performance than historical narrative. Richard III. formed the last link of the line of Plantagenet; a family that had inherited the throne. upwards of 300 years, commencing with the accession of Henry II Before leaving this long period and inaugurating the more pacific era of the Tudor dynasty, it will be useful to advert to some distinguishing features

perhaps not sufficiently set forth, pending this protracted term of public annals.

The first reflection that offers pertains to its diversified and animated character, comprehending not only great national wars but important episodical events, that in different degrees gave form and substance to the community. The heroic Crusades and not less generous aspirations of Chivalry, the rise and fall of the order of Knights Templars, and the first opening by Wickliff of the great volume of the Protestant Reformation, all tended to awaken and strengthen the public mind and prepare it for more signal manifestations. In the political constitution of the country had appeared important organic developments. For two centuries after the Conquest the government consisted of two estates only, the king and the assembly of barons and prelates. But in the third century a third estate had emerged and become a distinctive integer of the constitution. In addition to the judicial advances mentioned in the preceding chapter, may be added the 25 Edw. III., which defines treasonable offences by limiting them to three, namely, conspiring the death of the king, levying war against him, or adhering to his enemies. Another Act, the 28 Edw. III, affords increased personal and proprietary security, by enacting that no man shall be dispossessed of his land or tenement, nor arrested, imprisoned, or put to death, without first being subjected to legal procedure. The necessity of such safeguards sufficiently attests the irregular violence that had previously existed.

By slow degrees the judicial combat was superseded by the more rational mode of trial by jury, and lawyers took the place of champions. Henry II. contributed to this improvement, especially in civil causes. He allowed the defendant in a plea of right to support his title either by