XIV

THE WAR OF THE ROSES

1440-1471

A STATUTE restricting the franchise in the shires to those who owned landed property of an annual value of not less than twenty shillings was passed in 1430 while the King was a child. Thus when Henry VI. became old enough to govern he was surrounded by barons who kept small armies of retainers and who could fill Parliament with their partisans. Had the magnates abstained from quarrelling with each other, and had they allied themselves with the merchants, the English monarchy and English freedom would probably have been destroyed. The magnates appear to have sought to conciliate the wealthy citizens when the free sale of foreign fish was allowed in 1435, and when in 1439 a statute was passed re-enacting the restrictions on foreign merchants. In 1440 an AngloFlemish commercial treaty was signed. This truce lasted nine years. In 1449 the weavers of the Netherlands again insisted upon a prohibition of the importation of cheap English cloth, and the English retaliated by forbidding all intercourse with the Low Countries. The Hanse merchants played an important part in the commercial struggle between England and Flanders.

As middlemen they insisted on being allowed to carry either wool or cloth. When the Flemish declined to accept English cloth, the Hanseats refused to supply Flanders with wool, and the Flemish were obliged to yield. Although the League aided England in their commercial war with Flanders, the North Germans, in spite of their treaties, refused to allow English Merchant Adventurers entrance into the Baltic. From 1438 to 1441 the Dutch fought their former comrades of the League to gain admittance into the Baltic; but, in spite of the treaty of 1441, the North Germans insisted on their claim to exclude foreigners. The Scandinavian kingdoms also tried to throw off the yoke of the League. They were, however, so inferior to the North Germans in sea power that they could only secretly encourage the Victual Brothers, independent sea rovers who were treated as pirates by the League.

De Witt has left a picture of England as foreigners saw her in the fifteenth century. As for England, we are to know that heretofore it wholly subsisted by Husbandry, and was wont to be so naked of any Naval Power that the Hans-Towns being at War with England, they compelled King Edward in the Year 1470 to make peace upon Terms of Advantage to them. And so long as the English used to transport nothing but a few Minerals, and much Wool, which they carried to Calais by a small number of their own Ships, and sold only to Netherlandish Clothiers, it would have been so prejudicial for the King to forbear his Customs of Wool (which at Calais alone amounted to 50,000 Crowns per annum, and likewise to the Sub

ject, in case he had made War upon the Netherlands) that we read not that these trading Provinces ever broke out into a perfect open War against England. For the sometimes War hapned between the Princes of the respective Countrys, nevertheless most of the Citys concerned in Traffick and Drapery continued in Amity."

In 1447 the naval weakness of England tempted the League to enact that no English goods should be carried except on Hanseatic ships. The French had been steadily driving the English from the lands they had conquered. In 1440 the captive Duke of Orleans was released owing to the influence of the peace party. It was intended that Orleans should act as peacemaker between France and England, but the war continued. In 1442 the idea of peace was revived; and it was suggested that Henry should marry a daughter of the powerful Count of Armagnac. At this time the French magnates, led by Armagnac, were uniting against Charles VII., so that the proposed marriage might have led to peace on favourable terms for the English. In 1443, when Charles and his magnates were reconciled, Suffolk crossed the Channel and negotiated a truce for two years by surrendering English claims. At the same time he arranged that Henry should marry Margaret of Anjou, the daughter of a landless French noble. It was becoming abundantly clear that the English, with a weakened navy, would have to face the hostility of the Germans in the North Sea and of the French in the Channel when France regained possession of the coast.

To keep power over Parliament the Government

accused the sheriffs of having tampered with the returns to Parliament, ignoring men duly elected, and substituting nominees of their own." In 1445 legislation was passed to secure that "Knyghtes of the Shire... hereafter to be chosen be . gentilmen of birth"; not yeomen, nor "bynethe." Having thus silenced the democracy, the peace party determined to attack Gloucester and York. In 1447 Parliament met at Bury St. Edmunds, where the influence of the London mob would not be felt. Gloucester was arrested and died before trial. His death was followed by the appointment of York to the Lieutenancy of Ireland for ten years, an honourable form of banishment. Repeated surrenders to the French prolonged the truce until 1449. Then Parliament met in Westminster, and before it was dissolved the Anglo-French war was resumed. It was soon manifest that England's possessions in France were doomed, and there was grave danger that England would be invaded. Above all things it was important that Calais should not be lost. As long as Dover and Calais were in English hands, the armed merchantmen of England could interpose between the French and North German fleets. If France had had an adequate navy or the North Germans an adequate army nothing could have saved England, since her coasts were so defenceless that in 1450 it was an everyday occurrence for a walk along the coast to end on board an enemy's ship.

Though there was great distress in England and the King was penniless, the peace party had been prospering. Cardinal Beaufort died in 1447, leaving great wealth behind him. His nephew and Suffolk

were rewarded for their mismanagement by being created Dukes of Somerset and of Suffolk. In addition to England's other troubles, in 1449 the importation of English cloth into Brabant, Holland, and Zeeland was prohibited. A new Parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster in November 1449. In spite of the efforts of the peace party, this Parliament was hostile to Suffolk. In order to protect his minister from the anger of the people, Henry banished him for five years; but, on his way to the Continent, Suffolk was intercepted and beheaded by English sailors who were lying in wait for him. Parliament insisted that all royal grants made during the King's reign should be revoked. This order was, however, imperfectly obeyed. Normandy was lost to the English in 1450. The men of Kent rose under Jack Cade. The insurgents demanded a change of government and the recall of the Duke of York from Ireland. Though the rebellion was suppressed, York resigned the Lieutenancy of Ireland and became the leader of the opposition to the Government. In 1451 the South of France was lost to the English. York was apparently about to succeed, when he listened to an invitation to make peace with Somerset. York's demands were nominally conceded; he disbanded his forces and met the King, only to find that he was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. Somerset, however, feared to take extreme measures against a popular leader, and York acquiesced in Somerset's rule.

In 1452 the English were cheered by some successes. At a diet held at Utrecht a majority of the Hanse cities made favourable terms with the English