a considerable number of facts distinctly ascertained, but often utterly inexplicable; we know their dates, too, so that we can follow them in order of time; but, as to the sequence, the connection of one with the other, it is utter darkness. One can make his way through this region of history only as a man travels along in an unknown road in a dark and stormy night. There comes a flash of light, giving a lurid and momentary conception of what is near; and, confiding to the knowledge thus gained, you venture onward in the dark, till you are startled by another flash that shows how, in a little distance, all your expectations of what lay before you are illusive, and that everything around you is totally different from what it was just before. Reed.

VIEW OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES.

In the reign of Henry the Fifth that sovereign enjoyed in a high degree the unanimous and affectionate allegiance of his people; and let us, in the first place, consider whether there was anything in the character of his son, Henry the Sixth, that was calculated to alienate from him the duty and the love of his subjects. It may be truly said of this king that, having begun his reign in the months of infancy, he carried forward into the years of manhood a most childlike spirit; the very innocence and simplicity of childhood seem never to have deserted him.

While the character of the king was negative upon the nation, there were several causes which, in the course of events, proved positive agencies of disaffection to the Lancastrian dynasty. During the minority, while Bedford was regent in France, the administration at home was perplexed and discordant, and the protector, Gloucester, had to struggle against the factious ambition of his rival, Cardinal Beaufort.

The mysterious iniquity of the times begins to show itself, when the Duke of Gloucester is found dead in his bed, murdered, it was believed, but how, why, or by whom, no one to this day has discovered; so that the fact of murder has become a question. In a short space of time the aged rich cardinal expires; and Bedford is dead too; so that the great Lancastrian chiefs have passed away before the worst troubles of the reign begin. Whether or no Cade's rebellion was fomented by the Duke of York for the purpose of promoting his own aggrandisement out of the increased confusion is one of the multitude of uncertainties of the history. York's claim to the crown is not yet made; but the troubles of the reign next take the form of the feud between York and the Lancastrian chief, the Duke of Somerset. It is a dispute between them, that Shakspeare has made the subject of the scene in the Temple garden, in which the origin of the adoption of the respective badges of the two great parties is accounted for. The scene, however, is a purely dramatic creation, without historic authority, as far as is known; and I am not aware that history gives any explanation of the adoption of the white and red roses as the emblems of the Yorkists and Lancastrians respectively; in that scene York, being unable to obtain an oral expression of opinion respecting his hereditary rights, is represented saying:

"Let him that is a true-born gentleman,

And stands upon the honors of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,

From off this brier pluck a white rose with me."

And Somerset adds:

"Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,

But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."

The angry scene closes with Warwick's prediction:

"This brawl to-day

Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night."

Before the claim of the Duke of York to the throne was openly asserted, the thoughts of the nation were, during some years, habituated to look to him as the future sovereign in due course of inheritance, he being the heir presumptive, and Henry the Sixth being then childless. The Duke of York became still more prominent in connection with royalty, by being made protector during the disability of the king. To the eyes of the nation, and to his own, the crown was visible as his future possession, until the birth of the Prince of Wales, the son of Henry the Sixth, changed the prospect, and the throne could be reached by the family of York only by a revolutionary change.

The battle of St. Albans, which is regarded as the beginning of the civil war, appears to have been an unpremeditated conflict. The Yorkists gained the battle, and the king fell into their power. The fact of the battle is quite intelligible; but immediately after it, all that the triumphant Yorkists ask is pardon; they renew their oaths of fealty to King Henry, and appear perfectly satisfied, simply because Somerset was killed in the battle. Soon afterwards the

gentle king reconciled the contending parties, and a solemn procession to St. Paul's Cathedral took place, in which the leaders of the two parties made a beautiful show of concord by walking hand in hand with each other. It was a very fine spectacle, but it was nothing more than a spectacle. The regal ambition in the soul of York was never quenched; and besides that, it was never forgotten that in the conflict at St. Albans, Somerset, and Clifford, and Northumberland, had fallen by the sword of their Yorkist foes; and now there was burning in the bosoms of their sons and retainers a lust for vengeance which years did not extinguish. Moreover, there was the queen, the indomitable Margaret of

Anjou, of whose character I shall speak presently. She was naturally suspicious of the adverse influences which she saw gathering round her husband's throne; and the Yorkists strongly reciprocated the feeling of jealousy as they came to know the might of that strong-witted woman.

The reconciliation endured but a little while, and then came another battle, the Yorkists again victorious; but to the great perplexity of the historical student, the victory is scarcely completed before the fortunes of the conquerors are suddenly depressed, one can hardly tell how or why: the Yorkist army disbands itself, and the leaders flee away to their strongholds.

It was then that the fortunes of the faction were relieved by perhaps the most remarkable personage in this war, Richard Nevil, Earl of Warwick, "the king-maker," as his successful prowess well entitled him to be styled. Warwick returned, rallied the disbanded army of the Yorkists, gained the battle of Northampton, drove the queen into exile, and brought his sovereign, helpless King Henry, captive to London, the victorious noblemen all the while paying the show of respectable homage to the prisoner-king. Professions of allegiance were still studiously continued. It was civil war, and not yet a war of succession. But now another change comes over the character of the contest; for while the parliament was in session for the purpose of harmonising the dissensions, the Duke of York walked into Westminster Hall, and mounting on the throne, he placed his hands upon it and stood silent in that attitude. Every voice was hushed. The Primate of England, after a short pause, inquired whether he would visit the king, and the answer was, "I know of no one in this realm who ought not rather to visit me." These words, and the significant gesture, proclaimed for the first time, and in the presence of the assembled parliament, that Richard Plantagenet laid claim to the throne of England. The claim was soon formally submitted to parliament, and there was presented, for the

first and last time in English history, the extraordinary spectacle of a king reigning and a king claiming confronted, as it were, and maintaining their rights in the presence of the great council of the realm. When the subject was first stated to King Henry, he said, with a simplicity and earnestness that were impressive: "My father was king; his father was also king; I have worn the crown forty years from my cradle; you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers have done the like to my fathers. How, then, can my right be disputed?" The decision of the lords in parliament was the timid and unsatisfactory result of compromise that process by which men, in their dread of encountering either one of two dangers, bring both upon themselves. Henry's possession of the crown was confirmed; but on his death, to the exclusion of his son, the Duke of York and his heirs were to succeed. This wretched bargain was the occasion of another solemn procession of amity to St. Paul's.

It is at this crisis of the war that we may best turn to the character of Queen Margaret; for upon her was the cause of Lancastrian succession now dependent. From Shakspeare and the chroniclers we receive a very harsh impression of the character of Margaret of Anjou, for they present her in repulsive if not hideous colors. She is portrayed unfeminine, arbitrary, revengeful, licentious; and even her energy and fortitude are distorted into unnatural ferocity and obduracy. I greatly distrust this representation-not because I am able to find historical authority for a different and better character, but because there was so much that would almost irresistibly render the English judgment on her memory prejudiced and unjust. The marriage contract between her and Henry the Sixth stipulated for the cession of territory to her father, Réné of Anjou, that amiable but