That England gained anything by the Hundred Years' War, except military repute, no one would dream of affirming: even that was evanescent, for gunpowder presently drove the bow out of use. France gained, at a frightful cost of suffering, her national coherence, but she gained it in the disastrous form of a monarchy virtually absolute. The war almost destroyed the feudal nobility, and left nothing strong but the crown. What might have been the history of France if she had not gone through this fiery trial, if the nobles had remained petty princes as in Germany, can hardly be conjectured; the Hundred Years' War fixed the destiny of France for her. The political lessons of the war are glaringly obvious. A nation in the modern sense is indefinitely stronger than a feudal kingdom: conquest of a people that chooses to resist persistently and with judgment is impossible. The military lessons are equally clear: discipline will counterbalance almost any odds: the chief means of tactical success lies in the skilful combination of different arms. CHAPTER VII THE WARS OF THE ROSES The Wars of the Roses were in more ways than one the outcome of the great French war. Formally they were an appeal to arms to decide a disputed succession to the crown: substantially they were a revolt against a weak and discredited government, of whose incompetence the unsuccessful conduct of the war in France had been the most conspicuous evidence. Henry VI., or those who bore rule in his name, had neither the sagacity to make peace and save some portion of the French territory at the price of abandoning claim to the whole, nor the energy to carry on the conflict vigorously. The absurdly scanty numbers of the English troops in France during the last fifteen or twenty years of the war testify alike to the feebleness of the government at home, and to the respect which English military skill and prowess inspired abroad. The marriage of Henry VI. was arranged in the hope of propping up his failing cause in France. And the personality of Margaret of Anjou is on the whole the most important in the Wars of the Roses. On the one hand her energy and daring alone sustained the cause of Lancaster, which without her would have collapsed; on the other hand her extreme unpopularity helped the cause of York. The accident that she was eight years a wife before becoming a mother contributed to the same end. The duke of York had so long been in the position of next in succession to the crown,[40] that when a direct heir was born to Henry VI. the disappointed partisans of York began to say that in strict hereditary right he ought to take precedence of the boy. They could not bear to see the predominance of the hated French queen assured, and her offspring barring for ever the hopes of their leader and themselves. This was perfectly natural under the circumstances, but it does not therefore follow that the claim of York was sound. Those