Seeing thus how the name of Tudor came into the royal family, through that Katharine of Valois, whose courtship is written in the play of Henry V., I will try on the same page to fasten in mind the cause of the great civil wars of York and Lancaster, or of the white and red roses, which desolated England in the heart of the fifteenth century.[62] You will recall my having spoken of Chaucer as a favorite in the household of John of Gaunt, and as an inmate also in the household of John’s older brother, Lionel. You will remember, too, that Henry IV., son of John of Gaunt, succeeded the hapless and handsome Richard II. on the throne; but his right was disputed, and with a great deal of reason, by the heirs of the older brother, Lionel (who had title of Duke of Clarence). There was not however power and courage enough to contest the claim, until the kingship of young Henry VI.--crowned when an infant--offered opportunity. Thereafter and thereby came the broils, the apprehensions, the doubts, the conspiracies, the battles, which made England one of the worst of places to live in: all this bitterness between York and Lancaster growing out of the rival claims of the heirs of our old acquaintances Lionel and John of Gaunt, whom we met in the days of Chaucer. _Joan of Arc and Richard III._ If we look for any literary illumination of this period, we shall scarce find it, except we go again to the historic plays of Shakespeare: The career of Henry VI. supplies to him the groundwork for three dramas: the first, dealing with the English armies in France, which, after Henry V.’s death are beaten back and forth by French forces, waked to new bravery under the strange enthusiasm and heroic leadership of Joan of Arc. Of course she comes in for her picture in Shakespeare’s story: but he gives us an ignoble one (though not so bad as Voltaire’s in the ribald poem of _La Pucelle_).