The Lancastrian usurpation, effected by Henry of Bolingbroke (Duke of Lancaster), caused much ruthless slaughter, and led to the atrocious Act _De heretico comburendo_, passed to secure the support of the clergy for the usurper. His son, Henry of Monmouth, was a fanatic, but otherwise a man of a far nobler nature than his father. He secured his position by a popular but most unjust war with France, and by his own fascinating personality. From his landing at Havre to the death of Talbot at Châtillon, this war covered a period of thirty-eight years, from 1415 to 1453. It did not, however, exhaust the wealth of the country, nor did the other more odious policy of the Lancastrians in passing an Act for the burning of heretics, destroy all freedom of thought. But the war filled the country with lawless military adventurers, and the persecution unsettled men's minds. {104} The cause of the War of the Roses was the misgovernment of the faction which ruled in the name of Henry of Windsor, the feeble-minded grandson of Charles VI. of France, whose malady he inherited. Recognition during half a century had made the parliamentary title of the usurpers secure. Owing to the absence of an hereditary title, the House of Commons had never been more powerful. The Speakers were practically Chancellors of the Exchequer, and prepared the budgets. Speaker Tresham, who was murdered in 1450 by Lord Grey de Ruthyn, was the first to propose a graduated income tax, and was a great statesman. But the House was not strong enough to control an unprincipled executive. The usurpation would never have been challenged, after a Parliamentary recognition of sixty years, if the administration of the usurping faction had not been intolerably bad. The Duke of York was the rightful hereditary heir to the throne. His grandfather had been recognised as heir by a Parliament of Richard II. The Duke was a just and moderate statesman. Until a month before the battle of Wakefield his sole purpose had been the reform of abuses. The war, however, was not a war of the people. Although London warmly supported the house of York, it was a war fought out by two parties of the nobles and their retainers, including some old veterans of the French war. The struggle did not in the least degree affect the ordinary life of England. Mr. Thorold Rogers tells us that, though he has read hundreds of documents compiled for private inspection only, chiefly manorial accounts, covering the whole period of the war, he has never met a single allusion to the troubles. 'The people,' he adds, 'were absolutely indifferent. {105} Except the outrages of Margaret's army in 1461, no injury was done to neutrals. The war was as little injurious to the great mass of the people, in its immediate effects, as summer lightning. It had no bearing on work or wages.' [Sidenote: The Peerage]