And now it would seem as if England might at length hope to settle her own troubles within her island boundaries. If that was a hope which any men of that day entertained it was grievously disappointed, for she was just about to enter on those terrible years of civil war between the two great dukedoms of York and Lancaster, each claiming the throne, which went on during nearly all the latter half of the century. For their badge and emblem the Yorkists had a white rose and the Lancastrians a red, and from these roses those dreadful wars are known as the Wars of the Roses. [Sidenote: Wars of the Roses] The English people had naturally been bitterly disappointed by the final result of the French war. England continued under the practical governance of the regents even after the king had come of age, and their rule caused great dissatisfaction. A dangerous mob under one Jack Cade got the better of the king's troops and held the city of London for two days. But his mob was undisciplined, and when the citizens took arms in their own defence the rebellion was soon put down. It was a sign, however, of the general discontent that the rebellion could have even such success as this. What helped to make the Wars of the Roses so prolonged and so bitter was that the claim of each of the rivals was so nearly equal. In an outlined story, such as this that I am trying to tell, there is no place for the details of the claims of each; but we may note that the claim as to the strict right of succession was complicated by the claim put forward by the York {202} party that they stood for the national welfare against the bad government of the Lancastrian king and his regents. The Lancastrians posed as pure loyalists, affirming that they stood for the legitimate rights of succession to the throne. Certainly the evils of their government were obvious to all men. They had lost France; England was without a fleet to protect her shores, and the French landed and raided; the oversea trade of England with the Continent was nearly ruined. Victory went now to one and now to another of the evenly balanced forces, and with each successive victory the vengeance taken by the victors, in retaliation for what their side had suffered when it was defeated, became more and more sanguinary. In one of the battles, that fought at Towton in 1461, which was a great Yorkist victory, the statement that more than 36,000 men were killed seems to be generally accepted, though it is scarcely credible when we consider the small population of England at this time. More than three-quarters of the loss was suffered by the Lancastrians. Moreover, of twelve of what are regarded as the great battles of these wars, it is notable that the Yorkists won nine and the Lancastrians only three; yet the final battle, that of Bosworth Field, the battle which "counted" above all the others, was won by the Lancastrians, and its result was to place Henry VII. on the throne.