Young Folks' History of EnglandYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
History
Young Folks' History of England
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Great Britain -- History -- Juvenile literature
Still things were growing worse. Duke Humfrey left no children, and
as time went on and the king had none, the question was who should
reign. If the Beauforts were to be counted as princes, they came
next; but everyone hated them, so that people recollected that Henry
IV. had thrust aside the young Edmund Mortimer, grandson to Lionel,
who had been next eldest to the Black Prince. Edmund was dead, but
his sister Anne had married a son of the Duke of York, youngest son
of Edward III.; and her son Richard, Duke of York, could not help
feeling that he had a much better right to be king than any Beaufort.
There was a great English noble named Richard Nevil, Earl of Warwick,
who liked to manage everything--just the sort of baron that was always
mischievous at home, if not fighting in France--and he took up York's
cause hotly. York's friends used to wear white roses, Beaufort's
friends red roses, and the two parties kept on getting more bitter;
but as no one wished any ill to gentle King Henry--who, to make
matters worse, sometimes had fits of madness, like his poor
grandfather in France--they would hardly have fought it in his
lifetime, if he had not at last had a little son, who was born while
he was so mad that he did not know of it. Then, when York found it
was of no use to wait, he began to make war, backed up by Warwick,
and, after much fighting, they made the king prisoner, and forced him
to make an agreement that he should reign as long as he lived, but
that after that Richard of York should be king, and his son Edward
be only Duke of Lancaster. This made the queen furiously angry.
She would not give up her son's rights, and she gathered a great army,
with which she came suddenly on the Duke of York near Wakefield, and
destroyed nearly his whole army. He was killed in the battle; and
his second son, Edmund, was met on Wakefield bridge and stabbed by
Lord Clifford; and Margaret had their heads set up over the gates of
York, while she went on to London to free her husband.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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