the Duke of York accused the Duke of
Somerset, and the Duke of Somerset
accused the Duke of York; and, both in and
out of Parliament, the followers of each party
were full of violence and hatred towards the
other. At length, the Duke of York put
himself at the head of a large force of his
tenants, and, in arms, demanded the reformation
of the Government. Being shut out of
London, he encamped at Dartford, and the
royal army encamped at Blackheath. According
as either side triumphed, the Duke of
York was arrested, or the Duke of Somerset
was arrested. The trouble ended, for the
moment, in the Duke of York renewing his
oath of allegiance, and going in peace to one
of his own castles.

Half a year afterwards the Queen gave
birth to a son, who was very ill received by
the people, and not believed to be the son of
the King. It shows the Duke of York to
have been a moderate man, unwilling to
involve England in new troubles, that he did
not take advantage of the general discontent
at this time, but really acted for the public
good. He was made a member of the cabinet,
and the King being now so much worse that
he could not be carried about and shown to
the people with any decency, the duke was
made Lord Protector of the kingdom, until
he should recover, or the Prince should come
of age. At the same time the Duke of
Somerset was committed to the Tower. So,
now the Duke of Somerset was down, and
the Duke of York was up. By the end of
the year, however, the King recovered his
memory and some spark of sense; upon which
the Queen used her power—which recovered
with him—to get the Protector disgraced,
and her favourite released. So, now the Duke
of York was down, and the Duke of Somerset
was up.

These ducal ups and downs gradually separated
the whole nation into the two parties of
York and Lancaster, and led to those terrible
civil wars long known as the Wars of the
Red and White Roses, because the red rose
was the badge of the House of Lancaster, and
the white rose was the badge of the House of
York.

The Duke of York, joined by some other
powerful noblemen of the White Rose party,
and leading a small army, met the King with
another small army at St. Alban's, and
demanded that the Duke of Somerset should be
given up. The poor King, being made to say
in answer that he would sooner die, was
instantly attacked. The Duke of Somerset was
killed, and the King himself was wounded in
the neck, and took refuge in the house of a
poor tanner. Whereupon, the Duke of York
went to him, led him with great submission to
the Abbey, and said he was very sorry for
what had happened. Having now the King
in his possession, he got a Parliament summoned
and himself once more made Protector,
but, only for a few months; for, on the King
getting a little better again, the Queen and her
party got him into their possession, and
disgraced the Duke once more. So, now the
Duke of York was down again.

Some of the best men in power, seeing the
danger of these constant changes, tried even
then to prevent the Red and White Rose
Wars. They brought about a great council
in London between the two parties. The
White Roses assembled in Blackfriars, the
Red Roses in Whitefriars; and some good
priests communicated between them, and
made the proceedings known at evening to
the King and the judges. They ended in a
peaceful agreement that there should be no
more quarrelling; and there was a great royal
procession to St. Paul's, in which the Queen
walked arm-in-arm with her old enemy, the
Duke of York, to show the people how
comfortable they all were. This state of peace
lasted half a year, when a dispute between
the Earl of Warwick (one of the Duke's
powerful friends) and some of the King's
servants at Court, led to an attack upon that
Earl—who was a White Rose—and to a
sudden breaking out of all the old animosities.
So, here were greater ups and downs
than ever.

There were even greater ups and downs
than these, soon after. After various battles,
the Duke of York fled to Ireland, and his
son the Earl of March to Calais, with their
friends the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick;
and a Parliament was held declaring them all
traitors. Little the worse for this, the Earl
of Warwick presently came back, landed in
Kent, was joined by the Archbishop of
Canterbury and other powerful noblemen
and gentlemen, engaged the King's forces at
Northampton, signally defeated them, and
took the King himself prisoner, who was found
in his tent. Warwick would have been glad,
I dare say, to have taken the Queen and
Prince too, but they escaped into Wales and
thence into Scotland.

The King was carried by the victorious force
straight to London, and made to call a new
Parliament, which immediately declared that
the Duke of York and those other noblemen
were not traitors, but excellent subjects.
Then, back comes the Duke from Ireland at
the head of five hundred horsemen, rides from
London to Westminster, and enters the
House of Lords. There, he laid his hand
upon the cloth of gold which covered the
empty throne, as if he had half a mind to sit
down in it—but he did not. On the Archbishop
of Canterbury asking him if he would
visit the King, who was in the palace close by,
he replied "I know no one in this country
my lord, who ought not to visit me." None
of the lords present, spoke a single word; so,
the duke went out as he had come in,
established himself royally in the King's palace,
and, six days afterwards, sent in to the Lords
a formal statement of his claim to the throne.
The lords went to the King on this momentous