ENGLAND 19 ENGLAND The two kings, however, died within a few weeks of each other in 1422, and the infant son of Henry thus became King of England (as Henry VI.) and France at the age of nine months. England during the reign of Henry VI., was subjected to all the confusion in- cident to a long minority, and afterward to a civil war. Henry allowed himself to be managed by anyone who had the courage to assume the conduct of his af- fairs, and the influence of his wife Mar- garet of Anjou, was of no advantage either to himself or the realm. In France (1422-1453) the English forces lost ground, and were finally expelled by the celebrated Joan of Arc, Calais alone being retained. The rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450 was suppressed, only to be succeeded by more serious trouble. In that year Richard, Duke of York, the father of Edward, afterward Edward IV., began to advance his pretensions to the throne. His claim was founded on his descent from the third son of Edward III., who was his great-great-grand- father on the mother's side, while Henry was the great-grandson on the father's side of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lan- caster, the fourth son of Edward III. Richard of York was also grandson on the father's side of Edmund, fifth son of Edward III. The wars which resulted, called the Wars of the Roses, from the fact that a red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster and a white one that of the House of York, lasted for 30 years, from the first battle of St. Albans, May 22, 1455, to the battle of Bosworth, Aug. 22, 1485. Henry VI. was twice driven from the throne (in 1461 and 1471) by Edward of York, whose father had previously been killed in battle in 1460. Edward of York reigned as Ed- ward IV. from 1461 till his death in 1483, with a brief interval in 1471; and was succeeded by two other sovereigns of the House of York, first his son Ed- ward v., who reigned for 11 weeks in 1483; and then by his brother Richard III., who reigned from 1483 till 1485, when he was defeated and slain on Bos- worth field by Henry Tudor, of the House of Lancaster, who then became Henry VII. Henry VII. was at this time the repre- sentative of the House of Lancaster, and in order at once to strengthen his own title, and to put an end to the rivalry between the Houses of York and Lan- caster, he married in 1486 Elizabeth, the sister of Edward V. and heiress of the House of York. His reign was dis- turbed by insurrections attending the im- postures of Lambert Simnel (1487) and Perkin Warbeck (1488) ; but neither of these attained any magnitude. "The king's worst fault was avarice. His adminis- tration throughout did much to increase the royal power and to establish order and prosperity. He died in 1509. The authority of the English crown, which had been so much extended by Henry VII., was by his son Henry VIII. exerted in a tyrannical and capricious manner. The most important event of the reign was undoubtedly the Reforma- tion; though it had its origin rather in Henry's caprice and in the casual situa- tion of his private affairs than in his conviction of the necessity of a reforma- tion in religion, or in the solidity of rea- soning employed by the reformers. Henry had been espoused to Catherine of Spain, who was first married to his elder brother Arthur, who died young. Henry became enamored of one of her maids of honor, Anne Boleyn. He had recourse to the Pope to dissolve his marriage; but failing in his desires he broke away entirely from the Holy See, and in 1534 got himself recognized by act of Parlia- ment as the head of the English Church. He died in 1547. He was married six times, and left three children, each of whom reigned in turn. These were: Mary, by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon; Elizabeth, by his second vfite, Anne Boleyn; and Edward by his third wife, Jane Seymour. Edward, who reigned first with the title of Edward VI., was nine years of age at the time of his succession, and died in 1553, when he was only 16. His short reign, or rather the reign of the Earl of Hertford, afterward Duke of Somerset, who was appointed regent, was distinguished chiefly by the success which attended the measures of the reformers, who acquired great part of the power- formerly engrossed by the Catholics. The intrigues of Dudley, Duke of North- umberland, during the reign of Edward, caused Lady Jane Grey to be declared his successor; but her reign, if it could be called such, lasted only a few days. Mary, daughter of Henry VIII. was placed on the throne, and Lady Jane Grey and her husband were both ex- ecuted. Mary seems to have wished for the crown only for the purpose of re- establishing the Roman Catholic faith. Political motives had induced Philip of Spain to accept of her as a spouse; but she could never prevail on her subjects to allow him any share of power. She died in 1558. Elizabeth, who succeeded her sister Mary, was attached to the Protestant faith, and found little difficulty in estab- lishing it in England. Having concluded peace with France (1559), Elizabeth set herself to promote the confusion which prevailed in Scotland, to which hef
