Exhaustion
produced by
the war.
Tliese causes
insufficient
to account
for the fall
of the house
of Lancaster,
Inherent
weakness.
276 Constitutional History. [chap.
from England, and the great occasions of bloodshed were few
and far between. But it did produce anarchy and exhaustion
in France, and over-exertion and consequent exhaustion in
England ; and from these combined causes arose the most
prominent of the impulses that drove Henry VI from the
throne. Still the war was to a certain extent felt to be a
national glory, and the peace that ended it a national disgrace,
which added a sense of loss and defeat over and above the con-
sciousness that so much had been spent in vain.
But neither national exhaustion, resulting from this and
other causes, nor the factious designs of the house of York,
nor the misguided feeling of the* nation with respect to the
peace, nor the unhappy partisanship and still more unhappy
leadership of Margaret of Anjou, would have sufficed to unseat
the Lancastrian house, if there had not been a deeper and more
penetrating source of weakness ; a source of weakness that
accounts for the alienation of the heart of the people, and might
under other circumstances have justified even such a revolution.
When the commons urged upon Henry IV the need of better
and stronger governance, they touched the real, deep, and fatal
evil which in the end was to wear out the patience of England.
Although sound and faithful in constitutional matters, the
Lancastrian kings were weak administrators at the moment
when the nation required a strong government. It was so
from the very beginning1. Constitutional progress had outrun
administrative order. Perhaps the very steps of constitutional
progress were gained by reason of that weakness of the central
power which made perfect order and thorough administration
of the law impossible ; perhaps the sources of mischief were
inherent in the social state of the country rather than in its
institutions or the administration of them ; but the result is
the same on either supposition ; following events proved it.
The Tudor government, without half the constitutional liberties
of the Lancastrian reigns, possessed a force and cogency, an
1 See the letter addressed to Henry IV by Philip Kepingdon in 1401 ;
Beckington, i. 151 ; Ad. Usk, pp. 65,66 ; letter of Chandler to Beckington
in 1452 ; ib. p. 268.
XVIII.]
Secret of the Fall of Lancaster.
energy and a decision, which was even more necessary than
law itself. A parallel not altogether false might be drawn Parallel
between the eleventh, or even the twelfth century, and the history,
fifteenth. Henry VI resembled the Confessor in many ways.
Henry VII brought to his task the strength of the Conqueror
and the craft of his son : England under Warwick was not
unlike England under Stephen, and Henry of Richmond had
much in common with Henry of Anjou.
The want of ‘governance’ constituted the weakness of Want of
° , -. . governance.
Henry IV ; he inherited the disorders of the preceding reign,
and the circumstances of his accession contributed additional
causes of disorder. The crown was impoverished, and with
impoverishment came inefficiency. The treasury was always
low, the peace was never well kept, the law was never well
executed; individual life and property were insecure; whole
districts were in a permanent alarm of robbery and riot ; the
local administration was either paralysed by party faction or weakness,
lodged in the hand of some great lord or some clique of
courtiers. The evil of local faction struck upwards and placed
the elections to parliament at the command of the leaders.
The social mischief thus directly contributed to weaken the
constitution. The remedy for insufficient ‘ governance ’ was
sought, not in a legal dictatorship such as Edward I had
attempted to assume, nor in stringent reforms which indeed
without some such dictatorship must have almost certainly
failed, but in admitting the houses of parliament to a greater
share of influence in executive matters, in the ‘ afforcing ’ or
amending of the council, and in the passing of reforming
statutes.
It is curious to mark how from the very beginning of the Recognition
century men saw the evils and failed to grasp the remedy.
Not to multiply examples; in 1399 the commons petitioned
against illegal usurpations of private property ɪ ; the Paston
Letters furnish abundant proof that this evil had not been
put down at the accession of Henry VII. The same year the
county of Salop was ravaged by armed bands from Cheshire ”.
ɪ Rot. Parl. iii. 434. 2 lb. ɪɪɪ. 441.