632 Constitutional History. [chλp.
until the duke of York, by appointing Bourchier to the primacy
divided the camp of the bishops. The Mortimer interest was
put forward as an excuse for popular disturbances as well as
for court intrigues and political conspiracies, in so much that,
even when the duke of York had united in his own person the
claims of indefeasible hereditary right and popular champion-
ship, the name of Mortimer continued to be the watchword of
disaffection. It is true that, like almost everything else but
dynastic hatred, the social causes worked with diminished
strength in the general attenuation and exhaustion of national
vitality. But they certainly subsisted, and exercised a second-
ary influence, widening, perhaps, and deepening unseen, in
preparation for the ages in which they would work with greater
intensity and with fewer extrinsic incumbrances. A nation
that seems to be perishing takes less heed of the minor causes
of ruin, although they may be still acutely felt by individuals
and classes of sufferers.
Close of
the middle
ages.
Marks of a
period of
transition.
498. And here our survey, too general and too discursive
perhaps to have been wisely attempted, must draw to its close.
The historian turns his back on the middle ages with a brighter
hope for the future, but not without regrets for what he is
leaving. He recognises the law of the progress of this world,
in which the evil and debased elements are so closely inter-
mingled with the noble and the beautiful, that, in the assured
march of good, much that is noble and beautiful must needs
share the fate of the evil and debased. If it were not for the
conviction that, however prolific and progressive the evil may
have been, the power of good is more progressive and more
prolific, the chronicler of a system that seems to be vanishing
might lay down his pen with a heavy heart. The most enthu-
siastic admirer of medieval life must grant that all that was
good and great in it was languishing even to death ; and the
firmest believer in progress must admit that as yet there were
few signs of returning health. The sun of the Plantagenets
went down in clouds and thick darkness ; the coming of the
Tudors gave as yet no promise of light ; it was ‘ as the morning
spread upon the mountains,’ darkest before the dawn.
XXi.] Age of Transition. 633
The natural inquiry, how the fifteenth century affected the Littie light
* v ’ on national
development of national character, deserves an attempt at an character,
answer ; but it can be little more than an attempt ; for very
little light is thrown upon it by the life and genius of great
men. With the exception of Henry V, English history can
show throughout the age no man who even aspires to greatness ;
and the greatness of Henry V is not of a sort that is peculiar
to the age or distinctive of a stage of national life. His personal
idiosyncrasy was that of a hero in no heroic age. Of the best No great
*, ti t ministers.
of the minor workers none rises beyond mediocrity of character
or achievement. Bedford was a wise and noble statesman, but
his whole career was a hopeless failure. Gloucester’s character
had no element of greatness at all. Beaufort, by his long life,
high rank, wealth, experience and ability, held a position
almost unrivalled in Europe, but he was neither successful nor
disinterested; fair and honest and enlightened as his policy
may have been, neither at the time nor ever since has the
world looked upon him as a benefactor; he appears in history
as a lesser Wolsey,—a hard sentence perhaps, but one which is
justified by the general condition of the world in which the
two cardinals had to play their part ; Beaufort was the great
minister of an expiring system, Wolsey of an age of grand
transitions. Among the other clerical administrators of the
age, Kemp and Waynflete were faithful, honest, enlightened,
but quite unequal to the difficulties of their position ; and
besides them there are absolutely none that come within even
the second class of greatness as useful men. It is the same Warwick
. ι∙> 1 1 » 1 the tj pe of
wιrh the barons ; such greatness as there is amongst them,— baronial
and the greatness of Warwick is the climax and type of it,—is
more conspicuous in evil than in good. In the classes beneath
the baronage, as we have them pourtrayed in the Paston
Letters, we see more of violence, chicanery and greed, than of
anything else. Faithful attachment to the faction which, from
hereditary or personal liking, they have determined to maintain,
is the one redeeming feature, and it is one which by itself may
produce as much evil as good; that nation is in an evil plight
in which the sole redeeming quality is one that owes its exist-