[4] See the “Paston Letters.”

Every individual of two families of the great houses of Somerset and Warwick (SS296, 300) fell either on the field or under the executioner’s ax.  In tracing family pedigrees it is startling to see how often the record reads, “killed at St. Albans,” “slain at Towton,” “beheaded after the battle of Wakefield,” and the like.[5]

[5] Guest’s “Lectures on English History.”

When the contest closed, the feudal baronage was broken up (SS113, 114, 150).  In a majority of cases the estates of the nobles either fell to the Crown for lack of heirs, or they were fraudulently seized by the King’s officers.  Thus the greater part of the wealthiest and most powerful aristocracy in the world disappeared so completely that they ceased to have either a local habitation or a name.

But the elements of civil discord at last exhausted themselves.  Bosworth Field was a turning point in English history.  When the sun went down, it saw the termination of the desperate struggle between the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster; when it ushed in a new day, it shone also on a new King, Henry VII, who introduced a new social and political period.

317.  Summary.

The importance of Richard’s reign is that it marks the close of the Wars of the Roses.  Those thirty years of civil strife destroyed the predominating influence of the feudal barons.  Henry Tudor (S314) now becomes the central figure, and will ascend the throne as Henry VII.

General Reference Summary of the Lancastrian and Yorkist Period (1399-1485)

I. Government.  II.  Religion.  III.  Military Affairs.  IV.  Literature, Learning, and Art.  V. General Industry and Commerce.  VI.  Mode of Life, Manners, and Customs

I. Government

318.  Parliament and the Royal Succession.

The period began with the parliamentary recognition of the claim to the crown of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III.  By this act the claim of Edmund Mortimer, a descendant of Edward III by his third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, was deliberately set aside, and this change in the order of succession eventually furnished an excuse for civil war.[1]

[1] Before the accession of Henry III, Parliament made choice of any one of the King’s sons whom it considered best fitted to rule.  After hat time it was understood that the King’s eldest son should be chosen to succeed him; or incase of his death during the lifetime of his father, the eldest son of the eldest son; and so forward in that line.  The action taken by Parliament in favor of Henry IV was a departure from that principle, and a reassurtion of its ancient right to choose and descendant of the royal family it deemed best. (See Genealogical Table, p. 140.)

319.  Disfranchisement of Electors; Benevolences.

Under Henry VI a property qualification was established by act of Parliament which cut off all persons from voting for countyy members of the House of Commons who did not have an income of forty shillings (say 40 pounds, or $200, in modern money) from freehold land.  County elections, the statute said, had “of late been made by a very great, outrageous, and excessive number of people...of which the most part were people of small substance and of no value.”