ing. It is, anyway. (1896.)

The provinces of Maine and Anjou were given by the king in return for
Margaret. Henry continued to show more and more signs of fatty
degeneration of the cerebrator, and Gloucester, who had opposed the
marriage, was found dead in his prison bed, whither he had been sent at
Margaret's request. The Duke of York, the queen's favorite, succeeded
him, and Somerset, another favorite, succeeded York. In 1451 it was
found that the English had lost all their French possessions except
Calais.

Things went from bad to worse, and, in 1450, Jack Cade headed an
outbreak; but he was slain, and the king showing renewed signs of
intellectual fag, Richard, Duke of York, was talked of as the people's
choice on account of his descent from Edward III. He was for a few days
Protector, but the queen was too strongly opposed to him, and he
resigned.

[Illustration: RICHARD AND HIS ADHERENTS RAISING AN ARMY FOR THE REDRESS
OF GRIEVANCES.]

He then raised an army, and in a battle at St. Albans, in 1455,
defeated the royalists, capturing the king. This was the opening of the
War of the Roses,--so called because as badges the Lancastrians wore a
red rose and the Yorkists a white rose. This war lasted over thirty
years, and killed off the nobility like sheep. They were, it is said,
virtually annihilated, and thus a better class of nobility was
substituted.

The king was restored; but in 1460 there occurred the battle of
Northampton, in which he was defeated and again taken prisoner by the
Earl of Warwick.

[Illustration: BY REQUEST OF MARGARET, HIS HEAD WAS REMOVED FROM HIS
BODY TO THE GATES OF YORK.]

Margaret was a woman of great spirit, and when the Duke of York was
given the throne she went to Scotland, and in the battle of Wakefield
her army defeated and captured the duke. At her request he was beheaded,
and his head, ornamented with a paper crown, placed on the gates of
York, as shown in the rather life-like--or death-like--etching on the
preceding page.

The queen was for a time successful, and her army earned a slight
reputation for cruelty also; but Edward, son of the late Duke of York,
embittered somewhat by the flippant death of his father, was soon
victorious over the Lancastrians, and, in 1461, was crowned King of
England at a good salary, with the use of a large palace and a good well
of water and barn.

CHAPTER XVI.

UNPLEASANT CAPRICES OF ROYALTY: INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING AS A SUBSIDI