Marriage
with _Catharine de Valois_, Daughter of _Charles_ the Sixth, to be
crowned, and acknowledged King of _France_.

To this great and victorious Monarch succeeded _Henry_ the Sixth, who,
through a long, various, and constantly clouded Reign, seemed the very
Play of Fortune! This Day a King, the next a Prisoner! One Day acknowleged
by his Parliament, the next attainted! One Day a Conqueror, and the next a
Captive!

Fierce, frequent, and bloody, were the Conflicts between the Houses of
_York_ and _Lancaster_, the _White_ and _Red Roses_; the former
endeavouring to recover its Loss, the latter to maintain its usurped
Authority. In this dreadful Quarrel perished two hundred thousand of
private Soldiers; ten thousand of the Nobility, Gentry, and Persons of
Distinction; three Kings; and, at last, the entire Race of _Plantagenet_.

_Edward_ the Fourth soon fell, by his natural Intemperance, or rather by
the insatiable Cruelty of _Gloucester_; who had already sacrificed his
Brother _Clarence_, to pave his Way to the Throne. Nor better fared it
with _Edward_ the Fifth, who, by all the Arts of Seduction and Delusion,
which his unnatural Uncle and Guardian, _Richard_, practised on the Fears
and Weakness of the Queen Dowager; was, with his Brother the Duke of
_York_, conveyed with great Pomp to the Tower; where the bloody Tyrant,
aided by the Duke of _Buckingham_, soon sacrificed those young, innocent
and hopeful Princes to his wicked and boundless Ambition. But he soon
after lost his own flagitious Life, and a most cruelly-acquired Crown, on
the Plains of _Bosworth_.

To him succeeded _Henry_ the Seventh, and the first of the Race of
_Tudor_, a great, wise and valiant Prince, but rather too much inclined to
Rigour, and Avarice; Imperfections which extremely blemished his other
great Qualities.

In the tenth Year of this Reign, the Parliamentary Constitution of
_Ireland_ received a deeper Stab than had ever before, or since, been
inflicted thereon, by a Statute Law, commonly called _Poynin_'s Act; by
which a new, and, till that wretched Period, an unheard of Order, was
added to the three established Ranks of the State. By this Law, the
_English_ Privy-Council may impose a _Negative_ on the _free_ and
_unanimous_ Parliamentary Ordinances of the representative Body of the
Kingdom of _Ireland_; a manifest Injury to the Authority and Dignity of
Parliament; and an equal Diminution of the Royal Prerogative, that only
should in