y occurs
in this reign.[*******] The commencement of this pernicious practice
deserves to be noted; a practice the more likely to become pernicious,
the more a nation advances in opulence and credit. The ruinous effects
of it are now become apparent, and threaten the very existence of the
nation.

* Cotton, p. 585.

** Burnet's Collection of Records, vol. i. p. 99.

*** Cotton, p. 593.

**** Statutes at large, 15 Henry VI. cap. 2. 23 Henry VI. cap.
6.

***** Cotton, p. 625.

****** Cotton, p. 626.

******* Cotton, p. 593, 614, 638.

CHAPTER XXII.

[Illustration: 1_286_edward4.jpg EDWARD IV.]

EDWARD IV.

{1461.} Young Edward, now in his twentieth year, was of a temper
well fitted to make his way through such a scene of war, havoc, and
devastation, as must conduct him to the full possession of that crown,
which he claimed from hereditary right, but which he had assumed from
the tumultuary election alone of his own party. He was bold, active,
enterprising; and his hardness of heart and severity of character
rendered him impregnable to all those movements of compassion which
might relax his vigor in the prosecution of the most bloody revenges
upon his enemies. The very commencement of his reign gave symptoms of
his sanguinary disposition. A tradesman of London, who kept shop at the
sign of the Crown, having said that he would make his son heir to the
crown; this harmless pleasantry was interpreted to be spoken in derision
of Edward's assumed title; and he was condemned and executed for the
offence.[*] Such an act of tyranny was a proper prelude to the events
which ensued. The scaffold, as well as the field, incessantly streamed
with the noblest blood of England, spilt in the quarrel between the
two contending families, whose animosity was now become implacable. The
people, divided in their affections, took different symbols of party:
the partisans of the house of Lancaster chose the red rose as their mark
of distinction;[**] those of York were denominated from the white; and
these civil wars were thus known over Europe by the name of the quarrel
between the two roses.

* Habington in Kennet, p. 431.

** Grafton, p. 791.

The license in which Queen Margaret had been obliged to indulge her
troops, infused great terror and aversion into the city of London, and
all the southern parts of the kingdom; and as she there expected an
obstinate resist