tory, but that the
recognition of a government by the people is the binding pledge of their
allegiance so long as its corresponding duties are fulfilled.[447] And
thus the law of England has been held to annex the subject's fidelity to
the reigning monarch, by whatever title he may have ascended the throne,
and whoever else may be its claimant.[448] But the statute of 11th of
Henry VII. c. 1, has furnished an unequivocal commentary upon this
principle, when, alluding to the condemnations and forfeitures by which
those alternate successes of the white and red roses had almost
exhausted the noble blood of England, it enacts that "no man for doing
true and faithful service to the king for the time being be convict or
attaint of high treason, nor of other offences, by act of parliament or
otherwise."

[Sidenote: War of the Lancastrians and Yorkists.]

Though all classes of men and all parts of England were divided into
factions by this unhappy contest, yet the strength of the Yorkists lay
in London and the neighbouring counties, and generally among the
middling and lower people. And this is what might naturally be
expected. For notions of hereditary right take easy hold of the
populace, who feel an honest sympathy for those whom they consider as
injured; while men of noble birth and high station have a keener sense
of personal duty to their sovereign, and of the baseness of deserting
their allegiance. Notwithstanding the wide-spreading influence of the
Nevils, most of the nobility were well affected to the reigning dynasty.
We have seen how reluctantly they acquiesced in the second protectorate
of the duke of York after the battle of St. Albans. Thirty-two temporal
peers took an oath of fealty to Henry and his issue in the Coventry
parliament of 1460, which attainted the duke of York and the earls of
Warwick and Salisbury.[449] And in the memorable circumstances of the
duke's claim personally made in parliament, it seems manifest that the
lords complied not only with hesitation but unwillingness, and in fact
testified their respect and duty for Henry by confirming the crown to
him during his life.[450] The rose of Lancaster blushed upon the banners
of the Staffords, the Percies, the Veres, the Hollands, and the
Courtneys. All these illustrious families lay crushed for a time under
the ruins of their party. But the course of fortune, which has too great
a mastery over crowns and sceptres to be controlled by men's affection,