cusation of sorcery and imposture. It is generally supposed that this claim was made at the suggestion of the Duke of Bedford. The inquiry was opened at Rouen (roo'en); on sixteen different days she was brought to the bar; the questions, with her a swers, were laid before the University of Paris; and the opinion of that body concurred with the judgment of the court. Still the sentence was delayed from day to day; and repeated attempts were made to save her from the punishment of death, by inducing her to make a frank and explicit confession. 19. But the spirit of the heroine continued undaunted; she proudly maintained that she had been the inspired minister of the Almighty. The fatal day, however, arrived; and the captive was placed at the bar; but when the judge had prepared to pronounce sentence, she yielded to a sudden impulse of terror, subscribed an act of abjuration, and, having promised. upon oath never more to wear male attire, was remanded to her former place of confinement. 20. Her enthusiasm, however, revived in the solitude of a prison, and her judges condemned her, on the charge of having relapsed into her former errors. She was led sobbing and struggling to the stake; but the expectation of a heavenly deliverer did not forsake her though she saw the fire kindled at her feet. She then burst into loud exclamations, protesting her innocence, and invoking the aid of the Almighty; and just before the flaines enveloped her, was seen embracing a crucifix, and calling on Christ for mercy. This cruel and unjustifiable tragedy was acted in the market-place of Rouen, before an immense concourse of spectators, about twelve months after her capture (1431). [Nothing was gained by this ruthless execution of the "Maid of Orleans." The Duke of Bedford died (1435), and Charles was enabled to re-enter his capital, after having been excluded from it for twenty years (1437). The English continued to suffer defeat until, finally, this long war was interrupted by a truce (1444); and subsequently the French gained all their possessions except Calais (1451).] The War of the Roses.-Henry Reed. [Henry VI., on arriving at the age of majority, showed neither the capacity nor dis. position to take control of the government; and the disorders which this occasioned induced many of the people to favor the claims of Richard, Duke of York, to the throne, in right of his descent from the third son of Edward III. Thus was brought on that great conflict, styled the "War of the Roses" (from the badges worn by the respective parties, the Lancastrians wearing a red rose and the Yorkists a white rose),—a war which lasted thirty years, and was signalized by twelve pitched battles; which deluged England with blood, and in which the ancient nobility of the kingdom were almost annihilated. The following is extracted from "Lectures on English History," by Henry Reed.] 1. THE national vanity of the English, which had been so highly stimulated by the victory of Agincourt, and the shortlived conquest of French territory, was now exasperated by the reverses of the war in France, and the loss of their continental dominions. The glory of the Plantagenets was waning, and the King of France was getting his own again; fortress after fortress was given up by the English; and when the nation found themselves deprived of all that lately they so proudly held of French soil, save a mere foothold on the sea-shore, they turned, in the maddened passion of disappointed pride, to take vengeance upon some one who might be made answerable for the disasters of the government. 2. The national fury fell upon the Duke of Suffolk, as chief minister of Henry's government. He was impeached and tried; and the king, probably to save his life from the frenzy of faction, banished him from the kingdom. On his passage to France, the vessel that carried him was captured by a ship of the royal navy; he was ordered on board, received with the ominous salutation-"Welcome, traitor!" A mock trial was held, sentence of death pronounced; he was lowered into a small boat, which bore an executioner, a block, and a rusty sword; his head was hacked off, and his corpse cast ashore upon the Dover sands. This much is known, and then comes the cloud over the history, and we are all in the dark again. 3. The murder of Suffolk seems to have been one of those deeds which are perpetrated by lawlessness usurping the place of law-the wild spirit of revenge claiming the power of justice. We know just enough of it to regard it as one of the ominous signs of perturbed times. It is a symptom of misgovernment and of domestic discord; and quickly there appears, in the shape of popular insurrection, another sign of approaching anarchy. 4. You begin to hear the first sounds that give signal of the coming convulsion that is to shake the whole fabric of the realm; you discover the premonitions of the political pestilence that is to devastate England. Popular tumult is the first eruption of the disease, and just such an insurrection as that which was headed by Jack Cade, is the form the tumult is apt to take. It is licentiousness proclaiming freedom by the destruction of all rule and order; it is ruffian ignorance taking advantage of popular discontent by promising absurd and impracticable reformations. 5. Wat Tyler's rebellion, some seventy years before, seems to me to have been a much more reputable insurrection than Cade's. Then the populace rose, because the power of government was oppressive upon them, and now, because they felt that the authority of law was too feeble to preserve subordination. The people were estranged from the sovereign; they had, in their discontent, a restless desire for change-they knew not what it should be; and a low demagogue started them to flatter them with promises. "There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny; the threehooped pots shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer; all the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass." 6. Whether or no Cade's rebellion was fomented by the Duke of York, for the purpose of promoting his own aggrandizement out of the increased confusion, is one of the multitude of uncertainties of the history. York's claim to the crown is not yet made; but the troubles of the reign next take the form of the feud between York and the Lancastrian chief, the Duke of Somerset. It is a dispute between them, that Shakspeare has made the subject of the scene in the Temple garden, in which the origin of the adoption of the respective badges of the two great parties is accounted for. * 7. The scene, however, is a purely dramatic creation, without historic authority, as far as is known; and I am not aware that history gives any explanation of the adoption of the white and red roses as the emblems of the Yorkists and Lancastrians respectively. In that scene York, being unable to obtain an oral expression of opinion respecting his hereditary rights, is represented saying: "Let him that is a true-born gentleman, And stands upon the honor of his birth, 8. Somerset adds: "Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the purity of the truth, The angry scene closes with Warwick's prediction: Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden, 9. Before the claim of the Duke of York to the throne was openly asserted, the thoughts of the nation were, during some years, habituated to look to him as the future sovereign in due course of inheritance, he being the heir presumptive, and Henry the Sixth being then childless. The Duke of York became still more prominent in connection with royalty, by being made protector during the disability of the king. To the eyes of the nation, and to his own, the crown was visible as his future possession, until the birth of the Prince of Wales, the son of Henry the Sixth, changed the prospect, and the throne could be reached by the family of York only by a revolutionary change. 10. The battle of St. Albans, which is regarded as the begin * First Part of "King Henry VI.," Act II., Scene IV. ning of the civil war, appears to have been an unpremeditated conflict. The Yorkists gained the battle, and the king fell into their power. The fact of the battle is quite intelligible; but immediately after it, all that the triumphant Yorkists ask, is pardon; they renew their oaths of fealty to King Henry, and appear perfectly satisfied, simply because Somerset was killed in the battle. 11. Soon afterward the gentle king reconciled the contending parties, and a solemn procession to St. Paul's Cathedral took place, in which the leaders of the two parties made a beautiful show of concord by walking hand-in-hand with each other. It was a very fine spectacle, but it was nothing more than a spectacle. The royal ambition in the soul of York was never quenched; and besides that, it was not forgotten, that in the conflict at St. Albans, Somerset, and Clifford, and Northumberland had fallen by the sword of their Yorkist foes; and now there was burning in the bosoms of their sons and retainers a lust for vengeance, which years did not extinguish. 12. Moreover, there was the queen, the indomitable Margaret of Anjou, of whose character I shall speak presently. She was naturally suspicious of the adverse influences which she saw gathering round her husband's throne; and the Yorkists strongly reciprocated the feeling of jealousy, as they came to know the might of that strong-willed woman. The reconciliation endured but a little while, and then came another battle, the Yorkists again victorious; but to the great perplexity of the historical student, the victory is scarcely completed before the fortunes of the conquerors are suddenly depressed, one can hardly tell how or why: the Yorkist army disbands itself, and the leaders flee away to their strongholds. 13. It was then that the fortunes of the faction were retrieved by perhaps the most remarkable personage in this war -Richard Nevil, Earl of Warwick, "the king-maker," as his successful prowess well entitled him to be styled. Warwick returned, rallied the disbanded army of the Yorkists, gained the battle of Northampton, drove the queen into exile, and brought his sovereign, helpless King Henry, captive to Lon |