Читать книгу Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses онлайн | страница 12

The interval between the battles of St. Albans and Wakefield—five years and a half—had changed most of the dramatis personæ, but had not in any degree altered the sanguinary character of the struggle. Richard Duke of York was gone—killed at Wakefield: Suffolk was gone, a victim to popular fury. King Henry and Queen Marguerite were still the prominent figures on the Lancastrian side, joined now by their son Prince Edward. On the York side were the three sons of Duke Richard,—Edward, George, and Richard, whose ages when the story opens were twenty-eight, nineteen, and seventeen. Which of these three young men possessed the worst character it is difficult to judge, though that evil eminence is popularly assigned to Richard. Edward was an incorrigible libertine; not a bad organiser, nor devoid of personal bravery, though it usually appeared by fits and starts. He could do a generous action, but he was irremediably lazy, and far weaker in character than either of his brothers. One redeeming point he had—his personal love for his blood relations. But it was not pure love, for much selfishness was mixed with it. Perhaps really the worst of the three was George, for he was not merely an ingrained self-seeker, but also false to the heart's core. No atom of trust could ever be placed in him. The most solemn oath taken to-day was no guarantee whatever against his breaking through every engagement to-morrow. The Dutchman's maxim, "Every man for mineself," was the motto of George's life. Each of the brothers spent his life in sowing seeds of misery, and in each case the grain came to perfection: though most of the harvest of George and Richard was reaped by themselves, while Edward's was left for his innocent sons to gather.

It may reasonably be asked why Warwick is counted among the Lancastrians, when to a great extent Edward owed his throne to him, and he had been a consistent Yorkist for years. It is because, at the period when the story opens, Warwick thought proper so to account himself. King Henry, never able to see through a schemer or a traitor, had complacently welcomed him back to his allegiance: Queen Marguerite, who saw through him to the furthest inch, and held him in unmitigated abhorrence, felt that he was necessary at this moment to her husband's cause, and locking her own feelings hard within her, allowed it to be supposed that she was able to trust him, and kept sharp watch over every movement.