n each side were tolerably equal, even the battles
were not decisive: the result depended less upon real superiority than
on accidental desertions or accessions, and most largely on foreign
help. After the English had failed, during the antagonism of Valois and
Burgundy, in establishing their supremacy on the Continent, the
quarrel--quieted for a moment--which broke out again between Louis XI
and Charles the Bold in the most violent manner, reacted on them with
all the more vehemence. King Louis would not endure that a good
understanding should exist between Edward IV and Duke Charles, to whom
Edward had married his sister: he drew the man who had hitherto done
the most for the Yorkist interests, the Earl of Warwick, over to his
own side; and scarcely had the latter appeared in England when Edward
IV was forced to fly and Henry VI was reinstated. Louis had prepared
church-thanksgivings to God for having given the English a king of the
blood of France and a friend to that country. But meanwhile Edward was
helped by Charles the Bold, to whom he had fled, though not openly in
arms, yet with ships which he hired for him, with considerable sums of
money, and even with troops which he allowed to join him.[69] To these,
his Flemish and Easterling troops, it was chiefly attributed that
Edward gained the upper hand in the field and recovered his throne. But
what a state of things was this! The glorious crown of the
Plantagenets, who a little while before strove for the supremacy of the
world, was now--stained with blood and powerless as it was--tossed to
and fro between the rival parties.

NOTES:

[56] 'I take it as a holesome counsell, that the Pope leeve his
worldly lordship to worldly lords as Christ gafe him and move all his
clerks to do so.' Wickleffs Bileve, in Collier i. Rec. 47.

[57] 'Quod nullus est dominus civilis, nullus est episcopus, nullus
est praelatus, dum est in mortali peccato--quod domini temporales
possunt auferre bona temporalia ab ecclesia habitualiter delinquente
vel quod populares possunt ad eorum arbitrium dominos delinquentes
corrigere.'

[58] Walsingham: 'Antistes belliger velut aper frendens dentibus.'

[59] 'Si rex ex maligno consilio--se alienaverit a populo suo nec
voluent per jura regni et statuta et laudabiles ordinationes cum
salubri consilio dominorum et procorum regni gubernare et
regulari--extunc licitum est eis cum communi assensu et consensu
populi regem ipsum de regali solio abrogar