d,
and there was no considerable opposition to Henry's accession. Under
the Lancastrian line, as Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI, who now
reigned successively, are called, Parliament reached the highest
position which it had yet attained, a position higher in fact than it
held for several centuries afterward. Henry VI was a child at the
death of his father in 1422. On coming to be a man he proved too mild
in temper to control the great nobles who, by the chances of
inheritance, had become almost as powerful as the great feudal barons
of early Norman times. The descendants of the older branch of the
royal family were now represented by a vigorous and capable man, the
duke of York. An effort was therefore made about 1450 by one party of
the nobles to depose Henry VI in favor of the duke of York. A number
of other nobles took the side of the king, and civil war broke out.
After a series of miserable contests known as the "Wars of the Roses"
the former party was successful, at least temporarily, and the duke of
York became king in 1461 as Edward IV.

*28. The Black Death and its Effects.*--During the earlier mediaeval
centuries the most marked characteristic of society was its stability.
Institutions continued with but slight changes during a long period.
With the middle of the fourteenth century changes become more
prominent. Some of the most conspicuous of these gather around a
series of attacks of epidemic disease during the latter half of the
century.

[Illustration: Distribution of Population According to the Poll-tax of
1377. Engraved by Bormay & Co., N.Y.]

From the autumn of 1348 to the spring of 1350 a wave of pestilence
was spreading over England from the southwest northward and eastward,
progressively attacking every part of the country. The disease was new
to Europe. Its course in the individual case, like its progress
through the community, was very rapid. The person attacked either died
within two or three days or even less, or showed signs of recovery
within the same period. The proportion of cases which resulted fatally
was extremely large; the infectious character of the disease quite
remarkable. It was, in fact, an extremely violent epidemic attack, the
most violent in history, of the bubonic plague, with which we have
unfortunately become again familiar within recent years.

From much careful examination of several kinds of contemporary
evidence it seems almost certain that as each locality was
su