MAN, strong in
himself, became his guide, and he was free in much from the regular and
thoughtful virtues, as well as from the mean and plausible vices, of
those who act only in bodies and corporations. The two exceptions to
this idiosyncrasy of motive and conduct were, first, in the general
disposition of the rising middle class, especially in London, to connect
great political interests with the more popular House of York. The
commons in parliament had acted in opposition to Henry the Sixth, as
the laws they wrung from him tended to show, and it was a popular and
trading party that came, as it were, into power under King Edward. It
is true that Edward was sufficiently arbitrary in himself; but a
popular party will stretch as much as its antagonists in favour of
despotism,--exercised, on its enemies. And Edward did his best to
consult the interests of commerce, though the prejudices of the
merchants interpreted those interests in a way opposite to that in which
political economy now understands them. The second exception to the mere
hostilities of individual chiefs and feudal factions has, not less than
the former, been too much overlooked by historians. But this was a still
more powerful element in the success of the House of York. The hostility
against the Roman Church and the tenets of the Lollards were shared by
an immense part of the population. In the previous century an ancient
writer computes that one half the population were Lollards; and though
the sect were diminished and silenced by fear, they still ceased not to
exist, and their doctrines not only shook the Church under Henry VIII.,
but destroyed the throne by the strong arm of their children, the
Puritans, under Charles I. It was impossible that these men should not
have felt the deepest resentment at the fierce and steadfast persecution
they endured under the House of Lancaster; and without pausing to
consider how far they would benefit under the dynasty of York, they
had all those motives of revenge which are mistaken so often for the
counsels of policy, to rally round any standard raised against their
oppressors. These two great exceptions to merely selfish policy, which
it remains for the historian clearly and at length to enforce, these:
and these alone will always, to a sagacious observer, elevate the Wars
of the Roses above those bloody contests for badges which we are at
first sight tempted to regard them. But these deeper motives animated
very li