Book Description

Excerpt from The Wars of the Roses, 1377-1471 The Mediaeval and Modern History of England are divided from one another by the Wars of the Roses. Out of the troubles of that time a new England arose. The period has been described by the historian Stubbs in a memorable passage: "Weak as is the fourteenth century, the fifteenth is weaker still, more futile, more bloody, more immoral." But out of the weakness came strength. The Wars of the Roses were a rough schooling to England, but they ushered in the glories of the Tudor reigns. It was a period when in Europe national states were slowly being evolved, with autocratic monarchs and consolidated governments. Spain grew to unity and strength through her great conflict with the Moors. France, in the first half of the fifteenth century, suffered dreadfully both from civil and from foreign wars. Out of these grew the centralised government of Lewis XI. England too had her period of internecine war, during which she got rid of many troublesome elements, and emerged a strong, consolidated state. In this England was more fortunate than other countries. The caste nobility was almost completely exterminated, and the country gentlemen and the middle classes stepped into their place in the local government of the country. A new nobility had to be formed, recruited from the best servants of the State. In the century following the Wars 1 Constitutional History, ii. p.658. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."