House of Plantagenet

“ Richard Plantagenet was nearly ten years older than King Henry. He first saw the light in 1412; [Pg 28] and, when a mere child, became, by the execution of his father, the Earl of Cambridge, at Southampton, and the fall of his uncle, the Duke of York, at Agincourt, heir of Edmund of Langley. His father's misfortune placed Richard, for a time, under attainder; but after the accession of Henry the dignities of the house of York were restored; and in 1424, on the death of Edmund, last of the Earls of March, the young Plantagenet succeeded to the feudal power of the house of Mortimer. ”

“ Untaught people fancy that their king, crowned with the holy crown, anointed with the oil of Rheims, descended of the House of Plantagenet, is a different sort of being from any one not descended of the Royal House—not crowned—not anointed. They believe that there is one man whom by mystic right they should obey ”

“ A king’s bastard is a House’s pride. All is still,—the very moon vanishes from heaven. The noiseless rushes in the gallery give no echo to the footstep. Fie on me! Can a Plantagenet know fear?” He allowed himself no further time to pause; he opened the door gently and stole along the gallery. He knew well the chamber, for it was appointed by his command, and, besides the usual door from the corridor, a small closet conducted to a secret panel behind the arras. It was the apartment occupied, in her visits to the court, by the queen’s rival, the Lady Elizabeth Lucy. ”

“ The simple and weakly young man, who had spent fifteen of his twenty-five years in confinement, had, in all probability, done no more than scheme for an escape from his dungeon. But as the true male heir of the house of Plantagenet he was too dangerous to be allowed to survive.
The turbulent portion of the reign of Henry VII. came to an end with Blackheath Field and the siege of Exeter. ”

“ Plantagenet Palliser was the Duke of Omnium's heir—heir to that nobleman's title and to his enormous wealth; and, therefore, was a man of mark in the world. He sat in the House of Commons, of course. He was about five-and-twenty years of age, and was, as yet, unmarried. He did not hunt or shoot or keep a yacht, and had been heard to say that he had never put a foot upon a race-course in his life. He dressed very quietly, never changing the colour or form of his garments; and in society was quiet, reserved, and very often silent. ”

“ That he is called a kinsman of the prince is also some confirmation of the statement afforded by J. G. N., that he became so by his mother's near connexion with the Countess of Richmond, but his own alliance with the house of Plantagenet must have taken place about the close of the fifteenth century (and I own this offers some objection to my theory of his descent) ; it could not have occurred in 1513, as your correspondent states, since Cardinal Pole was, as I have stated, born in 1500, and was therefore fifty-four years old at the commencement of Mary's reign, viz. ”

“ It was under these circumstances that the Plantagenets became leaders in society, and added their valuable real estate in France to the English dominions. In 1154, Henry Plantagenet was thus the most powerful monarch in Europe, and by wedding his son Geoffrey to the daughter of the Duke of Brittany, soon scooped in that valuable property also.
He broke up the custom of issuing pickpocket and felony licenses to his nobles, seized the royal stone-piles and other nests for common sneak thieves, and resolved to give the people a chance to pay taxes and die natural deaths. ”

“ Before the final collapse of the great King's fortunes, and his death in a dishonoured old age, the ambition of his heir, the proudest hope of both dynasty and nation, had overleapt itself, and the Black Prince had preceded his father to the tomb. The good ship England (so sang a contemporary poet) was left without rudder or helm; and in a kingdom full of faction and discontent the future of the Plantagenet throne depended on a child. ”

“ The White Horse had stolen away whatever other relics of gentility Mr. Plantagenet possessed, and had reduced him in his latter days to the miserable ruin of what was once a man, and even a man of letters.
It was a sad history, and, alas! a very common one. Thirty years before, when Edmund Plan tagenet, not yet a believer in his own real or pretended royal descent, went up to London from Yorkshire to seek his fortune in literature, he was one of the handsomest and most popular young men in his own society. His name alone succeeded in attracting attention; we are not all of us Plantagenets. ”

“ Plantagenet had vacated. It was a terrible fate, but he saw no way out of it. At one deadly blow all his hopes for the future were dashed utterly to the ground. Much as he hated to think it, he saw at once it was now his imperative duty to go down from Oxford. He must do something-without delay to earn a livelihood somehow for his mother and sisters. He couldn't go on living there in comparative luxury while the rest of his family starved, or declined on the tender mercies of the Chiddingwick workhouse. ”

“ Henry Plantagenet's younger brother Geoffrey had been left by his father only the castles of Chinon and Loudon in Touraine, and that of Mirabeau in Anjou, with their dependencies, and he could hardly therefore, even with his dubious prospect of succeeding at some future time to the chief possessions of his family, flatter himself that if he should set about wooing the Duchess of Aquitaine in the common fashion he would, in present circumstances, have much chance of success. ”

“ Discontent of the people.
"See," said they, "what we come to by allowing a line of usurpers to reign. These Henrys of Lancaster are all descended from a younger son, while the heirs of the older are living, and have a right to the throne. Richard Plantagenet is the true and proper heir. He is a man of energy. Let us make him king." ”

“ And a short season after this, the king and the duke travelled lovingly together to Oxenford, where the earls and barons, by the king's commandment, did swear fealty to the duke, saving the king's honour, so long as he lived; and the Plantagenet did pledge himself to behave to Stephen of Blois as a duteous and affectionate son, and to grant to him, all the days of his life, the name and seat of the kingly pre-eminence. ”

“ In her jewelled left hand she holds a sprig of honeysuckle, or it may have been the intention of the artist to represent the broom flower, the French genet (Planta Genesta) , the badge and origin of the name Plantagenet. This portrait represents Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, the daughter of the murdered Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV.; her mother was a daughter of the great Earl of Warwick, the King-maker. ”

“ For centuries it was to hold its place supreme, to see one sovereign after other add and re-add to its palace, to stand siege and battery, to be the residence of kings and queens, to witness the birth of more than one heir to{86} the throne, to gather within its walls councils and parliaments. For 600 years it was to endure till Cromwell laid siege to it, and then razed it to the ground, all save the great Hall, built in Plantagenet days, by Henry III. which still remains glorious in its associations as in the beauty of its proportions. ”

“ They roll their eyes, they gnash their teeth. Yonder is the castle of Plantagenet. There sits the lordly tyrant who grinds his vassals to the dust. Shall he be allowed to go on in his ruthless course unchecked? ”

“ Dick shook his head with a terrible, a despondent shake. He knew when he was beaten.
'Oh no,' he answered aloud, though he could hardly frame the words. 'I know what I say. I've found out all about this Richard Plantagenet, Maud. He was the ancestor of the other people—the false Plantagenets, don't you know, the Sheffield family who left the money. He never was a true Plantagenet in any way at all. It was only a nickname. He acted the parts of the Plantagenet kings, one after the other, in a masque or pageant, and was known from that time by pure fun as Richard Plantagenet. ”

“ While England remained in an unsettled condition, with constant internal wars, the Kings were always moving about taking their Court with them, staying in their various castles or fortified houses. We find that Henry II., the first of the Plantagenet Kings, never stayed long in any place, generally moving on after a few days' visit. But when more settled times came, and the Parliament [pg 68] remained at Westminster, the King came to live longer in London or at one of his royal houses in the neighbourhood. Some of the country palaces were maintained on account of the hunting they afforded. ”

“ Plantagenet as they sat at supper that, if he burst in upon the White Horse as the first bearer of such novel and important gossip—how his son Richard was shortly going to enter as an undergraduate at Durham College, Oxford—not only would he gain for himself great honour and glory, but also some sympathizing friend, proud to possess the privilege of acquaintance with so distinguished a family, would doubtless mark his sense of the dignity of the occasion by offering its head the trifling hospitality of a brandy-and-soda. ”

“ It is not merely that, just as the great but personal plan of the Conqueror collapsed after all into the chaos of the Stephen transition, so the great but personal plan of the first Plantagenet collapsed into the chaos of the Barons' Wars. When all allowance is made for constitutional fictions and afterthoughts, it does seem likely that here for the first time some moral strength deserted the monarchy. ”

“ In the thirteenth century, benefactors, great and small, were willing and eager to help the friars to raise those splendid buildings which drew forth the fierce denunciations of later reformers; and though much of the church was doubtless built, like that at London, ‘from good common alms [155] ,’ there can be little question that the chief ‘founder and benefactor’ was the wealthy Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Romans [156] . ”

“ WARWICK The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,
Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be king,
And bashful Henry deposed, whose cowardice
Hath made us by-words to our enemies.
YORK Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute;
I mean to take possession of my right.
WARWICK Neither the king, nor he that loves him best,
The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.
I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares:
Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown. ”

“ KING EDWARD.
Edward Plantagenet, in the name of God,
As with this armour I impale thy breast,
So be thy noble unrelenting heart
Walled in with flint of matchless fortitude,
That never base affections enter there:
Fight and be valiant, conquer where thou comest!
Now follow, Lords, and do him honor to.
DARBY.
Edward Plantagenet, prince of Wales,
As I do set this helmet on thy head,
Wherewith the chamber of thy brain is fenst,
So may thy temples, with Bellona’s hand,
Be still adorned with laurel victory:
Fight and be valiant, conquer where thou comest! ”

“ Edward Plantagenet, fourth duke of York, eldest son of the last, prosecuted his father’s pretensions, and defeated the earl of Pembroke, half brother to Henry VI., at Mortimer’s Cross, in Herefordshire. Shortly afterwards, queen Margaret advanced upon London, and gained a victory over the Yorkists under the earl of Warwick, at the second battle of St. Alban’s, and, at the same time, regained possession of the person of her weak husband. ”

“ Plantagenet to come back as soon as he can; but he can't be here for some time yet, anyhow. Of course, the young lady must have something to eat; and I want you to help me with it. Tell the porter who she is, and that she'll probably have to stop here till Mr. Plantagenet comes back. Under the circumstances, nobody will say anything about it. At lunch-time you must take out something quiet and nice in my name from the kitchen—chicken cutlets, and so forth—and serve it to the young lady in Mr. Plantagenet's rooms. ”

“ There he lies; no other memorial of him exists in the world so authentic. There he lies, as he had directed, in full armour, his head resting on his helmet, his feet with the likeness of ‘the spurs he won’ at Cressy, his hands joined as in that last prayer which he had offered up on his deathbed. There you can see his fine face with the Plantagenet features, the flat cheeks and the well-chiselled nose, to be traced perhaps in the effigy of his father in Westminster Abbey, and his grandfather in Gloucester Cathedral. ”

“ If a palace be a royal residence, as the dictionary defines it, then nearly all the famous castles of England would come under that title, for the Norman and Plantagenet Kings were constantly moving from one stronghold to another during the unsettled period of the Middle Ages. Until the fifteenth century, both the English and Scottish Kings resided in impregnable castles or fortified houses, but their sojourn was never long in one place. ”

“ The company which came together in Westminster Abbey on that Whitsunday supplies a striking picture of the old order which was changing but had not yet given place to the new, and it is a notable thing that the ancestress of all Plantagenet, Tudor, and Stuart kings should have been crowned in the sight of men who had held the highest place in the realm in the last days of independent England. ”

“ Cadurcis had been alive it would have been different. I hardly know what I shall do there, particularly in winter. My spirits are always dreadfully low. I only hope Plantagenet will behave well. If he goes into his tantarums at the abbey, and particularly in winter, I hardly know what will become of me!'
'I am sure Lord Cadurcis will do everything to make the abbey comfortable to you. Besides, it is but a short walk from Cherbury, and you must come often and see us.'
'Oh! Plantagenet can be good if he likes, I can assure you, Lady Annabel; and behaves as properly as any little boy I know. ”