# St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 9/Books and Reading

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BOOKS AND READING
BY HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE
Red and White Roses
It was a remarkable century, this fighting fifteenth. It saw the discovery of printing by Gutenberg, for one thing. This occurred about 1450, but it not until 1474 that the first book was printed in England, by Caxton. You can find a short story about this Caxton in a volume called “Little Stories of England,” by Maude Barrows Dutton (American Book Co.), very agreeably told. The book contains other stories of this same period, all worth reading.
Another thing that happened during this century was the final overthrow of feudalism with the fall of the great Earl of Warwick, called “the King-Maker.” The superb and mighty earl was one of the most picturesque and arresting figures in English history. He kept a more than kingly state, and is said to have fed thirty thousand people at his table, his boast being that no one ever came hungry to his house without going away satisfied. He belonged to the York party, but deserted to the Lancastrians after a bitter quarrel with Edward IV, fought under Henry VI, who had been dethroned, and brought him back—only to die himself on the field before the victorious Edward.
This, too, was the time of Joan of Arc, who freed France from the English—one of the most wonderful women who ever lived. You will find Mark Twain's life of this young heroine interesting to read in connection with the English happenings, since England had to yield to her, though later, deserted by the king she had helped to become the real master of his country, the weak Charles VII of France, the English burned her at Rotten; and then, at the very end of the century, came the discovery of America!
Tn one of Henty’s books, “Both Sides the Border” (Scrihner’s), you will find a spirited account of the Welsh rebellions under the fourth Henry. Mortimer, Owen Glendower, and others of the famous Welsh leaders appear in the course of the story, which covers the reigns of both Henry IV and Henry V, for the Welsh trouble kept on for many years. Another book, written from the Welsh point of view and very anti-English, is by E. Everett Green, “Cambria’s Chieftain,” and is excellent reading, though a bit declamatory. It gives a good notion of the passionate feeling of the times, and many portraits of the famous men who lived in them,
Scott has written one of his best stories in the time of this reign of the fourth Henry, only his scene is Scotland. “The Fair Maid of Perth” tells of the feud between two great Highland clans, and of the struggles of the kind but ineffective Robert II of Scotland to rule his turbulent people. There is a clear picture of the conditions that prevailed over Scotland, and the story is an absorbing one, with its plots and counter-plots, the murder of the heir-apparent by his the Duke of Albany, the menace of England, and the efforts of the common people to make a living and keep from getting killed. Robert’s second son, James, is finally captured by the English, after the abdication of the old king. Another splendid story, this time by Charlotte Yonge, tells us all about this captivity, with the prince’s final escape to his own country, where he was crowned James I of Scotland. The book is called “The Caged Lion,” and you must surely get it.
A vivid picture of the reign of Henry IV is given in the two plays of Shakspere, with their constant changes of scene, their battles and commotions. But these may, perhaps, not appeal to you yet, though I ‘m sure you cannot help being interested in the play that tells the short and glorious story of Henry V, whom we have seen as the wild prince with his harum-scarum crowd of followers in the preceding plays, and now find a noble monarch, the last of the great race of knights, and the greatest English hero since the death of the Black Prince. Like this prince, Henry also won immense success in France, particularly in the battle of Agincourt, with which ​his name is always associated. And he married a French princess, with the promise that France should be his after the French king's death. But Henry soon died, and so that was ended.
He was, so contemporary chronicles tell us, a handsome, vigorous man, with ruddy complexion and gentle, brown eyes, eyes capable of flaring into flame on occasion, however. He loved all manly exercises, and excelled in them, report saying that he was so fleet of foot as to be able to run down and capture a stag in the open.
YOUNG HENRY V LEADING THE ENGLISH FORCES AGAINST THE FRENCH AT SHREWSBURY
There are several good storics about this gallant young king. One of these is by G. P. R. James, beginning with Henry's coronation and ending with the triumph of Agincourt, by which name the book is called. It is a true romance, and is deeply colored with the atmosphere of its period. You get the pageants and feasts, the gay adventurous spirit, the danger and sudden death, the sharp contrasts between the different ranks of society. The study of Henry is interesting, and altogether the book, which is not a long one, gives a lively effect of English life in the early years of the fifteenth century.
Henty has another book that deals with this same time, “At Agincourt,” where a boy of the period goes through a serics of thrilling adventures. And it is here that Miss Yonge’s “Caged Lion” belongs.
One of the most exciting stories that have to do with this king and his England is Russell M. Garnier's “When Spurs Were Gold.” It can often be found in the circulating libraries, but otherwise it is hard to get, which is a pity, for it is very good.
It was under Henry VI that the Wars of the Roses began, He was a young boy when he began to reign, and the barons tussled fiercely to control him and his kingdom. Now one faction and now another led, until England was torn to shreds. The French lands won by preceding kings were lost, and other misfortunes befell.
​Four really splendid books tell of this period. One of them is by S. R. Crockett, “Black Douglas.” If you have read any of this writer’s stories, you will know there is a treat before you with this one, and you won't be disappointed. It is set in a stirring time, and it makes the most of it.
Then there is Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Black Arrow.” It is a book that takes you right into the England of Henry VI and Edward IV, and leads on from one adventure to the other. You can hardly set it down once you ’ve begun it. Its hero is as fine a young fellow as ever drew bow, and bears himself well, both in joy and trouble. The language has a quaint flavor of the ancient time, without being in the least difficult to understand, and we are taken all through England, with her lovely country, and old towns, and all her varied population. In the regular histories, these warring roses may seem tiresome, with now one ahead and now the other, and nothing much mattering with either. But in these two adventurous books that take you straight into the thick of affairs, it is all real and alive, and you won't find a dull second, between your sympathy for your hero and your hatred of the villains whom he is fighting—in fact, you will just become one of the roses yourself.
Miss Yonge has two books that cover this same troublous time. One is called “Grisly Grissell,” the other, “Two Penniless Princesses.” The latter is especially interested in Scotland, though it takes its readers to France and Burgundy, and England, too, and it is a lovely tale which you will enjoy.
After Henry is deposed, the house of York, at whose head stands the huge figure of Warwick, comes to the top. Warwick dominates England at this time, and in Bulwer Lytton’s splendid story, “The Last of the Barons,” you are given a full-length portrait of this man that is unforgetable.
Bulwer is thoroughly in sympathy with his great hero, and has closely studied the entire period of which he writes. He gives a most careful, but not for that reason a tiring picture of English society in all its degrees, with all its pomp and glory, all its misery and suffering. He shows us, too, the beginnings of the new England that is to rise with the coming of the seventh Henry, and that will take another step toward the freeing of the individual, he he poor or rich, noble or simple.
He draws King Edward to the life, with all his virtues, all his faults. He shows how it came about that the King-Maker finally quarreled with his liege, and he brings apon his stage a whole host of important and interesting personages, among them the dark and already dangerous Richard of Gloucester, first as a lad, later as a man of growing power and ambition. And he never loses your interest, This book is one of the real stories of the world, one you should in no case miss reading, and which is indispensable in the chain of our historic novels.
A very gentle, delightful story is one written by A. J. Church, many of whose books you have surely read. It is called “The Chantry Priest of Barnet,” and is supposed to be the personal account, written by a monk, of such things as came under his own observation during a long stretch of time, for the narrative begins as early as 1450, about the middle of Henry VI’s reign, and continues to 1516, with a description of the battle of Flodden Field, told to the monk by one of the men who fought through it. It was in this battle that England conquered James I, whom you read of in “The Caged Lion,” killing him and the flower of the Scottish nobility, and taking the country back under the crown of England.
The writer is attached to Edward IV, and goes to London with him, where he sees many interesting things. He also has something to say of Caxton and his work. And he is on the field of Barnet, where the great Earl of Warwick is killed, and Henry defeated, to die or be murdered soon after, no one knows surely which. This story does not aim at being so historically accurate as Bulwer’s book, but it succeeds in giving a good idea of what England was like then, and shows the other side of the conflict between Edward and the rebellious baron.
Scott's “Quentin Durward,” which, with “Ivanhoe,” is one of the most exciting stories he ever wrote, treats of these years, though much of the action is in France. And an excellent story, thrilling and true to fact, is Eleanor C. Price's “The Queen’s Man,” but it is hard to find, worse luck!
Richard was the next king on England's throne, and I have not been able to get hold of many books about him. There is the play of Shakspere, which is one of the most powerful of his historic plays, And there is a story by G. P. R. James, called “The Woodman.” This is an exciting romance, and contains a fine description of the bad king, with whom we are made closely acquainted, and of whose softer side we catch glimpses. It ends with the battle of Bosworth, in 1485, where Richard, after but two troubled years on the English throne, is killed by Richmond, who becomes Henry VII.
Herewith the houses of Lancaster and York cease to be the rulers of England. They made a lot of racket, and touched some glorious heights. And now England begins to move swiftly onward to its most splendid period.