I say, that human reason might so have judged, were not this passage of Casaubon also true; "Dies, hora, momentum, evertendis dominationibus sufficit, quae adamantinis credebantur radicibus esse fundatae:" "A day, an hour, a moment, is enough to overturn the things, that seemed to have been founded and rooted in adamant." Now for Henry the Sixth, upon whom the great storm of his grandfather's grievous faults fell, as it formerly had done upon Richard the grandchild of Edward: although he was generally esteemed for a gentle and innocent prince, yet as he refused the daughter of Armagnac, of the House of Navarre, the greatest of the Princes of France, to whom he was affianced (by which match he might have defended his inheritance in France) and married the daughter of Anjou, (by which he lost all that he had in France) so in condescending to the unworthy death of his uncle of Gloucester, the main and strong pillar of the House of Lancaster; he drew on himself and this kingdom the greatest joint-loss and dishonor, that ever it sustained since the Norman Conquest.

Of whom it may truly be said which a counsellor of his own spake of Henry the Third of France, "Qu'il estait tme fort gentile Prince; mais son reigne est advenu en une fort mauvais temps:" "He was a very gentle Prince; but his reign happened in a very unfortunate season." It is true that Buckingham and Suffolk were the practicers and contrivers of the Duke's death: Buckingham and Suffolk, because the Duke gave instructions to their authority, which otherwise under the Queen had been absolute; the Queen in respect of her personal wound, "spretaeque injuria formae,"[5] because Gloucester dissuaded her marriage.

But the fruit was answerable to the seed; the success to the counsel.

For after the cutting down of Gloucester, York grew up so fast, as he dared to dispute his right both by arguments and arms; in which quarrel, Suffolk and Buckingham, with the greatest number of their adherents, were dissolved.

And although for his breach of oath by sacrament, it pleased God to strike down York: yet his son the Earl of March, following the plain path which his father had trodden out, despoiled Henry the father, and Edward the son, both of their lives and kingdom.