The very imbecility itself of Henry tended to keep the factions in suspense, and make them stand long in awe of each other: it rendered the Lancastrian party unable to strike any violent blow against their enemies; it encouraged the Yorkists to hope that, after banishing the king's ministers, and getting possession of his person, they might gradually undermine his authority, and be able, without the perilous experiment of a civil war, to change the succession by parliamentary and legal authority.
{1451.} The dispositions which appeared in a parliament assembled soon after the arrival of the duke of York from Ireland, favored these expectations of his partisans, and both discovered an unusual boldness in the commons, and were a proof of the general discontents which prevailed against the administration.

The lower house, without any previous inquiry or examination, without alleging any other ground of complaint than common fame, ventured to present a petition against the duke of Somerset, the duchess of Suffolk, the bishop of Chester, Sir John Sutton, Lord Dudley, and several others of inferior rank; and they prayed the king to remove them forever from his person and councils, and to prohibit them from approaching within twelve miles of the court.[*] This was a violent attack, somewhat arbitrary, and supported but by few precedents, against the ministry; yet the king durst not openly oppose it: he replied that, except the lords, he would banish all the others from court during a year, unless he should have occasion for their service in suppressing any rebellion.

At the same time he rejected a bill, which had passed both houses, for attainting the late duke of Suffolk, and which, in several of its clauses, discovered a very general prejudice against the measures of the court.
{1452.} The duke of York, trusting to these symptoms, raised an army of ten thousand men, with which he marched towards London, demanding a reformation of the government, and the removal of the duke of Somerset from all power and authority.[**] He unexpectedly found the gates of the city shut against him; and on his retreating into Kent, he was followed by the king at the head of a superior army; in which several of Richard's friends, particularly Salisbury and Warwick appeared; probably with a view of mediating between the parties, and of seconding, on occasion, the duke of York's pretensions.
* Parl.Hist.

vol.ii.p.

263.
** Stowe, p.