Possession, too, told against the Yorkist pretensions.

To modern minds the best reply to Richard's claim lay in the words used at a later time by Henry himself.
"My father was King; his father also was King; I myself have worn the crown forty years from my cradle: you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers have done the like to mine.

How then can my right be disputed ?" Long and undisturbed possession as well as a distinctly legal title by free vote of Parliament was in favour of the House of Lancaster.

But the persecution of the Lollards, the interference with elections, the odium of the war, the shame of the long misgovernment, told fatally against the weak and imbecile king whose reign had been a long battle of contending factions.

That the misrule had been serious was shown by the attitude of the commercial class.