His aim had become little more than a lust for gold, a longing after plunder, after the pillage of farms, the sack of cities, the ransom of captives.

So intense was the greed of gain that in the later years of the war only a threat of death could keep the fighting-men in their ranks, and the results of victory after victory were lost through the anxiety of the conquerors to deposit their booty and captives safely at home.

The moment the hand of such leaders as Henry the Fifth or Bedford was removed the war died down into mere massacre and brigandage.

"If God had been a captain now-a-days," exclaimed a French general, "he would have turned marauder." [Sidenote: Grant of Liveries] The temper thus nursed on the fields of France found at last scope for action in England itself.

Even before the outbreak of the War of the Roses the nobles had become as lawless and dissolute at home as they were greedy and cruel abroad.