University of Virginia Library

FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

Since Bethlehem's star had risen, the Fourteen Hundredth year
Breaks on the treason-purchased reign of banish'd Lancaster.
With blind ambition leagued, dark vengeance aim'd the stroke,
Which laid the rightful monarch low, and lifted Bolingbroke.
Well has the faithful muse that chronicled his guilt,
And paints him reeking from the blood of foes at Shrewsbury spilt,
Display'd how fell remorse, with her relentless tooth,
More sharp than rebel swords, destroy'd the promise of his youth.
His thorn-encircled crown scarce thirteen years he wore;
Yet be that short and feverish space renown'd on Albion's shore—
Dawn of a purer faith, by persecution fann'd
To a bright flame, that silently possess'd the wondering land—
First kindled in the cot; thence spreading, sure of proof,
To peopled towns, and castled hall, and proud cathedral roof.
[Harry, of Monmouth named, from lawless youth and wild,
Steps forth—in war a chief renown'd, in peace a monarch mild;
Asserts o'er Gallia's crown his unforgotten claim,
And calls his warlike subjects out to battle for the same;
With men at arms and archers, a small but gallant host,
Lays siege to Harfleur's famous wall, hard by the Norman coast;
Thence carving thro' the fields of Picardy his way,
Confronts the French at Agincourt upon St. Crispian's day.
'Gainst sixty thousand men with thousands ten he fights,
And strews the field with Gallia's best—her nobles and her knights;
Received in Paris' gates, by factious traitors' aid,
By wedding tie confirms anew the conquests he has made,
Then hastes to arms afresh, the dauphin to subdue,
But leaves to fate his half-won realm, and dies in Twenty-two.]
Sixth Harry, by the name of royal Windsor known,
Plantagenet and Valois mix'd, is cradled on the throne;
His baby brows the badge of double empire wear,
His childish hands the sceptre grasp they have not strength to bear.
By jarring uncles wrong'd, by shaven priesthood led,
And govern'd in his riper years by her who shared his bed.
First, Bedford lost him France, by maiden's arm subdued;
Next, Beaufort's ghostly pride the flames of civil broil renew'd;
By whom, with Suffolk leagued, (Queen Margaret's minion slave,)
The good Protector Humphry found in Alban's shrine a grave.
Thence bloody times come on; the din of battle bray'd,
To pointed lance was lance opposed, to war-horse war-horse neigh'd.
Thro' kindred ranks fell slaughter pursued her hellish work;
The red rose bloom'd for Lancaster, its pallid foe for York.
[In Fourteen-fifty-five that desperate strife began,
And thrice five years the afflicted land with blood incessant ran.
Then sack'd was many a castle, and rifled many a shrine,
And sword and spear and headsman's axe thinn'd many an ancient line.]
All England then put on the crimson or the white;
The anointed monarch some maintain'd, and some the king by right:
At length the right prevail'd; and Towton's well-fought field
Beheld, in Sixty-one, his crown “the meek usurper” yield.
By Warwick's power upheld, Fourth Edward grasps the prize,
Which, when the earl his aid withdraws, he, hunted, quits, and flies;
But when, on Barnet field, by all-subduing death
The mighty king-maker, compell'd, has paid his forfeit breath,
O'er England's war-worn soil he re-assumes his sway,
And Lancaster his mortal blow receives on Tewkesbury's day.
There fell, untimely cropt, its young and hopeful flower;
The parent stem to wither left in London's storied tower—
This fell'd by brutal rage, and that (if fame speaks true,)
Doom'd with his sacred blood the hands of murder foul t'embrue.
But sober history doubts the tale of useless guilt;
Enough of crime without it wrought, enough of life-blood spilt.
England in Henry mourn'd the saint, as king, she spurn'd,
While Edward, passion's lawless slave, unwept to dust return'd.
He died in Eighty-three; and, ere a year had flown,
His brother Gloster sate, acknowledged king, on Albion's throne—
His nephews first removed, and, as old histories say,
By bloody ruffians smother'd, while embraced in sleep they lay;
But, true or false the fame by crafty Richmond spread,
It gain'd a crown on Bosworth field, and lost a monarch's head.
Henry the Seventh, sole heir of Lancaster confest,
Now weds with York, and twines each rose on Tudor's British crest;
In Eighty-five begins to reign; and lives to see
The dawn of Europe's brightest age, the Sixteenth century—
Resplendent age, for acts and arms alike renown'd,
For sacred wisdom's purer light, and learning more profound.
His empire he cemented with blood of nobles, spilt
In thirty years of slaughter wild, by others' woes and guilt;
With prudent laws repress'd the pride of high estate,
And raised the monarchy above the envy of the great;
But own'd a narrow soul, and, dead to future fame,
With avarice and extortion stain'd the brightness of his name.
When Fifteen Hundred years, with three times three, had run,
He dying left a quiet throne to his more famous son.