{"id":187,"date":"2020-03-28T20:58:13","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T20:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/?page_id=187"},"modified":"2021-07-12T19:32:37","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T19:32:37","slug":"charles-dickens-a-childs-history-of-england-613","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/household-words-2\/charles-dickens-a-childs-history-of-england-613\/","title":{"rendered":"Pg. 613"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Household<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Charles Dickens.] A CHILD\u2019S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 613<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to the murderous\nwalking-sticks, which thrust out upon you their swords, or dirks, or spring\nspears, we like them not: their use is only to be tolerated in private\ngentlemen and editors, who do not feel comfortable in the streets of California\nor Kentucky without a Colt\u2019s revolver peeping out of their pockets loaded to\nthe muzzle and on full cock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CHILD\u2019S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHAPTER XXII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bad deeds seldom prosper,\nhappily for mankind; and the English cause gained no advantage from the cruel\ndeath of Joan of Arc. For a long time, the war went heavily on. The Duke of\nBedford died; the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy was broken; and Lord\nTalbot became a great general on the English side in France. But, two of the\ncon\u00adsequences of wars are, Famine\u2014because the people cannot peacefully\ncultivate the ground and grow crops\u2014and Pestilence, which comes of want,\nmisery, and suffering. Both these horrors broke out in both countries, and\nlasted for two wretched years. Then, the war went on again, and came, by slow\ndegrees, to be so badly conducted by the English govern\u00adment, that, within\ntwenty years from the execution of the Maid of Orleans; of all the great French\nconquests, the town of Calais alone remained in English hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these victories and\ndefeats were taking place in the course of time, many strange things happened\nat home. The young king, as he grew up, proved to be very unlike his great\nfather, and showed himself a miser\u00adable puny creature. There was no harm in\nhim\u2014he had a great aversion to shedding blood: which was something\u2014but, he was\na weak, silly, helpless young man, and a mere shuttlecock to the great lordly\nbattledores about the Court. Of these battledores, Cardinal Beaufort a relation\nof the King, and the Duke of Gloucester, were at first the most powerful. The\nDuke of Gloucester had a wife, who was nonsensically accused of practising\nwitchcraft to cause the King\u2019s death and lead to her husband\u2019s coming to the throne,\nhe being the next heir. She was charged with having, by the help of a\nridiculous old woman named Margery (who was called a witch), made a little\nwaxen doll in the King\u2019s likeness, and put it before a slow fire that it might\ngradually melt away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was supposed, in such cases,\nthat the death of the person whom the doll was made to represent, was sure to\nhappen. Whether the duchess was as ignorant as the rest of them, and really did\nmake such a doll with such an intention, I don\u2019t know; but, you and I know very\nwell that she might have made a thousand dolls, if she had been stupid enough,\nand might have melted them all, without hurting the King or anybody else.\nHowever, she was tried for it, and so was old Margery, and so was one of the\nduke\u2019s chaplains, who was charged with having assisted them. Both he and\nMargery were put to death, and the duchess, after being taken, on foot and\nbearing a lighted candle, three times round the City as a penance, was\nimprisoned for life. The duke, himself, took all this pretty quietly, and made\nas little stir about the matter as if he were rather glad to be rid of the\nduchess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, he was not destined to keep\nhimself out of trouble long. The royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the\nbattledores were very anxious to get him married. The Duke of Gloucester wanted\nhim to marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac; but, the Cardinal and the\nEarl of Suffolk were all for Margaret, the daughter of the King of Sicily, who\nthey knew was a resolute ambitious woman and would govern the King as she\nchose. To make friends with this lady, the Earl of Suffolk, who went over to\narrange the match, consented to accept her for the King\u2019s wife without any\nfortune, and even to give up the two most valuable possessions England then had\nin France. So, the marriage was arranged, on terms very advantageous to the\nlady; and Lord Suffolk brought her to England, and she was married at West\u00adminster.\nOn what pretence this queen and her party charged the Duke of Gloucester with\nhigh treason within a couple of years, it is impossible to make out, the matter\nis so-confused; but, they pretended that the King\u2019s life was in danger, and\nthey took the duke prisoner. A fortnight afterwards, he was found dead in bed\n(they said), and his body was shown to the people, and Lord Suffolk came in for\nthe best part of his estates. You know by this time how strangely liable state\nprisoners were to sudden death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Cardinal Beaufort had any\nhand in this matter, it did him no good, for he died within six weeks; thinking\nit very hard and curious\u2014at eighty years old!\u2014that he could not live to be\nPope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the time when England\nhad completed her loss of all her great French conquests. The people charged\nthe loss prin\u00adcipally upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had made those\neasy terms about the Royal marriage, and who, they believed, had even been\nbought by France. So he was im\u00adpeached as a traitor, on a great number of\ncharges, but chiefly on accusations of having aided the French king, and of\ndesigning to make his own son King of England. The Commons and the people being\nviolent against him, the King was made (by his friends) to interpose to save\nhim, by banishing him for five years, and proroguing the Parliament. The duke\nhad much ado to escape from a London mob, two thousand strong, who lay in wait\nfor him in St. Giles\u2019s Fields; but, he got down to his own estates in Suffolk,\nand sailed away from Ipswich. Sailing across the Channel, he sent into Calais\nto know if he might land there; but, they kept his boat and men in the harbour,\nuntil an English
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Dickens.] A CHILD\u2019S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 613 As to the murderous walking-sticks, which thrust out upon you their swords, or dirks, or spring spears, we like them not: their use is only to be tolerated in private gentlemen and editors, who do not feel comfortable in the streets of California or Kentucky without a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":664,"menu_order":16,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-187","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187\/revisions\/739"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}