princes by other people; but they were very proud, and thought themselves equal to anybody.  The good Duke of Bedford died quite worn out with trying to keep the peace among them, and to get proper help from England to save the lands his brother had won in France.  All this time, the king liked the Beauforts much better than Duke Humfrey, and he followed their advice, and that of their friend, the Earl of Suffolk, in marrying Margaret of Anjou—­ the daughter of a French prince, who had a right to a great part of the lands the English held.  All these were given back to her father, and this made the Duke of Gloucester and all the English more angry, and they hated the young queen as the cause.  She was as bold and high-spirited as the king was gentle and meek.  He loved nothing so well as praying, praising God, and reading; and he did one great thing for the country—­which did more for it than all the fighting kings had done—­he founded Eton College, close to Windsor Castle; and there many of our best clergymen, and soldiers, and statesmen, have had their education.  But while he was happy over rules for his scholars, and in plans for the beautiful chapel, the queen was eagerly taking part in the quarrels, and the nation hated her the more for interfering.  And very strangely, Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, was, at the meeting of Parliament, accused of high treason and sent to prison, where, in a few days, he was found dead in his bed—­just like his great-uncle, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester; nor does anyone understand the mystery in one case, better than in the other, except that we are more sure that gentle Henry VI. had nothing to do with it than we can be of Richard II.

These were very bad times.  There was a rising like Wat Tyler’s, under a man named Jack Cade, who held London for two or three days before he was put down; and, almost at the same time, the queen’s first English friend, Suffolk, was exiled by her enemies, and taken at sea and murdered by some sailors.  Moreover, the last of the brave old friends of Henry V. was killed in France, while trying to save the remains of the old duchy of Aquitaine, which had belonged to the English kings ever since Henry II. married Queen Eleanor.  That was the end of the hundred years’ war, for peace was made at last, and England kept nothing in France but the one city of Calais.

Still things were growing worse.  Duke Humfrey left no children, and as time went on and the king had none, the question was who should reign.  If the Beauforts were to be counted as princes, they came next; but everyone hated them, so that people recollected that Henry IV. had thrust aside the young Edmund Mortimer, grandson to Lionel, who had been next eldest to the Black Prince.  Edmund was dead, but his sister Anne had married a son of the Duke of York, youngest son of Edward III.; and her son Richard, Duke of York, could not help feeling that he had a much better right to be king than any Beaufort.