The Houses of Lancaster and York

The reign of Edward III may be considered the climax of mediaeval civilization and of England's early greatness. It is the age in which chivalry attained its highest perfection. It is the period of the most brilliant achievements in war and of the greatest development of arts and commerce before the Reformation. It was succeeded by an age of decay and disorder, in the midst of which, for one brief interval, the glories of the days of King Edward were renewed; for the rest, all was sedition, anarchy, and civil war. Two different branches of the royal family set up rival pretensions to the throne; and the struggle, as it went on, engendered acts of violence and ferocity which destroyed all faith in the stability of government.