Was the Old English Aristocracy Destroyed by the Wars of the Roses?

Extract

There is no greater commonplace in English history than the assertion, that the old Aristocracy was destroyed by the Wars of the Roses. The object of this paper is to inquire, whether the vulgar opinion be well founded or not.

The old English peerage of the Feudal age may be divided into two classes: the upper class will comprise Dukes, Marquises, and Earls; the lower class, all noblemen beneath the degree of Earl. There are about twenty-seven great historic houses that belong to the former division, if we adopt a fair test for the term “Historic House,” and exclude from it all those families which have not held an Earldom in the male line continuously for at least one hundred years, or thereabouts, before the Reformation. The greater part of these twenty-seven houses derived their chief importance from the Norman Conquest, though very few of them obtained their Earldoms from the Conqueror himself. The wars of King Stephen's days, seventy years later, gave birth to many titles renowned afterwards in English history. The Thirteenth Century was the period in which the Historic Houses mainly gathered their laurels. They wrested the Great Charter from King John, they bent John's feeble son to their will, and (boldest act of all) they stood unflinching before John's mighty grandson. French and German houses may boast of doughty feats in wars abroad; English houses have achieved far more glorious results at home. But Time was doing his work upon them all. The Earls of Albemarle had died out so early as the Twelfth Century, and four great historic Earldoms dropped in the Thirteenth.