The
Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic
civil wars between supporters of the rival
houses of Lancaster and York, for the throne of England
. They
are generally accepted to have been fought in several spasmodic
episodes between 1455 and 1485 (although there was related fighting
both before and after this period). The war ended with the victory
of the Lancastrian
Henry Tudor,
who founded the
House of Tudor, which
subsequently ruled England and Wales for 116 years.
Brief overview
Henry of Bolingbroke had
established the House of Lancaster on the throne in 1399 when he
deposed his cousin
Richard II,
whose rule had prompted widespread opposition among the nobles.
Bolingbroke (who was crowned as Henry IV) and his son
Henry V maintained their hold on the
crown through sound administration and especially through military
prowess, but when Henry V died, his heir was the infant
Henry VI, who grew up to be mentally
unstable and dominated by quarrelsome regents.
The Lancastrian claim to the throne descended from
John of Gaunt, the
fourth son of
Edward III.
Henry VI's inability to rule the Kingdom ultimately resulted in a
challenge to his right to the crown by
Richard, Duke of York,
who could claim descent from Edward's third and fifth sons,
Lionel of
Antwerp and
Edmund of Langley, and
had also proved himself to be an able administrator, holding
several important offices of state. York quarreled with prominent
Lancastrians at court and with Henry VI's queen,
Margaret of Anjou, who feared that he
might later supplant her son, the infant
Edward, Prince of Wales.
Although
armed clashes had occurred previously between supporters of York
and Lancaster, the first open fighting broke out in 1455 at the
First Battle of
St Albans
. Several prominent Lancastrians died but
their heirs remained at deadly
feud with
Richard. Although peace was temporarily restored, the Lancastrians
were inspired by Margaret of Anjou to contest York's
influence.
Fighting resumed more violently in 1459.
York was forced to
flee the country, but one of his most prominent supporters, the
Earl of
Warwick, invaded England from Calais
and captured
Henry at the Battle of
Northampton. York returned to the country and became
Protector of England, but was dissuaded from claiming the throne.
Margaret and the irreconcilable Lancastrian nobles gathered their
forces in the north of England, and when York moved north to
suppress them, he was killed in battle at the end of 1460.
The
Lancastrian army advanced south and recaptured the hapless Henry at
the Second Battle
of St Albans
, but failed to occupy London, and subsequently
retreated to the north. York's eldest son was proclaimed
King Edward IV.
He gathered the
Yorkist armies and won a crushing victory at the Battle of
Towton
early in 1461.
After minor Lancastrian revolts were suppressed in 1464 and Henry
was captured once again, Edward fell out with his chief supporter
and advisor, the Earl of Warwick (known as the "Kingmaker"), and
also alienated many friends and even family members by favouring
the upstart family of his queen,
Elizabeth Woodville, whom he had married
in secret. Warwick tried first to supplant Edward with his jealous
younger brother
George, Duke of
Clarence, and then to restore Henry VI to the throne. This
resulted in two years of rapid changes of fortune, before Edward IV
once again won a complete victory in 1471. Warwick and the
Lancastrian heir Edward, Prince of Wales died in battle and Henry
was murdered immediately afterwards.
A period of comparative peace followed, but Edward died
unexpectedly in 1483. His surviving brother
Richard of Gloucester first moved to
prevent the unpopular Woodville family of Edward's widow from
participating in government during the minority of Edward's son,
Edward V, and then seized the
throne for himself, using the suspect legitimacy of Edward IV's
marriage as pretext. This usurpation, and suspicions that Richard
had murdered Edward V and his younger brother (the "
Princes in the Tower"), provoked
several revolts.
Henry
Tudor, a distant relative of the Lancastrian kings who had
inherited their claim, overcame and killed Richard in battle at
Bosworth
in 1485.
Yorkist revolts flared up in 1487, resulting in the last pitched
battles. Although most of the surviving descendants of York were
imprisoned, sporadic rebellions continued to take place until
Perkin Warbeck, a fraudulent Yorkist
pretender, was executed in 1499.
Name and symbols
The name "Wars of the Roses" is not thought to have been used
during the time of the wars but has its origins in the
badges associated with the two royal houses,
the
White Rose of York and the
Red Rose of Lancaster. The
term came into common use in the nineteenth century, after the
publication of
Anne of
Geierstein by
Sir Walter
Scott.
Scott based the name on a fictional scene in
William Shakespeare's play
Henry VI Part 1, where the
opposing sides pick their different-coloured roses at the Temple Church
.
Although the roses were occasionally used as symbols during the
wars, most of the participants wore badges associated with their
immediate
feudal lords
or protectors. For example, Henry's forces at Bosworth fought under
the banner of a
red dragon, while the
Yorkist army used Richard III's personal symbol of a
white boar. Evidence of the importance of
the rose symbols at the time, however, includes the fact that King
Henry VII chose at the end of
the wars to combine the red and white roses into a single red and
white
Tudor Rose.
The names
of the rival houses have little to do with the cities of York
and Lancaster
, or the counties of Yorkshire
and Lancashire
, even though cricket or rugby league matches between these two counties
are often described by the cliché, the
"Wars of the Roses". In fact, the lands and offices attached to
the Duchy of Lancaster were mainly in Gloucestershire
, North
Wales
and Cheshire
, while the estates and castles which were part of
the Duchy of York (and the Earldom
of March, which Richard of York also inherited) were widespread
throughout England, although there were many in the Welsh
Marches.
Armies and contestants
The wars were fought largely by the
landed aristocracy and armies of feudal
retainers, with some foreign mercenaries. Support for each house
largely depended upon dynastic factors, such as blood
relationships, marriages within the nobility, and the grants or
confiscations of feudal titles and lands.
The unofficial system of
livery and maintenance, by which
powerful nobles would offer protection to followers who would sport
their colours and badges (
livery), and controlled large
numbers of paid men-at-arms (
maintenance) was one of the
effects of the breakdown of royal authority which preceded and
partly caused the wars. Another aspect of the decline in respect to
the crown was the development of what was called
bastard feudalism by later historians,
although the term and definition were disputed. Service to a lord
in return for title to lands and the gift of offices remained
important, but the service was given in support of a faction rather
than as part of a strict heirarchical system in which all
ultimately owed their loyalty to the monarch.
Given the conflicting loyalties of blood, marriage and ambition, it
was not uncommon for nobles to switch sides and several battles
were decided by treachery.
The armies consisted of nobles' contingents of men-at-arms, with
companies of archers and foot-soldiers (such as
billmen). There were also sometimes
contingents of foreign mercenaries, armed with cannon or handguns.
The horsemen were generally restricted to "prickers" and
"scourers"; i.e. scouting and foraging parties. Most armies fought
entirely on foot. In several cases, the magnates dismounted and
fought among the common foot-soldiers, to inspire them and to
dispel the notion that in the case of defeat they might be ransomed
while the common soldiers, being of little value, faced
death.
Disputed succession
The antagonism between the two houses started with the overthrow of
King
Richard II by his cousin,
Henry Bolingbroke,
Duke of Lancaster, in 1399. Richard II's
government had been highly unpopular and Bolingbroke returned from
exile, initially to reclaim his rights as Duke of Lancaster. With
the support of most of the nobles, Bolingbroke then deposed Richard
and was crowned as Henry IV. As an issue of
Edward III's third son John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke
had a comparatively poor claim to the
throne.
According to precedent, the crown should have passed to the male
descendants of
Lionel of Antwerp,
Duke of Clarence, Edward III's
second son, and in fact, the childless Richard II had named
Lionel's grandson,
Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of
March as
heir presumptive.
Roger Mortimer had died the previous year however, and no nobles
immediately championed his young son
Edmund's claim to the
crown.
Within a few years of taking the throne,
Henry faced several rebellions in Wales
, Cheshire and Northumberland
, which used the Mortimer claim to the throne both
as pretext and rallying point. All these revolts were
suppressed, although with difficulty.
Henry IV died in 1413. His son and successor,
Henry V, inherited a temporarily pacified
nation.
Henry was a great soldier, and his military
success against France
in the
Hundred Years' War bolstered his
enormous popularity, enabling him to strengthen the Lancastrian
hold on the throne.
There was one conspiracy against Henry during his short reign; the
Southampton Plot led by
Richard, Earl of
Cambridge, a son of
Edmund of
Langley, the fourth son of Edward III.
Cambridge was
executed in 1415 for treason at the start of the campaign which led
to the Battle of
Agincourt
. Cambridge's wife,
Anne Mortimer, also had a claim to the
throne, being the daughter of Roger Mortimer and thus a descendant
of Lionel of Antwerp. Her brother Edmund, who loyally supported
Henry, died childless, and his claim therefore passed to
Anne.
Richard, the
son of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer, was four years old at the time
of his father's execution. The title of
Duke of York descended to him from Cambridge's
elder brother,
Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke
of York, who died fighting alongside Henry at Agincourt.
Although Cambridge was
attainted, Henry
later allowed Richard to inherit the title and lands of his late
uncle, who died without issue. Henry, who had three younger
brothers and was himself in his prime, had no doubt that the
Lancastrian right to the crown was secure. After his death, when
his only son proved incapable of rule and his brothers produced no
surviving legitimate issue, leaving only distant cousins (the
Beauforts) as alternate Lancaster
heirs, Richard of York's claims to the throne became important.
They were eventually held by supporters of the
House of York to be stronger than those of the
Lancastrian kings.
Henry VI
Henry V died unexpectedly in 1422 and his son, King
Henry VI of England, ascended the throne
as an infant only nine months old. After the death of his uncle,
John, Duke of Bedford in 1435,
he was surrounded by unpopular regents and advisors. In addition to
Henry's surviving paternal uncle,
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
the most notable of these were
Cardinal
Beaufort and
William de la Pole, 1st
Duke of Suffolk, who were blamed for mismanaging the government
and poorly executing the continuing
Hundred Years' War with France. Under
Henry VI, virtually all English holdings in France, including the
land won by Henry V, were lost.
Suffolk eventually succeeded in having Humphrey of Gloucester
arrested for treason. Humphrey died while awaiting trial in 1447.
However, with severe reverses in France, Suffolk was stripped of
office and was murdered on his way to exile.
Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke
of Somerset succeeded him as leader of the party seeking peace
with France. The Duke of York, who had succeeded Bedford as
Lieutenant in France, meanwhile represented those who wished to
prosecute the war more vigorously, and criticised the court, and
Somerset in particular, for starving him of funds and men during
his campaigns in France. In all these quarrels, Henry VI had taken
little part. He was seen as a weak, ineffectual king. In addition,
he suffered from episodes of mental illness that he may have
inherited from his grandfather
Charles VI of France. By 1450 many
considered Henry incapable of carrying out the duties and
responsibilities of a king.
In 1450, there was a violent popular revolt in Kent,
Jack Cade's rebellion. The grievances were
extortion by some of the King's officials and the failure of the
courts to protect the local property-owners of all classes. The
rebels occupied parts of London, but were driven out by the
citizens after some of them fell to looting. The rebels dispersed
after they were supposedly pardoned but several, including Cade,
were later executed.
Two years later, Richard of York returned to England from his new
post as Lieutenant of Ireland and marched on London, demanding
Somerset's removal and reform of the government.
At this stage, few of
the nobles supported such drastic action, and York was forced to
submit to superior force at Blackheath
. He was imprisoned for much of 1452 and 1453
but was released after swearing not to take arms against the
court.
The increasing discord at court was mirrored in the country as a
whole, where noble families engaged in private feuds and showed
increasing disrespect for the royal authority and for the courts of
law. The
Percy-Neville feud was
the best-known of these private wars, but others were being
conducted freely. In many cases they were fought between
old-established families, and formerly minor nobility raised in
power and influence by Henry IV in the aftermath of the rebellions
against him.
The quarrel between the Percys, for long the
Earls of Northumberland, and the comparatively upstart Nevilles was
one which followed this pattern; another was the feud between the
Courtenays and Bonvilles in Cornwall
and Devonshire. A
factor in these feuds was the presence of large numbers of soldiers
discharged from the English armies that had been defeated in
France. Nobles engaged many of these to mount raids, or to pack
courts of justice with their supporters, intimidating suitors,
witnesses and judges.
This growing civil discontent, the abundance of feuding nobles with
private armies, and corruption in Henry VI's court formed a
political climate ripe for civil war. With the king so easily
manipulated, power rested with those closest to him at court, in
other words Somerset and the Lancastrian faction. Richard and the
Yorkist faction, who tended to be physically placed further away
from the seat of power, found their power slowly being stripped
away. Royal power also started to slip, as Henry was persuaded to
grant many royal lands and estates to the Lancastrians.
In 1453, Henry suffered the first of several bouts of complete
mental collapse, during which he failed even to recognise his
new-born son,
Edward of
Westminster. A Council of Regency was set up, headed by the
Duke of York, who still remained popular with the people, as
Lord Protector. York soon asserted
his power with ever-greater boldness (although there is no proof
that he had aspirations to the throne at this early stage). He
imprisoned Somerset and backed his Neville allies (his
brother-in-law, the
Earl of Salisbury,
and Salisbury's son, the
Earl of Warwick), in
their continuing feud with the
Earl of
Northumberland, a powerful supporter of Henry.
Henry recovered in 1455 and once again fell under the influence of
those closest to him at court. Directed by Henry's queen, the
powerful and aggressive
Margaret of
Anjou, who emerged as the
de facto leader of the
Lancastrians, Richard was forced out of court. Margaret built up an
alliance against Richard and conspired with other nobles to reduce
his influence. An increasingly thwarted Richard (who feared arrest
for treason) finally resorted to armed hostilities in 1455.
First St. Albans and the Love Day
The Duke
of York led a small force toward London
and was met
by Henry's forces at St
Albans
, north of London, on 22 May, 1455.
The
relatively small First Battle of St Albans was the first open conflict of the civil
war. Richard's aim was ostensibly to remove "poor advisors"
from King Henry's side. The result was a Lancastrian defeat.
Several prominent Lancastrian leaders, including Somerset and
Northumberland, were killed. After the battle, the Yorkists found
Henry sitting quietly in his tent, abandoned by his advisors and
servants, apparently having suffered another bout of mental
illness. (He had also been slightly wounded in the neck by an
arrow.) York and his allies regained their position of influence.
With the king indisposed, York was again appointed Protector, and
Margaret was shunted aside, charged with the king's care.
For a while, both sides seemed shocked that an actual battle had
been fought and did their best to reconcile their differences, but
the problems which had caused conflict soon re-emerged,
particularly the issue of whether the Duke of York, or Henry and
Margaret's infant son Edward, would succeed to the throne. Margaret
refused to accept any solution that would disinherit her son, and
it became clear that she would only tolerate the situation for as
long as the Duke of York and his allies retained the military
ascendancy.
Henry recovered and in February 1456 he relieved York of his office
of Protector. In the autumn of that year, Henry went on
royal progress in the Midlands, where the
king and queen were popular. Margaret did not allow him to return
to London where the merchants were angry at the decline in trade
and the widespread disorder.
The king's court was set up at Coventry
. By then, the new
Duke of Somerset was
emerging as a favourite of the royal court.
Margaret persuaded
Henry to dismiss the appointments York had made as Protector, while
York was made to return to his post as lieutenant in Ireland
.
Disorder in the capital and the north of England (where fighting
between the Nevilles and Percys had resumed) and piracy by French
fleets on the south coast were growing, but the king and queen
remained intent on protecting their own positions, with the queen
introducing
conscription for the first
time in England. Meanwhile, York's ally, Warwick (later dubbed "The
Kingmaker"), was growing in popularity in London as the champion of
the merchants.
In the spring of 1458,
Thomas
Bourchier, the
Archbishop
of Canterbury, attempted to arrange a reconciliation. The lords
had gathered in London for a Grand Council and the city was full of
armed retainers. The Archbishop negotiated complex settlements to
resolve the blood-feuds which had persisted since the Battle of St.
Albans.
Then, on Lady Day
(25 March), the King led a "love day" procession to St. Paul's
Cathedral
, with Lancastrian and Yorkist nobles following him,
hand in hand. No sooner had the procession and the Council
dispersed than plotting resumed.
Resumption of fighting, 1459-1460, and the Act of Accord
Ludlow Castle, South Shropshire
Following York's unauthorised return from Ireland, hostilities
resumed.
York summoned the Nevilles to join him at
his stronghold at Ludlow
Castle
in the Welsh Marches. On 23 September,
1459, at the Battle of Blore Heath
in Staffordshire, a
Lancastrian army failed to prevent Salisbury from marching from
Middleham
Castle
in Yorkshire to Ludlow. Shortly afterwards the combined Yorkist
armies confronted the much larger Lancastrian force at the Battle of
Ludford Bridge
. Warwick's contingent from the garrison of
Calais under Andrew
Trollope defected to the Lancastrians, and the Yorkist leaders
fled. York returned to Ireland, and
Edward, Earl of March (York's eldest
son), Salisbury, and Warwick fled to Calais.
The Lancastrians were back in total control. York and his
supporters were declared to be traitors, and
attainted. Somerset was appointed
Governor of Calais and was dispatched to
take over the vital fortress on the French side of the English
Channel, but his attempts to evict Warwick were easily repulsed.
Warwick and his supporters even began to launch raids on the
English coast from Calais, adding to the sense of chaos and
disorder. Being attainted, only a successful invasion would restore
the Yorkists' lands and titles. Warwick travelled to Ireland to
concert plans with York, easily evading the royal ships commanded
by the
Duke of
Exeter.
In late
June 1460, Warwick, Salisbury and Edward of March crossed the
Channel and rapidly established themselves in Kent
and London,
where they enjoyed wide support. Backed by a papal emissary
who had taken their side, they marched north. Henry led an army
south to meet them while Margaret remained in the north with Prince
Edward.
At the Battle of
Northampton
on 10 July, the Yorkist army under Warwick defeated
the Lancastrians, aided by treachery in the king's ranks.
For the second time in the war, King Henry was found by the
Yorkists in a tent, abandoned by his retinue, having apparently
suffered another breakdown. With the king in their possession, the
Yorkists returned to London.
In the light of this military success, Richard of York moved to
press his claim to the throne based on the illegitimacy of the
Lancastrian line.
Landing in north Wales, he and his
wife Cecily entered London with all
the ceremony usually reserved for a monarch. Parliament
was assembled, and when York entered he made
straight for the throne, which he may have been expecting the Lords
to encourage him to take for himself as they had acclaimed Henry IV
in 1399. Instead, there was stunned silence. York announced
his claim to the throne, but the Lords, even Warwick and Salisbury,
were shocked by his presumption; they had no desire at this stage
to overthrow King Henry. Their ambition was still limited to the
removal of his bad councillors.
The next day, York produced detailed
genealogies to support his claim based on his
descent from
Lionel of Antwerp and
was met with more understanding. Parliament agreed to consider the
matter and accepted that York's claim was better, but by a majority
of five, they voted that Henry VI should remain as king. A
compromise was struck in October 1460 with the
Act of Accord, which recognised York as
Henry's successor, disinheriting Henry's six year old son, Edward.
York accepted this compromise as the best on offer. It gave him
much of what he wanted, particularly since he was also made
Protector of the Realm and was able to govern in Henry's
name.
Lancastrian counter-attack
Ruins of Sandal Castle, near
Wakefield, West Yorkshire
Queen
Margaret and her son had fled to north Wales, parts of
which were still in Lancastrian hands. They later travelled
by sea to Scotland
to negotiate for Scottish assistance.
Mary of Gueldres, Queen Consort to James II of Scotland, agreed to give
Margaret an army on condition that she cede the town of Berwick
to Scotland and Mary's daughter be betrothed to
Prince Edward. Margaret agreed, although she had no funds to
pay her army and could only promise booty from the riches of
southern England, as long as no looting took place north of the
River Trent.
The Duke
of York left London later that year with the Earl of Salisbury to
consolidate his position in the north against the Lancastrians who
were reported to be massing near the city of York.
He took
up a defensive position at Sandal Castle
near Wakefield
over Christmas 1460. Then on 30 December,
his forces left the castle and attacked the Lancastrians in the
open, although outnumbered.
The ensuing Battle of Wakefield
was a complete Lancastrian victory. Richard
of York was slain in the battle, and both Salisbury and York's
17-year-old second son,
Edmund,
Earl of Rutland, were captured and executed. Margaret ordered
the heads of all three placed on the gates of York.
Parhelion at sunset
The Act of Accord and the events of Wakefield left the 18-year-old
Edward, Earl of March, York's eldest son, as Duke of York and heir
to his claim to the throne.
With an army from the pro-Yorkist Marches
(the border area between England and Wales), he met Jasper Tudor's Lancastrian
army arriving from Wales, and he defeated them soundly at the
Battle of
Mortimer's Cross
in Herefordshire
. He inspired his men with a "vision" of
three suns at dawn (a phenomenon known as "
parhelion"), telling them that it was a portent of
victory and represented the three surviving York sons; himself,
George and Richard. This led to Edward's later adoption of the sign
of the
sunne in splendour as his personal emblem.
Margaret's army was moving south, supporting itself by looting as
it passed through the prosperous south of England.
In London, Warwick
used this as propaganda to reinforce Yorkist support throughout the
south — the town of Coventry switched allegiance to the Yorkists.
Warwick's army established fortified positions north of the town of
St Albans to block the main road from the north but was
outmanoeuvred by Margaret's army which swerved to the west and then
attacked Warwick's positions from behind.
At the Second Battle
of St Albans, the Lancastrians won another decisive
victory. As the Yorkist forces fled they left behind King
Henry, who was found unharmed, sitting quietly beneath a
tree.
Henry knighted thirty Lancastrian soldiers immediately after the
battle. In an illustration of the increasing bitterness of the war,
Queen Margaret instructed her seven-year-old son Edward of
Westminster to determine the manner of execution of the Yorkist
knights who had been charged with keeping Henry safe and had stayed
at his side throughout the battle.
As the Lancastrian army advanced southwards, a wave of dread swept
London, where rumours were rife about savage northerners intent on
plundering the city.
The people of London shut the city gates and
refused to supply food to the queen's army, which was looting the
surrounding counties of Hertfordshire
and Middlesex
.
Yorkist triumph
Edward IV
Meanwhile, Edward of March advanced towards London from the west
where he had joined forces with Warwick's surviving forces.
This
coincided with the northward retreat by the queen to Dunstable
, allowing Edward and Warwick to enter London with
their army. They were welcomed with enthusiasm, money and
supplies by the largely Yorkist-supporting city. Edward could no
longer claim simply to be trying to free the king from bad
councillors; it had become a battle for the crown. Edward needed
authority, and this seemed forthcoming when
Thomas Kempe, the
Bishop of London, asked the people of
London their opinion and they replied with shouts of "King Edward".
This was
quickly confirmed by Parliament, and Edward was unofficially
crowned in a hastily arranged ceremony at Westminster
Abbey
amidst much jubilation, although Edward vowed he
would not have a formal coronation until
Henry and Margaret were executed or exiled. He also
announced that Henry had forfeited his right to the crown by
allowing his queen to take up arms against his rightful heirs under
the Act of Accord, though it was being widely argued that Edward's
victory was simply a restoration of the rightful heir to the
throne, which neither Henry nor his Lancastrian predecessors had
been. It was this argument which Parliament had accepted the year
before.
Edward and Warwick marched north, gathering a large army as they
went, and met an equally impressive Lancastrian army at Towton.
The
Battle of
Towton, near York, was the biggest battle of the Wars of
the Roses. Both sides agreed beforehand that the issue was
to be settled that day, with no quarter asked or given. An
estimated 40,000—80,000 men took part, with over 20,000 men being
killed during (and after) the battle, an enormous number for the
time and the greatest recorded single day's loss of life on English
soil. Edward and his army won a decisive victory and the
Lancastrians were routed, with most of their leaders slain. Henry
and Margaret, who were waiting in York with their son Edward, fled
north when they heard the outcome. Many of the surviving
Lancastrian nobles switched allegiance to King Edward, and those
who did not were driven back to the northern border areas and a few
castles in Wales. Edward advanced to take York where he replaced
the rotting heads of his father, his brother, and Salisbury with
those of defeated Lancastrian lords such as the notorious
John Clifford, 9th Baron de
Clifford of Skipton-Craven, who was blamed for the execution of
Edward's brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, after the Battle of
Wakefield.
Edward IV
Edward IV's official
coronation took
place in June 1461 in London where he received a rapturous welcome
from his supporters. Edward was able to rule in relative peace for
ten years.
Harlech Castle, Gwynedd, Wales
In the north, Edward could never really claim to have complete
control until 1465. After the Battle of Towton, Henry and Margaret
had fled to Scotland where they stayed with the court of
James III, implementing their earlier
promise to cede Berwick to Scotland.
Later in the year,
they mounted an attack on Carlisle
but, lacking money, they were easily repulsed by
Edward's men who were rooting out the remaining Lancastrian forces
in the northern counties. Several castles under Lancastrian
commanders held out for years.
Dunstanburgh
, Alnwick
(the Percy family seat), and Bamburgh
were some of the last to fall.
There were Lancastrian revolts in the north of England in 1464.
Several Lancastrian nobles, including the third
Duke of Somerset, who
had apparently been reconciled to Edward, readily led the
rebellion. The revolt was put down by Warwick's brother,
John Neville.
A small
Lancastrian army was destroyed at the Battle of
Hedgeley Moor
on 25 April, but because Neville was escorting
Scottish commissioners for a treaty to York, he could not
immediately follow up this victory. Then on 15 May, he
routed Somerset's army at the Battle of Hexham
. Somerset was captured and executed.
The
deposed King Henry was later captured for the third time at
Clitheroe
in Lancashire in 1465. He was taken to London and held prisoner at
the Tower of
London
where, for the time being, he was reasonably well
treated. About the same time, once England under Edward IV
and Scotland had come to terms, Margaret and her son were forced to
leave Scotland and sail to France, where they maintained an
impoverished court in exile for several years.
The last
remaining Lancastrian stronghold was Harlech Castle
in Wales, which surrendered in 1468 after a
seven-year-long siege.
Warwick's rebellion and the Readeption of Henry VI
The powerful Earl of Warwick ("the Kingmaker") had meanwhile become
the greatest landowner in England. Already a great magnate through
his wife's property, he had also inherited his father's estates and
had been granted much forfeited Lancastrian property. He also held
many of the offices of state. He was convinced of the need for an
alliance with France and had been negotiating a match between
Edward and a French bride. However, Edward had married
Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a
Lancastrian knight, in secret in 1464. He later announced the news
of his marriage as
fait
accompli, to Warwick's considerable embarrassment.
This embarrassment turned to bitterness when the Woodvilles came to
be favoured over the Nevilles at court. Many of Queen Elizabeth's
relatives were married into noble families and others were granted
peerages or royal offices. Other factors compounded Warwick's
disillusionment: Edward's preference for an alliance with
Burgundy rather than France, and Edward's
reluctance to allow his brothers
George, Duke of Clarence, and
Richard, Duke of Gloucester,
to marry Warwick's daughters
Isabel
and
Anne. Furthermore, Edward's general
popularity was on the wane in this period with higher taxes and
persistent disruptions of law and order.
Middleham Castle
By 1469 Warwick had formed an alliance with Edward's jealous and
treacherous brother Clarence, who married Isabel Neville in
defiance of Edward's wishes in Calais.
They raised an army
which defeated the king's forces at the Battle of
Edgecote Moor
. Edward was captured at Olney,
Buckinghamshire
, and imprisoned at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire. (Warwick briefly had
two Kings of England in his custody.) Warwick had the
queen's father,
Richard Woodville, 1st Earl
Rivers, and her brother
John
executed. However, he made no immediate move to have Edward
declared illegitimate and place Clarence on the throne.
The
country was in turmoil, with nobles once again settling scores with
private armies (in episodes such as the Battle of
Nibley Green
), and Lancastrians being encouraged to
rebel. Few of the nobles were prepared to support Warwick's
seizure of power. Edward was escorted to London by Warwick's
brother
George, the
Archbishop of York, where he and
Warwick were reconciled, to outward appearances.
When
further rebellions broke out in Lincolnshire
, Edward easily suppressed them at the Battle of
Losecoat Field
. From the testimony of the captured leaders,
he declared that Warwick and Clarence had instigated them. They
were declared traitors and forced to flee to France, where Margaret
of Anjou was already in exile.
Louis
XI of France, who wished to forestall a hostile alliance
between Edward and Edward's brother in law
Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy, suggested the idea of an
alliance between Warwick and Margaret. Neither of those two
formerly mortal enemies entertained the notion first, but
eventually they were brought round to realise the potential
benefits. However, both were undoubtedly hoping for different
outcomes: Warwick for a puppet king in the form of Henry or his
young son; Margaret to be able to reclaim her family's realm. In
any case, a marriage was arranged between Warwick's daughter Anne
and Margaret's son Edward, and Warwick invaded England in the
autumn of 1470.
Battle of Tewkesbury
Edward IV had already marched north to suppress another uprising in
Yorkshire. Warwick, with help from a fleet under his nephew, the
Bastard of Fauconberg, landed
at Dartmouth and rapidly secured support from the southern counties
and ports. He occupied London in October, and paraded Henry VI
through the streets of London as the restored king. Warwick's
brother John Neville, who had recently received the empty title
Marquess of Montagu and who led large armies in the Scottish
marches, changed loyalties to support his brother Warwick. Edward
was unprepared for this event and had to order his army to scatter.
He and
Gloucester fled from Doncaster to the coast, and thence to Holland
and exile in Burgundy. They were proclaimed
traitors, and many exiled Lancastrians returned to reclaim their
estates.
Warwick's success was short-lived, however. He overreached himself
with his plan to invade Burgundy in alliance with the King of
France, tempted by King Louis' promise of territory in the
Netherlands as a reward. This led Edward's brother in law, Charles
of Burgundy, to provide funds and troops to Edward to enable him to
launch an invasion of England in 1471.
Edward landed with a
small force at Ravenspur
on the Yorkshire coast. Initially claiming
to support Henry and to be seeking only to have his title of Duke
of York restored, he soon gained the city of York and rallied
several supporters. His brother Clarence turned traitor again,
abandoning Warwick. Having outmanoeuvred Warwick and Montagu,
Edward captured London.
His army then met Warwick's at the Battle of
Barnet
. The battle was fought in thick fog, and
some of Warwick's men attacked each other by mistake. It was
believed by all that they had been betrayed, and Warwick's army
fled. Warwick was cut down trying to reach his horse. Montagu also
was killed in the battle.
Margaret and her son Edward had landed in the
West Country only a few days before the Battle
of Barnet.
Rather than return to France, Margaret
sought to join the Lancastrian supporters in Wales and marched to
cross the Severn but was thwarted when
the city of Gloucester
refused her passage across the river.
Her army,
commanded by the fourth successive Duke of Somerset, was
brought to battle and destroyed at the Battle of
Tewkesbury
. Prince Edward, the Lancastrian heir to the
throne, was killed. With no heirs to succeed him, Henry VI was
murdered shortly afterwards on 14 May, 1471, to strengthen the
Yorkist hold on the throne.
Richard III
The restoration of Edward IV in 1471 is sometimes seen as marking
the end of the Wars of the Roses proper. Peace was restored for the
remainder of Edward's reign. His youngest brother,
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and
Edward's lifelong companion and supporter,
William Hastings, were
generously rewarded for their loyalty, becoming effectively
governors of the north and midlands respectively. George of
Clarence became increasingly estranged from Edward, and was
executed in 1478 for association with convicted traitors.
When Edward died suddenly in 1483, political and dynastic turmoil
erupted again. Many of the nobles still resented the influence of
the queen's Woodville relatives (her brother,
Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl
Rivers and her son by her first marriage,
Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of
Dorset), and regarded them as power-hungry upstarts and
parvenus.
At the time of
Edward's premature death, his heir, Edward V, was only 12 years old and had
been brought up under the stewardship of Earl Rivers in Ludlow
.
On his deathbed, Edward had named his surviving brother Richard of
Gloucester as Protector of England. Richard had been in the north
when Edward died. Hastings, who also held the office of
Lord Chamberlain, sent word to him to bring
a strong force to London to counter any force the Woodvilles might
muster. The
Duke
of Buckingham also declared his support for Richard.
Richard
and Buckingham overtook Earl Rivers, who was escorting the young
Edward V to London, at Stony Stratford
in Buckinghamshire on 28 April. Although
they dined with him amicably, they took him prisoner the next day,
and declared to Edward that they had done so to forestall a
conspiracy by the Woodvilles against his life.
Rivers and his nephew
Richard Grey were sent to Pontefract
Castle
in Yorkshire and executed there at the end of
June.
Edward entered London in the custody of Richard on 4 May, and was
lodged in the Tower of London. Elizabeth Woodville had already gone
hastily into sanctuary at Westminster with her remaining children,
although preparations were being made for Edward V to be crowned on
22 June, at which point Richard's authority as Protector would end.
On 13 June, Richard held a full meeting of the Council, at which he
accused Hastings and others of conspiracy against him. Hastings was
executed without trial later in the day.
Thomas Bourchier, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, then
persuaded Elizabeth Woodville to allow her younger son, the
9-year-old
Richard, Duke of
York, to join Edward in the Tower. Having secured the boys,
Richard then alleged that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth
Woodville had been illegal and that the two boys were therefore
illegitimate. Parliament agreed, and enacted the
Titulus Regius, which officially named
Gloucester as
King Richard
III. The two imprisoned boys, known as the "
Princes in the Tower", disappeared and
were possibly murdered; by whom and under whose orders remains
controversial.
Having been crowned in a lavish ceremony on 6 July, Richard then
proceeded on a tour of the Midlands and the north of England,
dispensing generous bounties and charters and creating his own son
Prince of Wales.
Buckingham's revolt
Opposition to Richard's rule had already begun in the south when,
on 18 October, the Duke of Buckingham (who had been instrumental in
placing Richard on the throne and who himself had a distant claim
to the crown), led a revolt aimed at installing the Lancastrian
Henry Tudor. It has been argued
that by supporting Tudor rather than either Edward V or his younger
brother, Buckingham was aware that both were already dead. Many
like Buckingham who had been prepared to support Richard against
the Woodvilles were revolted by his dispossession and presumed
murder of Edward IV's sons, and turned against Richard.
The Lancastrian claim to the throne had descended to
Henry Tudor on the death of Henry VI
and his son in 1471. Henry's father,
Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of
Richmond, had been a half-brother of Henry VI, but his claim to
royalty was through his mother,
Margaret Beaufort. She was descended
from
John
Beaufort, who was a son
John of
Gaunt and thus a grandson of Edward III. John Beaufort had been
illegitimate at birth, though later legitimized by the marriage of
his parents. It had supposedly been a condition of the
legitimisation that the Beaufort descendants forfeited their rights
to the crown. Henry had spent much of his childhood under siege in
Harlech Castle or in exile in
Brittany.
After 1471, Edward IV had preferred to belittle Henry's pretensions
to the crown, and made only sporadic attempts to secure him.
However his mother, Margaret Beaufort, had been twice remarried,
first to Buckingham's uncle, and then to
Thomas, Lord Stanley, one
of Edward's principal officers, and continually promoted her son's
rights.
Buckingham's rebellion failed. Some of his supporters in the south
rose up prematurely, thus allowing Richard's Lieutenant in the
South, the
Duke of
Norfolk, to prevent many rebels from joining forces.
Buckingham himself raised a force at
Brecon
in
mid-Wales. He was prevented from crossing the
River Severn to join other rebels in the south
of England by storms and floods, which also prevented Henry Tudor
landing in the West Country. Buckingham's starving forces deserted
and he was betrayed and executed.
The failure of Buckingham's revolt was clearly not the end of the
plots against Richard, who could never again feel secure, and who
also suffered the loss of his wife and eleven-year old son, putting
the future of the Yorkist dynasty in doubt.
Henry Tudor
Henry VII
Many of Buckingham's defeated supporters and other disaffected
nobles fled to join Henry Tudor in exile. Richard made an attempt
to bribe the Duke of Brittany's Minister to betray Henry, but Henry
was warned and escaped to France, where he was again given
sanctuary and aid.
Confident
that many magnates and even many of Richard's officers would join
him, Henry set sail from Harfleur
on 1 August, 1485, with a force of exiles and
French mercenaries. With fair winds, he landed in Pembrokeshire
six days later. The officers Richard had
appointed in Wales either joined Henry or stood aside.
Henry gathered
supporters on his march through Wales and the Welsh Marches, and
defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field
. Richard was slain during the battle,
supposedly by the Welsh man-at-arms
Rhys
ap Thomas with a blow to the head from his
poleaxe. (Rhys was knighted three days later by
Henry VII).
Henry having been acclaimed King Henry VII, he then strengthened
his position by marrying
Elizabeth of
York, daughter of Edward IV and the best surviving Yorkist
claimant. He thus reunited the two royal houses, merging the rival
symbols of the red and white roses into the new emblem of the red
and white
Tudor Rose. Henry shored up his
position by executing all other possible claimants whenever any
excuse was offered, a policy his son,
Henry VIII, continued.
Many historians consider the accession of Henry VII to mark the end
of the Wars of the Roses. Others argue that they continued to the
end of the fifteenth century, as there were several plots to
overthrow Henry and restore Yorkist claimants. Only two years after
the Battle of Bosworth, Yorkists rebelled, led by
John de la Pole, Earl of
Lincoln, who had been named by Richard III as his heir but had
been reconciled with Henry after Bosworth. The conspirators
produced a pretender to the throne, a boy named
Lambert Simnel who bore a close physical
resemblance to the young
Edward,
Earl of Warwick (son of Clarence), the best surviving male
claimant of the House of York. This plan was on very shaky ground,
because the young earl was still alive and in King Henry's custody,
and was paraded through London to expose the impersonation.
At the
Battle of
Stoke
, Henry defeated Lincoln's army. Simnel was
pardoned for his part in the rebellion and was sent to work in the
royal kitchens.
Henry's throne was again challenged in 1491 with the appearance of
the pretender
Perkin Warbeck, who
claimed to be Richard, Duke of York (the younger of the two Princes
in the Tower). Warbeck made repeated attempts to incite revolts,
with support at various times from the court of Burgundy and
James IV of Scotland. He was
captured after the failed
Second Cornish Uprising of
1497, and executed in 1499 after attempting to escape
imprisonment.
Aftermath
Although historians still debate the true extent of the conflict's
impact on medieval English life, there is little doubt that the
Wars of the Roses resulted in political upheaval and changes to the
established balance of power. The most obvious effect was the
collapse of the Plantagenet dynasty and its replacement with the
new
Tudor rulers who changed England
dramatically over the following years. In the following Henrician
and post-Henrician times, the remnant Plantagenet factions with no
direct line to the throne were disabused of their independent
positions, as monarchs continually played them against each
other.
With their heavy casualties among the
nobility, the wars are thought to have continued
the changes in feudal English society caused by the effects of the
Black Death, including a weakening of
the feudal power of the nobles and a corresponding strengthening of
the merchant classes, and the growth of a strong, centralized
monarchy under the Tudors. It heralded the end of the medieval
period in England and the movement towards the
Renaissance.
On the other hand, it has also been suggested that the traumatic
impact of the wars was exaggerated by Henry VII to magnify his
achievement in quelling them and bringing peace. Certainly, the
effect of the wars on the merchant and labouring classes was far
less than in the long drawn-out wars of siege and pillage in France
and elsewhere in Europe, which were carried out by mercenaries who
profited from the prolonging of the war. Although there were some
lengthy sieges, such as at Harlech Castle and Bamburgh Castle,
these were in comparatively remote and sparsely-inhabited regions.
In the populated areas, both factions had much to lose by the ruin
of the country and sought quick resolution of the conflict by
pitched battle.
The war was disastrous for England's already declining influence in
France, and by the end of the struggle none of the gains made over
the course of the
Hundred Years'
War remained, apart from Calais which eventually fell during
the reign of
Mary I. Although
later English rulers continued to campaign on the continent,
England's territories were never reclaimed. Indeed, various duchies
and kingdoms in Europe played a pivotal role in the outcome of the
war; in particular the kings of France and the dukes of Burgundy
played the two factions off against each other, pledging military
and financial aid and offering asylum to defeated nobles and
pretenders, to prevent a strong and unified England making war on
them.
The post-war period was also the death knell for the large standing
baronial armies, which had helped fuel the conflict. Henry VII,
wary of any further fighting, kept the barons on a very tight
leash, removing their right to raise, arm, and supply armies of
retainers so that they could not make war on each other or the
king. As a result the military power of individual barons declined,
and the Tudor court became a place where baronial squabbles were
decided with the influence of the monarch.
Few noble houses were actually exterminated during the wars. For
example, in the period from 1425 to 1449, before the outbreak of
the war, there were as many extinctions of noble lines (25) as
occurred during the period of fighting (24) from 1450 to 1474.
However, the most openly ambitious nobles died, and by the later
period of the wars, fewer nobles were prepared to risk their lives
and titles in an uncertain struggle.
In literature
Important locations in the Wars of the
Roses
Chronicles written during the Wars of the Roses include:
- Benet's Chronicle
- Gregory's Chronicle (1189-1469)
- Short English Chronicle (-1465)
- Hardyng's Chronicle: first version for Henry VI (1457)
- Hardyng's Chronicle: second version for Richard, duke of York
and Edward IV (1460 and c. 1464)
- Hardyng's Chronicle: second 'Yorkist' version revised for
Lancastrains during Henry VI's Readeption (see Peverley's
article).
- Capgrave (1464)
- Commynes (1464-1498)
- Chronicle of the Lincolnshire Rebellion (1470)
- Historie of the arrival of Edward IV in England (1471)
- Waurin (-1471)
- An English Chronicle: aka Davies' Chronicle (1461)
- Brief Latin Chronicle (1422-1471)
- Fabyan (-1485)
- Rous (1480/86)
- Croyland Chronicle (1149-1486)
- Warkworth's Chronicle (1500?)
Key figures
Family Tree
The above-listed individuals with well-defined sides are
coloured with red borders for Lancastrians and blue for Yorkists
(The Kingmaker changed sides, so he is represented with a purple
border)
See also
Notes
References
- (A novelized account of the Wars of the Roses)
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