War of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: Lancaster and York. The wars extinguished the male lines of the two branches, leading to the Tudor family inheriting the Lancastrian claim to the throne. Following the war, the Houses of Lancaster and York were united, creating a new royal dynasty and thereby resolving their rival claims. For over thirty years, there were greater and lesser levels of violent conflict between various rival contenders for control of the English monarchy.

The War of the Roses had its roots in the wake of the Hundred Years' War. After fighting a series of armed conflicts with France, the English monarchy's prestige was weakened by emergent socio-economic troubles. This weakened prestige unfolded structural problems with bastard feudalism, a system developed by the powerful duchies created by Edward III. Combined with the mental infirmity and weak rule of King Henry VI, these structural problems revived interest in the Yorkist claim to the throne by Richard of York. Historians disagree over which of these factors was the main catalyst for the wars. It was also used as a proxy war between France and the Burgundian State.

The wars began in 1455 when Richard of York captured Henry at the First Battle of St Albans and was appointed Lord Protector by Parliament, leading to an uneasy peace. Fighting resumed four years later. Yorkists, led by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, often referred to as "Warwick the Kingmaker," captured Henry again at the Battle of Northampton. Richard of York attempted to claim the throne but was dissuaded and was killed at the Battle of Wakefield. His son Edward inherited his claim. The Yorkists lost custody of Henry after the Second Battle of St Albans but destroyed the Lancastrian army at the Battle of Towton. Edward was formally crowned three months later in June 1461. Resistance to Edward's rule continued but was crushed at the Battle of Hexham in 1464, and a period of relative peace ensued.

In 1464, Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a Lancastrian knight, and showed favour to her family. He also reversed Warwick's policy of seeking closer ties with France. Warwick, offended and sidelined, turned against Edward. In 1469, his supporters defeated a Yorkist army at the Battle of Edgcote. He captured and imprisoned Edward shortly afterwards. However, his attempt to replace Edward with his younger brother George of Clarence met with no support and Edward was allowed to resume his rule, seemingly reconciled with Warwick. Within a year, Edward accused Warwick and Clarence of fresh treachery and forced them to flee. In France, Warwick joined forces with Margaret of Anjou and led an invasion of England. When Warwick's younger brother John Neville deserted Edward, Edward in turn was forced to flee to Flanders. Warwick restored Henry VI as king.

Henry's renewed reign was short-lived however. With aid from Burgundy, Edward mounted a counter-invasion. Henry was returned to prison, and Edward defeated and killed Warwick at the Battle of Barnet. He then defeated a Lancastrian army at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Henry's heir, Edward of Westminster, was captured and executed. Henry himself died or was assassinated on Edward's order shortly afterwards. Edward ruled unopposed and England enjoyed a period of relative peace until his death twelve years later in 1483.

Edward's twelve-year-old son reigned for 78 days as Edward V until he was deposed by his uncle, Richard III. Richard assumed the throne under a cloud of controversy, particularly the disappearance of Edward IV's two sons, sparking a short-lived but major revolt and triggering a wave of desertions of prominent Yorkists to the Lancastrian cause. In the midst of the chaos, Henry Tudor, son of Henry VI's half-brother and a descendant of Edward III through his mother, returned from exile with an army of English, French, and Brittany, Breton troops. Henry defeated and killed Richard at Bosworth Field in 1485, assumed the throne as Henry VII, and married Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter and sole heir of Edward IV, thereby uniting the rival claims.

The Earl of Lincoln then put forward Lambert Simnel as an impostor Edward Plantagenet, a potential claimant to the throne. Lincoln's army was defeated and Lincoln himself killed at Stoke Field in 1487, ending the wars. Henry never faced any further serious internal military threats to his reign. In 1490, Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Edward IV's second son and rival claimant to the throne, but was executed before any rebellion could be launched.

The House of Tudor ruled England until 1603. The reign of the Tudor dynasty saw the strengthening of the prestige and power of the English monarchy, particularly under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and the end of the medieval period in England which subsequently saw the dawn of the English Renaissance. Historian John Guy argued that "England was economically healthier, more expansive, and more optimistic under the Tudors" than at any time since the Roman occupation.

Nomenclature and symbolism

The name "Wars of the Roses" refers to the heraldic badges associated with the two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet fighting for control of the English throne; the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster. Embryonic forms of this term were used in 1727 by Bevil Higgons, who described the ''quarrel between the two roses''. and by David Hume in '' The History of England'' (1754–61):

The modern term ''Wars of the Roses'' came into common use in the early 19th century following the publication of the 1829 novel ''Anne of Geierstein'' by Sir Walter Scott. Scott based the name on a scene in William Shakespeare's play ''Henry VI, Part 1'' (Act 2, Scene 4), set in the gardens of the Temple Church, where a number of noblemen and a lawyer pick red or white roses to symbolically display their loyalty to the Lancastrian or Yorkist faction respectively. During Shakespeare's time, the conflict was simply referred to as the "civil wars".

The Yorkist faction used the symbol of the white rose from early in the conflict, but the red rose of Lancaster was introduced only after the victory of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. After Henry's victory and marriage to Elizabeth of York, the sole surviving heir of Edward IV, the two roses were combined to form the Tudor rose, to symbolise the union of the two claims. The use of the rose itself as a cognizance stemmed from Edward I's use of "a golden rose stalked proper". Often, owing to nobles holding multiple titles, more than one badge was used: Edward IV, for example, used both his sun in splendour as Earl of March, but also his father's falcon and fetterlock as Duke of York. Badges were not always distinct; at the Battle of Barnet, Edward's 'sun' was very similar to the Earl of Oxford's Vere star, which caused fatal confusion in the fighting.

Many participants wore livery badges associated with their immediate liege lords or patrons. The wearing of livery was confined to those in "continuous employ of a lord", thus excluding, for example, mercenary companies. For example, Henry Tudor's forces at Bosworth fought under the banner of a red dragon, while the Yorkist army used Richard III's personal device of a white boar.

While the names of the rival houses derive from the cities of York and Lancaster, the corresponding duchy and dukedom had little to do with these cities. The lands and offices attached to the Duchy of Lancaster were primarily located in Gloucestershire, North Wales, Cheshire, and, ironically, in Yorkshire, while the estates of the Duke of York were spread throughout England and Wales, with many in the Welsh Marches.

Causes

Historical origins and overview

The House of Plantagenet was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in battle.

Under the Plantagenets, England was transformed. The Plantagenet kings were often forced to negotiate compromises such as Magna Carta, which had served to constrain their royal power in return for financial and military support. The king was no longer considered an absolute monarch in the nation—holding the prerogatives of judgement, feudal tribute, and warfare—but now also had defined duties to the kingdom, underpinned by a sophisticated justice system. A distinct national identity was shaped by their conflict with the French, Scots, Welsh and Irish, as well as by the establishment of the English language as the primary language.

In the 15th century, the Plantagenets were defeated in the Hundred Years' War and beset with social, political and economic problems. Popular revolts were common-place, triggered by the denial of numerous freedoms. English nobles raised private armies, engaged in private feuds and openly defied Henry VI.

The rivalry between the House of Plantagenet's two cadet branches of York and Lancaster brought about the Wars of the Roses, a decades-long fight for the English succession, culminating in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, when the reign of the Plantagenets and the English Middle Ages both met their end with the death of King Richard III. Henry VII of Lancastrian descent became king of England; five months later, he married Elizabeth of York, thus ending the Wars of the Roses and giving rise to the Tudor dynasty. The Tudors worked to centralise English royal power, which allowed them to avoid some of the problems that had plagued the last Plantagenet rulers. The resulting stability allowed for the English Renaissance and the advent of early modern Britain.

Bastard feudalism

Edward III, who ruled England from 1327 to 1377, had five sons who survived into adulthood; Edward of Woodstock "the Black Prince", Lionel of Antwerp, John of Gaunt, Edmund of Langley, and Thomas of Woodstock. Throughout his reign, he created duchies for his sons; Cornwall in 1337 for Edward, and Clarence and Lancaster in 1362 for Lionel and John respectively. Edmund and Thomas became the dukes of York and Gloucester respectively in 1385, during the reign of Richard II. Dukedoms had hitherto never been conferred by any English monarch upon a subject until the creation of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1337, and their genesis spawned a powerful new class of English nobility with claims to the throne and, theoretically, enough power to vie for it, since the new duchies provided Edward's sons and their heirs presumptive with an income independent of the sovereign or the state, thereby allowing them to establish and maintain their own private military retinues.

Over time, these duchies began to exacerbate the structural defects inherent in so-called "bastard feudalism", a somewhat controversial term coined in 1885 by historian Charles Plummer but largely defined by Plummer's contemporary, William Stubbs. During the reign of Edward's grandfather, Edward I, Stubbs describes a substantive shift in social dynamics in which the conscription-based feudal levy came to be replaced by a system of royal payment in return for military service by the magnates who served the monarch. Thus, instead of vassals rendering military service when called, they paid a portion of their income into their lord's treasury, who would supplement the owed service with hired retainers. These retinues were known as affinities; essentially a collection of all the individuals to whom a lord had gathered for service, and came to be one of the most fundamentally defining aspects of bastard feudalism. These affinities also had the means of tying the more powerful magnates to the lower nobility, although these relationships were now largely defined by personal connections that exhibited reciprocal benefit, rather than tenurial or feudal relationships that preceded bastard feudalism. Consequently, lords could now raise retinues they could implicitly trust, since the men of the affinity owed their positions to their patron. These affinities were often much larger than the number of men the lord actually knew, since the members of the affinity also knew and supported each other.

Under the reign of Richard II, this created a power struggle with the magnates, as Richard sought to increase the size of his own affinities as a counterweight to the growing retinues of his nobles. The retinues of the magnates became powerful enough to defend the interests of their lord against even the authority of the monarch, as John of Gaunt, and later his son, Henry Bolingbroke, did against Richard. During the wars, disaffected magnates such as Richard of York and Warwick the Kingmaker were able to rely upon their complex network of servants and retainers to successfully defy the authority of Henry VI.

Claims of the two Houses

Lancastrian claim

The House of Lancaster descended from John of Gaunt, the third surviving son of Edward III. The name derives from Gaunt's primary title as Duke of Lancaster, which he held by right of his spouse, Blanche of Lancaster. The Lancastrian claim on the throne had received preference from Edward III which explicitly emphasised the ''male'' line of descent. Henry IV based his right to depose Richard II and subsequent assumption of the throne upon this claim, since it could be argued that the heir presumptive was in fact Edmund Mortimer, the great-grandson of Edward III's second surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence. However, Mortimer was descended through the ''female'' line, inheriting the claim from his grandmother, Philippa. An important branch of the House of Lancaster was the House of Beaufort, whose members were descended from Gaunt by his mistress, Katherine Swynford. Originally illegitimate, they were legitimised by an Act of Parliament when Gaunt and Katherine later married. However, Henry IV excluded them from the line of succession to the throne.

Yorkist claim

The House of York descended from Edmund of Langley, the fourth surviving son of Edward III and younger brother of John of Gaunt. The name derives from Langley's primary title as Duke of York, which he acquired in 1385 during the reign of his nephew, Richard II. The Yorkist claim on the throne, unlike the Lancastrian claim, was based upon the ''female'' line of descent, as descendants of Lionel, the Duke of Clarence. Langley's second son, Richard of Conisburgh, had married Anne de Mortimer, daughter of Roger Mortimer and sister of Edmund Mortimer. Anne's grandmother, Philippa of Clarence, was the daughter of Lionel of Antwerp. During the fourteenth century, the Mortimers were the most powerful marcher family in the kingdom. G.M. Trevelyan wrote that "the Wars of the Roses were to a large extent a quarrel between Welsh Marcher Lords, who were also great English nobles, closely related to the English throne."

Initial phase of conflict (1377–1399)

Succession crisis

The question of succession following the death of Edward III in 1377 is said by Mortimer to be the root cause of the Wars of the Roses. Although Edward's succession seemed secure, there was a "sudden narrowing in the direct line of descent" near the end of his reign; Edward's two eldest sons, Edward, Duke of Cornwall (also known as Edward the Black Prince) and heir presumptive, and Lionel, Duke of Clarence, had predeceased their father in 1376 and 1368 respectively. Edward III was survived by three sons with claims to the throne: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; Edmund of Langley; and Thomas of Woodstock.

The Black Prince had a son, Richard, who had a claim to the throne based upon the principle that the son of an elder brother (Edward, in this case) had priority in the line of succession over his uncles. However, as Richard was a minor, had no siblings (on his father's side), and had three living uncles at the time of Edward III's death, there was considerable uncertainty within the realm over who should inherit the throne. Ultimately, Edward was succeeded by his grandson who was crowned Richard II at just 10 years old.

Under the laws of primogeniture, if Richard died without a legitimate heir, his successors would be the descendants of Lionel of Antwerp the Duke of Clarence, Edward III's second eldest son. Clarence's only child, his daughter Philippa, married into the Mortimer family and had a son, Roger Mortimer, who technically would have the best legal claim of succession. However, a legal decree issued by Edward III in 1376 introduced complexity into the question of succession, since the letters patent he issued limited the right of succession to his male line, which placed his third son, John of Gaunt, ahead of Clarence's descendants, since the latter were descended through the female line.

Richard II's Reign

Richard II, also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (known to posterity as the Black Prince), and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III; upon the latter's death, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne.

During Richard's first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of regency councils, influenced by Richard's uncles John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock. England then faced various problems, most notably the Hundred Years' War. A major challenge of the reign was the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, and the young king played a central part in the successful suppression of this crisis. Less warlike than either his father or grandfather, he sought to bring an end to the Hundred Years' War. A firm believer in the royal prerogative, Richard restrained the power of the aristocracy and relied on a private retinue for military protection instead. In contrast to his grandfather, Richard cultivated a refined atmosphere centred on art and culture at court, in which the king was an elevated figure.

Richard's reign as Richard II of England was tumultuous, marked by increasing dissension between the monarch and several of the most powerful nobles. Richard ruled without a regency council despite his young age in order to exclude his uncle, John of Gaunt the Duke of Lancaster, from wielding legitimate power. Unpopular taxes which funded unsuccessful military expeditions in Europe triggered the Peasant's Revolt in 1381, and Parliament's refusal to cooperate with the king's unpopular Lord Chancellor, Michael de la Pole, created a political crisis that seriously threatened to dethrone Richard. Richard had repeatedly switched his choice of heir throughout his reign to keep his political enemies at bay.

The king's dependence on a small number of courtiers caused discontent among the influential, and in 1387 control of government was taken over by a group of aristocrats known as the Lords Appellant. By 1389 Richard had regained control, and for the next eight years governed in relative harmony with his former opponents.

In France, much of the territory conquered by Edward III had been lost, leading Richard to negotiate a peace treaty known as Truce of Leulinghem with Charles VI in July 1389. The peace proposal, which would effectively have made England a client kingdom of France, was derided and rejected by Parliament, which was predominately controlled by the knights fighting the war. Richard decided to negotiate a ''de facto'' peace directly with Charles without seeking Parliament's approval and agreed to marry his six-year-old daughter, Isabella of Valois. Richard used the interim peace to punish his political rivals. In 1397, he took his revenge on the Appellants, many of whom were executed or exiled. The next two years have been described by historians as Richard's "tyranny".

Richard II Deposed by Henry IV

When John of Gaunt died in 1399, Richard exiled Gaunt's son Henry Bolingbroke to France, and confiscated his lands and titles. In May 1399, Richard left England for a military expedition in Ireland, giving Bolingbroke the opportunity to return to England. Henry invaded England in June 1399 with a small force that quickly grew in numbers, meeting little resistance. With the support of much of the disaffected nobility, Bolingbroke deposed Richard and was crowned as Henry IV, the first Lancastrian monarch. Richard is thought to have been starved to death in captivity, although questions remain regarding his final fate.

Richard's posthumous reputation has been shaped to a large extent by William Shakespeare, whose play '' Richard II'' portrayed Richard's misrule and his deposition as responsible for the Wars of the Roses. Modern historians do not accept this interpretation, while not exonerating Richard from responsibility for his own deposition. While probably not insane, as many historians of the 19th and 20th centuries believed, he may have had a personality disorder, particularly manifesting itself towards the end of his reign. Most authorities agree that his policies were not unrealistic or even entirely unprecedented, but that the way in which he carried them out was unacceptable to the political establishment, leading to his downfall.

Lancastrian dynasty (1399–1455)

Henry IV and Henry V

Almost immediately after assuming the throne, Henry IV faced an attempted deposition known as the "Epiphany Rising" in 1400 by John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey, and the Thomas Despenser, 1st Earl of Gloucester, to re-install the imprisoned Richard as king. The attempt failed, all four conspirators were executed, and Richard died shortly thereafter "by means unknown" in Pontefract Castle. Further west in Wales, the Welsh had generally supported Richard's rule, and, welded to a myriad of other socio-economic problems, the accession of Henry triggered a major rebellion in Wales led by Owain Glyndŵr, a member of the Welsh nobility. Glyndŵr's rebellion would outlast Henry's reign, and would not end until 1415. During the revolt, Glyndŵr received aid from members of the Tudurs, a prominent Anglesey family and maternal cousins of Glyndŵr himself, who would come to play a defining role in the coming Wars of the Roses. Disputes over promises of land, money, and royal favour in exchange for their continued support drove the House of Percy, led by Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland and Thomas Percy, 1st Earl of Worcester, to rebel multiple times against Henry. The first challenge was defeated at Shrewsbury in 1403 and Worcester was executed, while a second attempt failed at Bramham Moor in 1408, at which Northumberland was killed. Henry himself died in 1413, and was succeeded by his son, Henry of Monmouth, who was crowned Henry V.

While not plagued by constant rebellions as his father's reign was, Henry V faced a major challenge to his authority in the form of the Southampton Plot, led by Sir Thomas Grey, Henry, Baron Scrope, and Richard of Conisburgh, the latter of whom was the second son of Edmund of Langley the 1st Duke of York, in favour of the young Edmund Mortimer, who was a great-great-grandson of Edward III and at one time the heir presumptive to Richard II. Mortimer remained loyal and informed Henry of the plot, who had all three ringleaders executed.

To cement his position as king both domestically and abroad, Henry revived old dynastic claims to the French throne, and, using commercial disputes and the support France loaned to Owain Glyndŵr as a ''casus belli'', invaded France in 1415. Henry captured Harfleur on 22 September and inflicted a decisive defeat on the French at Agincourt on 25 October which wiped out a significant part of the French nobility. The English dead included Edward, 2nd Duke of York, the elder brother of Richard of Conisburgh, who had attempted to usurp Henry. Agincourt and Henry's subsequent campaigns firmly entrenched the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and Henry's pursuit of his claims on the French throne.

In 1420, Henry and Charles VI of France signed the Treaty of Troyes. The treaty disinherited the French Dauphin Charles from the line of succession, married Charles' daughter Catherine of Valois to Henry, and acknowledged their future sons as legitimate successors to the French throne. York had died at Agincourt with no issue, so Henry permitted Richard of York to inherit the title and lands of his uncle through his father, Richard of Conisburgh, York's younger brother. Henry, who himself had three younger brothers and had recently married Catherine, likely did not doubt that the Lancastrian claim on the crown was secure. On 6 December 1421, Catherine gave birth to a son, Henry. The following year on 31 August, Henry V died of dysentery at the age of 36, and his son ascended to the throne at just nine months old.

Henry V's younger brothers produced no surviving legitimate heirs, leaving only the Beaufort family as alternative Lancastrian successors. As Richard of York grew into maturity and Henry VI's rule deteriorated, York's claim to the throne became more attractive. The revenue from his estates also made him the wealthiest magnate in the kingdom.

Reign of Henry VI

From early childhood, Henry VI was surrounded by quarrelsome councillors and advisors. His younger surviving paternal uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, sought to be named Lord Protector until Henry came of age, and deliberately courted the popularity of the common people for his own ends, but was opposed by his half-uncle, Cardinal Henry Beaufort. On several occasions, Beaufort called on John, Duke of Bedford, Gloucester's older brother and nominal regent to Henry, to return from his post as the king's commander in France, either to mediate or defend him against Gloucester's accusations of treason. Overseas, the French had rallied around Joan of Arc and had inflicted major defeats on the English at Orléans

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