Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The wars were fought between supporters of the House of Lancaster and House of York, two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflict resulted in the end of Lancaster's male line in 1471, leaving the Tudor family to inherit their claim to the throne through the female line. Conflict was largely brought to an end upon the union of the two houses through marriage, creating the Tudor dynasty that would subsequently rule England.
For other uses, see Wars of the Roses (disambiguation).
The Wars of the Roses were rooted in English socio-economic troubles caused by the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) with France, as well as the quasi-military bastard feudalism resulting from the powerful duchies created by King Edward III. The mental instability of King Henry VI revived Richard, Duke of York's interest in a claim to the throne. Warfare began in 1455 with York's capture of Henry at the First Battle of St Albans, upon which York was appointed Lord Protector by Parliament. Fighting resumed four years later when Yorkists led by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick captured Henry again at the Battle of Northampton. After attempting to seize the throne, York was killed at the Battle of Wakefield, and his son Edward inherited his claim per the controversial Act of Accord. The Yorkists lost custody of Henry in 1461 after the Second Battle of St Albans, but defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton. Edward was formally crowned in June 1461.
In 1464, Edward married Elizabeth Woodville against the advice of Warwick, and reversed Warwick's policy of seeking closer ties with France. Warwick rebelled against Edward in 1469, leading to Edward's imprisonment after Warwick's supporters defeated a Yorkist army at the Battle of Edgcote. Edward was allowed to resume his rule after Warwick failed to replace him with his brother George of Clarence. Within a year, Warwick launched an invasion of England alongside Henry VI's wife Margaret of Anjou. Edward fled to Flanders, and Henry VI was restored as king in 1470. Edward mounted a counter-invasion with aid from Burgundy a few months later, and killed Warwick at the Battle of Barnet. Henry was returned to prison, and his sole heir later killed by Edward at the Battle of Tewkesbury, followed by Henry's own death in the Tower of London, possibly on Edward's orders. Edward ruled unopposed for the next twelve years, during which England enjoyed a period of relative peace. Upon his death in April 1483, he was succeeded by the twelve-year-old Edward V, who reigned for 78 days until being deposed by his uncle Richard III.
Richard assumed the throne amid controversies regarding the disappearance of Edward IV's two sons. He was met with a short-lived but major revolt and a wave of Yorkist defections. Amid the chaos, Henry Tudor, a descendant of Edward III through Lady Margaret Beaufort, returned from exile with an army and killed Richard at Bosworth Field in 1485. Tudor then assumed the English throne as Henry VII and united the rival houses through marriage with Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's eldest daughter and heir. The wars concluded in 1487, with Henry VII's defeat of the remaining Yorkist opposition at Stoke Field. The House of Tudor would rule England until 1603, a period that saw the strengthening of the monarchy and the end of the medieval period in England.
Causes[edit]
Historical origins and overview[edit]
Historians disagree over which factors were the main causes of the wars.[12] The House of Plantagenet was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family had held the English throne since 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy). The War of the Roses led to the end of Plantagenet control in 1485, with the Tudor accession of Henry VII.
Under the Plantagenets, England was transformed. The Plantagenet kings had often been 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.
York's revolt (1455–1460)[edit]
St. Albans[edit]
Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York [d] led a force of around 3,000–7,000 troops south toward London, where they were met by Henry's force of 2,000 at St Albans, north of London, on 22 May 1455.[89] Though the ensuing struggle resulted in fewer than 160 casualties combined,[90] it was a decisive Yorkist victory.[91] King Henry VI had been taken prisoner by York's men, who had found the monarch hiding in a local tanner's shop, abandoned by his courtiers and advisors.[92] Despite the paucity of casualties on either side, many of York and the Neville family's most influential foes were killed, including Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, and Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron de Clifford.[91] With the king in his custody and many of his key rivals dead, York was again appointed Lord Protector by Parliament, and the Yorkist faction regained their position of influence.[93]
York's allies were soon in ascendancy thanks to the temporarily stabilised situation, particularly the young Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, who, in his capacity as Captain of Calais, had conducted anti-piracy operations in the English Channel.[94] Warwick rapidly overtook his father, Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, as York's key ally, protecting York from retribution in Parliament.[95] Warwick's position as commander of the strategically important port of Calais also gave him command of England's largest standing army. Henry's consort, Margaret of Anjou, considered Warwick a serious threat to the throne and attempted to cut off his supplies,[96] however a French attack on Sandwich in August 1457 ignited fears of a French invasion, forcing Margaret to concede and provide Warwick with the funding he required to protect the realm.[97] However, in February 1456, Henry recovered his mental faculties, and once again relieved York of his office as Lord Protector, reassuming personal governance over the realm.[98] Despite the tenuous peace, disorder was returning to the kingdom as sporadic fighting once more broke out between the Neville and Percy families.[99] To quell the growing discontent, Henry attempted to broker a public display of reconciliation between the two sides at St. Paul's Cathedral on 25 March 1458, however, no sooner had the procession dispersed than the plotting resumed.[99]
Yorkist rule under Richard III and defeat (1483–1485)[edit]
Overview[edit]
For only approximately two years, Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.
Richard was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after the accession of his brother King Edward IV. In 1472, he married Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. He governed northern England during Edward's reign, and played a role in the invasion of Scotland in 1482. When Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's eldest son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. Arrangements were made for Edward V's coronation on 22 June 1483. Before the king could be crowned, the marriage of his parents was declared bigamous and therefore invalid. Now officially illegitimate, their children were barred from inheriting the throne. On 25 June, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed a declaration to this effect, and proclaimed Richard as the rightful king. He was crowned on 6 July 1483. Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, called the "Princes in the Tower", were not seen in public after August, and accusations circulated that they had been murdered on King Richard's orders, after the Tudor dynasty established their rule a few years later.
There were two major rebellions against Richard during his reign. In October 1483, an unsuccessful revolt was led by staunch allies of Edward IV and Richard's former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. Then, in August 1485, Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, landed in southern Wales with a contingent of French troops, and marched through Pembrokeshire, recruiting soldiers. Henry's forces defeated Richard's army near the Leicestershire town of Market Bosworth. Richard was slain, making him the last English king to die in battle. Henry Tudor then ascended the throne as Henry VII.
Impact[edit]
Immediate social effects[edit]
Some historians question the impact the wars had on the fabric of English society and culture; revisionists, such as the Oxford historian K. B. McFarlane, suggests that the effects of the conflict were greatly exaggerated.[335] Many parts of England were largely unaffected by the wars, particularly East Anglia.[336] In the densely populated regions of the country, both factions had far more to lose by the ruin of the country through protracted sieges and pillaging, and sought a quick resolution to the conflict through a pitched battle. The lengthy sieges that did occur, such as at Harlech and Bamburgh were in comparatively remote and sparsely populated areas.[337] Contemporaries such as Philippe de Commines observed in 1470 that England was a unique case compared to wars that befell the continent, in that the consequences of war were only visited upon soldiers and nobles, not citizens and private property.[338]
The instability caused by the Wars of the Roses allowed nobles to take advantage and promote their own position at the expense of others. This was because the 15th century CE witnessed the phenomenon of 'bastard feudalism' which involved the partial degradation of medieval feudalism. Rich landowners were able to possess private armies of retainers, accumulate wealth, and diminish the power of the Crown at a local level. [339]
Many areas undertook little effort to improve their defences; city walls were either left in prior ruinous states or only partially rebuilt, as was the case in London, whereby the citizenry was able to avoid devastation by persuading the Yorkist and Lancastrian troops to stay out, after the inability to reconstruct adequate walls, thereby rendering the city indefensible.[340]
"It is true that the wars were largely fought between nobles and their private armies, and they were also intermittent with fewer than 24 months of actual fighting over the entire period. Nevertheless, the local populace was sometimes dragged into the conflict, especially if nobles formed militia from their estate workers."[339]
Among the lords, few noble houses were extinguished entirely by the wars; between 1425 and 1449, before the outbreak of fighting, there were as many extinctions of noble lines from natural causes (25), as occurred between 1450 and 1474 (24), during the heaviest period of combat.[338] However, several preeminent noble families had their power crippled because of the fighting, such as the Neville family,[221] while the direct male line of the Plantagenet dynasty was rendered extinct. Nevertheless, every subsequent monarch of England and its successor states has been a direct descendant of Edward III of England through three of his sons, but through the female line. The reign of the monarchy was broken briefly only by Cromwell's Commonwealth of England and The Protectorate.[334]
Despite the relative paucity of violence undertaken against civilians, the wars claimed the lives of 105,000 people,[1] approximately 5.5% of the population level in 1450, though by 1490 England had experienced a 12.6% increase in population levels compared to 1450, despite the wars.[341][342]
Armies and warfare[edit]
Strategy[edit]
Military strategy in the medieval period was predominated by siege warfare; fortifications provided a powerful bastion of defence for a regional populace to shelter from large-scale pillaging that characterised groups such as the Vikings or Mongols,[369] and castles evolved as a central point of control and protection for local elites to exercise their authority over a given area. Fortifications also nullified the dominant weapon of the medieval battlefield: heavy cavalry.[370] Pitched battles were generally rare compared to the Classical period due to a dramatic reduction in logistical capability,[371] and those that were fought tended to be decisive encounters that risked the deaths of the leaders and the potential destruction of the army as a fighting force, discouraging them from taking place.[372] The Wars of the Roses were anomalous in this regard; nobles had a great deal to lose by the ruin of the countryside in a protracted conflict, so they tended to deliberately seek pitched battles to resolve their grievances quickly and decisively.[337]
Chronicles written during the Wars of the Roses include: