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| Henry VI of England |
Henry V, who had
conquered half of France, died in 1422. The throne passed to his infant son
Henry. Guardianship of the infant king was put in the hands of the baby’s
uncles. The Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester split the governance of the realm:
Bedford became Regent in France while Gloucester assumed direct charge of the
court and parliamentary dealings. Gloucester hoped to attain the loftier title
of ‘Protector of the Realm,’ but the Council could sense his ambition and
refused to grant him such power. The Council’s slighting provoked a
two-decade-long quarrel between the two, and that quarrel was personal: the
Council’s chief was none other than Henry Beaufort, the bishop of Winchester,
who happened to be Gloucester’s half-uncle. In 1441 Beaufort accused the
Duchess of Gloucester of practicing witchcraft against the adolescent king.
Gloucester’s political clout suffered from her conviction, and the wily
Beaufort took Gloucester’s place over the king. Beaufort’s nephew, the Duke of
Somerset, and William de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk, took places of high
power at Beaufort’s side. In 1444 Henry VI married the French-born Margaret of
Anjou. Though Somerset and Suffolk were disliked by most of the English, Queen
Margaret favored them—and absorbed their unpopularity. A string of defeats in
France served as an impetus for Gloucester to lead a revolt against the
ineffective crown. His rebellion failed, and he was imprisoned and died of a
stroke. The queen divvied up Gloucester’s substantial estates to Suffolk and a
number of her friends. Beaufort, who had laid the foundation for Somerset and
Suffolk, died in 1447, just six weeks after the revolt. Suffolk, immensely
unpopular with the people, was impeached and banished from England (he wouldn’t
make it far, murdered just off-shore in a boat on his way to France). Somerset
took the helm of the kingdom, but he, too, suffered a nosedive in popularity
after Jack Cade’s rebellion in 1450. Though he was able to cool the passions of
disaffected nobles and a moody populace, the rebellion brought to the forefront
another opponent that Somerset would have to face: Richard, Duke of York.
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| Richard of York |
Richard of York was
the great grandson of Edward III via his father’s bloodline. He was
born in 1411 to Richard, the 3rd Earl of Cambridge, and his wife Anne Mortimer.
Anne died giving birth to the boy, and Richard’s father was beheaded just four
years later for his involvement in the Southampton Plot against then-king Henry
V. The traitorous earl’s title was forfeited but not politically stained, and
the four-year-old orphaned boy became his late father’s heir. Just months after
the earl’s execution, the boy’s heirless uncle, the 2nd Duke of York, was
killed at Agincourt. Because the late duke was childless, his estates passed on
to the young Richard at the approval of the king. Though the toddler held the
title to York, he wouldn’t inherit the duchy’s land until his majority at
twenty-one. The wardship of Richard’s lands and estates was put under the reins
of Ralph Neville, the 1st Earl of Westmorland. Neville had numerous children
from two wives—of twenty-three births, twenty children survived infancy—and in
1424 he betrothed the thirteen-year-old York to his nine-year-old daughter
Cecily.Richard’s lands
multiplied a third time the year after his betrothal: his maternal uncle,
Edmund Mortimer, the 5th Earl of March, died in 1425, and the Earldom of March
was added to the teenager’s territory. The inheritance of the March estates—as
well as the Earldom of Ulster in northern Ireland—vaulted the teenaged boy into
the top echelons of English society, for he became not only the wealthiest but
also the most powerful noble in all England. A 1535 survey of church finances
in England, Wales, and English-controlled Ireland tells us that York’s net
income from the Mortimer lands in the March alone was the modern equivalent of
350,000 pounds. Neville died shortly after this landfall, and the wardship fell
to his widow Joan Beaufort. The next year Richard was knighted at Leicester by
the Duke of Bedford, and when he was eighteen the betrothal was honored in
marriage to Cecily, now fourteen years old. The next month he was invited to
the formal coronation of Henry VI in Westminster Abbey, and he followed the new
king to France and was present at his Notre-Dame coronation as King of France
in 1431. The next year York turned twenty-one and came into full control of his
inheritance; the year after that he was admitted to the Order of the Garter.
The governance of
English-controlled France had fallen on the shoulders of the Duke of Bedford,
and his death in 1436 left a vacuum to be filled. York’s political career took
off when he was appointed to fill Bedford’s shoes, albeit in a truncated
manner: he would be ‘lieutenant-general’ rather than ‘regent’ of France (because
Henry VI would be entering his majority soon, the king’s council wanted to
limit the role’s power). This change meant that York couldn’t appoint major
military officials, but he would make do. The truncated powers withstanding,
York had a daunting task across the Channel: the French were making headway in
reconquering their lands and the king’s council invested him with the task of
holding the French at bay. York’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, and
the Earl of Suffolk accompanied him across the Channel. Their forces numbered
around six thousand men, far less than the eleven thousand that had been
promised. York’s first objective was to relieve and reinforce the beleaguered
English in Paris; but when Paris fell to the French, York was ordered to look
to the integrity of English-controlled Normandy. The Duchy had become plagued
with insurrection as local allies switched their allegiance to France in the
wake of the Franco-Burgundian reconciliation in 1435, and York set about
putting things to rights—or at least to keeping things from getting worse. He
left the field actions to his generals, notably John Talbot, and he poured most
of his attention into the governance of English-controlled France. A strong
government was just as sturdy a deterrent against enemies as swords and arrows,
and it was necessary to keep Talbot’s men effective in the field. His officers
recaptured Fecamp, Saint-Germain, a hodgepodge of Norman settlements, and clung
to the Pays de Caux. Pontoise, a strategic point between Rouen and Paris that
had been lost to the French in February 1436, was recaptured in a sneak attack;
the same methods were applied to Paris, but the English were repulsed. The
winter of 1436-37 saw English territory expand as far as Picardy, and a
Burgundian army was defeated at Le Crotoy.
York’s successes
earned him favor from the king’s council, and when his assigned tenure ran out,
they asked him to stay on; but York’s year in France had drained his coffers,
as he had to pay out-of-pocket for troops and material in hope that the council
found the money to pay him back, and he declined the offer. His successor, the
Earl of Warwick, arrived in France later than expected, which only stretched
York’s debt. York finally made it back to England in November 1437, and that
same month Henry VI reached his majority and assumed the full powers of
reigning monarch. York had toiled and sacrificed for the council, but they
turned their backs on him as soon as he returned from the Continent, made empty
promises about paying him back, and found no place for him on the king’s
council. York, cast from prominence, looked after his own estates. When his
successor in France, the Earl of Warwick, died in 1439, York was given a role
in the wardship of the late earl’s young son Henry. Warwick’s lieutenancy was
temporarily filled by John Beaufort, the 3rd Earl of Somerset, but when peace
negotiations with the French came to nothing, who would succeed Warwick became
a matter of violent debate in the king’s council. Cardinal Beaufort wanted to
pursue peace with France, but the Duke of Gloucester wanted to keep up the war.
The pacifists and warhawks both liked York, who was viewed as flexible,
dependable, a good governor, and seemingly neutral regarding England’s
political machinations (though York likely leaned towards Gloucester’s
warhawkishness). Henry VI liked York, and in July 1440 York was reappointed
Lieutenant of France. York reached the Continent nearly a year later in 1441,
and his wife and daughter Anne followed him (he and Cecily would have three
children during York’s second tenure in France: Edward, Edmund, and Elizabeth
would all be born in Rouen). York resolved to continue in his methods of
governing English-controlled Normandy while leaving the war effort to his
seasoned captains, but first York would have to get his hands dirty: he landed
just in time to take the reins against a French campaign.
French forces had
just recaptured Creil and Conflans, and Talbot’s men wearied in Pontoise
beneath a French siege. York, with three hundred men, marched to reinforce
Talbot at the beleaguered city, and the 5000-strong French army withdrew. The English
chased after them for weeks, hoping (unsuccessfully) to force a battle. The
English caught up with the French, and York and Talbot attempted a pincer
movement to capture King Charles VII of France—but supplies were running low,
the troops were exhausted from weeks of hard marching, and French skirmishers
constantly winnowed the English forces. The pincer movement failed, and the
wearied English retreated. The French did a roundabout, put Pontoise back under
siege, and captured it with an artillery barrage. As the French continued reclaiming territory lost in the last hundred
years of war, the England’s royal Council lurched for peace, and in September
1442 York was appointed chief commissioner to begin peace talks with France.
Though peace with France slipped away, York was able to secure peace with the
Duchess of Burgundy, who acted in place of her husband. The next year Henry VI
put John Beaufort, recently created Duke of Somerset, in charge of eight
thousand men and tasked him with securing Gascony against the French. These men
were pulled from York’s already weakened force, increasing York’s difficulties
in pacifying Normandy. The English campaign in Gascony struck ill nerves with
the French Dukes of Brittany and Alencon, frustrating York’s entreaties with
the French nobility. Somerset failed to achieve his goals so that the Gascony
campaign did little beside make York’s job harder, and many historians
speculate that the Gascony Campaign was the fire-starter for York’s loathing of
Somerset particularly and the Beaufort family in general—a hatred that would,
in time, lead to civil war.
English reverses on
the Continent vaulted the Council’s pacifists to prominence, and Henry VI
decided it was time to make a bid for peace (or at the least a truce) with
France. As peace negotiations went forward, York’s responsibilities on the
Continent devolved into ‘toeing the line’ and maintaining the status quo. In
the fall of 1445, after spending five years in English-controlled France and
after having three more children, York returned to England. He’d become
associated with the Norman English who were opposed to Henry VI’s peace
overtures, so the king’s Council yet again made no room for him. The
lieutenancy of France went to Edmund Beaufort, the 2nd Earl of Somerset. Though
York attended meetings of the king’s Council and Parliament over the next two
years, most of his time was spent overseeing his estates on the Welsh border.
York’s fortunes shifted for the better when Henry VI’s uncle, the Duke of
Gloucester, died in February 1447 (he’d been accused of treason and died under
‘mysterious circumstances’ before he could stand trial). Since Gloucester and Henry
VI’s other uncles had died without male heirs, Richard became the senior
patrilineal descendant of Edward III; thus if Henry VI bore no children before
he died, York would be a solid candidate for the throne. But York’s fortunes
shifted again: when the Council gave up the province of Maine on the Continent
for an extended truce with France and a French bride for Henry, York failed to
keep his sentiments to himself and was politically banished to Ireland. He was
made Lieutenant of Ireland, and though he was certainly a good choice—he was
the Earl of Ulster and had numerous estates on the western island—it was clear
to everyone that this was the Council’s way to get him out of sight and out of
mind. His term of office was for ten years, effectively banishing him from any
other high office for a decade.
York, with a
pregnant wife and an army of six hundred men, departed for Ireland at the
beginning of summer 1449. There he cleverly inserted himself into Irish
politics, won friendships and favor from the Irish leaders, and even gained the
favor of the Irish Parliament. These successes would be rewarded: affable
Ireland would soon become a sanctuary and a beacon for Richard’s cause. Across
the western sea, public disaffection with Henry’s government and relentless
defeats in France spurred an uprising that would be known to historians as Jack
Cade’s Rebellion. Though Henry VI was able to put it down, the government was
rocked, and Henry’s chief counselor, William de la Pole, the Earl of Suffolk,
was exiled only to be murdered just after setting into the Channel bound for
France. The House of Commons railed against the king, demanding numerous
concessions, and York used the unrest to make his move. Styling himself as
nothing more than a reformer insisting on better government and the prosecution
of the ‘traitors’ who had lost northern France, Richard left his sanctuary in
Ireland and in early September 1450 landed a small invasion force in Anglesey. He evaded
capture by the Lancastrians and summoned followers to his cause. At the end of
September he reached London and had a sit-down with the king. The meeting came
to nothing, and Richard continued recruiting supporters. Violence swept through
London, and York’s premier political opponent, Somerset, was put in the Tower
for his own safety. Henry’s government made concessions to York, and the
‘reform movement’ died down. Somerset was released from the Tower and York was
given another political office, Justice of the Forest south of the Trent.
Somerset was appointed Captain of Calais, and when one of York’s followers
suggested that York be made king rather than Henry VI, he was imprisoned in the
Tower and Parliament was dissolved.
York had claims to
the throne, no matter how convoluted, from both his mother and father’s
bloodlines. His mother Anne had been the daughter of Roger Mortimer, the 4th
Earl of March. The Mortimers traced their bloodline to the Duke of Clarence,
the second adult son of Edward III, so that they were, by default, heirs of the
late childless King Richard II. When Henry IV seized the throne out from under
Richard II, their hopes for the throne were sidelined. Because the Mortimer
claim was placed on Anne’s brother Edmund, and because he died childless, the
claim passed to Richard of York; some lawyers would argue that York’s maternal
claim to the throne was better than that of the reigning House of Lancaster,
descended from Edward III’s third son John of Gaunt. On the paternal side, York
was a direct male descendent of his grandfather Edmund, the 1st Duke of York,
who had been the fourth adult son of Edward III. Thus York could claim that he
was a ‘prince of the blood,’ and he could argue that he, rather than the
sitting Henry VI, had the better claim to the throne. To this end in 1448 he
adopted the surname ‘Plantagenet’ to highlight his claim’s reliability.
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| the Battle of Castillon 1453 |
The call for Richard
of York to supplant Henry VI prompted the king to authorize a number of
reforms, and York retired to Ludlow—but only for a time. In 1452 York made a
bid for the throne, not by usurpation but by succession. He wanted to be
recognized as the king’s throne (Henry VI was still childless after seven years
of marriage), and he hoped to destroy Somerset in the process. Marching from
Ludlow, York found the gates of London barred against him. York’s ragtag army
was outnumbered by the Lancastrian loyalists, and lacking support from the
upper echelons of English society, York was forced to come to terms. He
presented his complaints against Somerset to the king, and then he was escorted
to London and put on house arrest. Two weeks later he swore an oath of
allegiance to the king at St. Paul’s Cathedral, but his heart wasn’t in it. In
addition to swearing an oath of allegiance, he promised to put an end to his
public demonstrations and support his opponents in retaking Guienne in France.
These promises would never be tested, for in July 1453, at the Battle of
Castillon, the English were soundly defeated and the war was lost.
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| the Battle of St. Albans |
Discontent soared in
England, and York knew the time was ripe for making a violent bid for the
crown. As if to pave the road for his ambitions, Henry VI collapsed into a
sixteen-month bout of insanity, and York was named Protector of the Realm for
as long as it took for the king to regain his senses. York used his newfound
power to imprison Somerset, but when the king regained his sanity in December
1454, York had no choice but to relinquish the protectorship. Somerset was
released from prison and regained control of the government. York returned to
Ludlow Castle, summoned his soldiers from the Welsh Marches, and begin to
gather an army. The Lancastrian royalists and York’s warrior assemblage clashed
at the First Battle of St. Albans in May 1455; Somerset was slain, the king was
captured, and York used his victory as leverage to have himself named Protector
of the Realm in October.
Richard named his compatriot, the Earl
of Warwick, was made Captain of Calais. This role was of vital importance, as
it was tasked with protecting the port of Calais against the always-menacing
French. Calais was England’s sole continental possession, the only surviving
fragment of what had been the king’s glorious empire, and was thus of critical
importance. In 1456 Queen Margaret, York’s clever opponent, regained control of
court and government, and York was ousted from the protector-ship and forced
back to Ireland. Warwick refused to surrender his title and armies to
Margaret’s control, and Calais became a cross-channel sanctuary for York’s
sympathizers. York wasn’t going to play Margaret’s games for the
protector-ship; he was going to try to straight-out steal the throne. In 1457
Henry tried to broker peace with the Yorkists, but the tails came to nothing.
York and Warwick began planning their separate invasions of England to turn the
throne to the Yorkist cause.
War on a scale that made St. Albans
look like a street brawl erupted again in 1459 when Queen Margaret ordered
Lancastrian royalists to waylay a contingent of Yorkist soldiers en route to a
Yorkist stronghold. The Lancastrian ambush failed, and the royalists lost twice
as many men as the Yorkists. The Battle of Blore Heath was an embarrassment for
the Lancastrians, but they got their revenge next month when Richard of York
invaded England only to be defeated at the Battle of Ludford. It’s worth noting
that his defeat wasn’t due to any ineptitude on his part but to a betrayal in
the ranks: a contingent of professional soldiers sent to York’s aid from Calais
had turned on him. York survived the encounter, but his troops dispersed. Parliament
declared York a traitor to England, and Richard had no choice but to hurry back
to Ireland to avoid the chopping block. Though declared a traitor, he was still
in control of Ireland and had the backing of the Irish Parliament.
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| the Battle of Northampton |
In June next year, 1460, Warwick made
his bid against Margaret, landing at Sandwich with two thousand choice soldiers
from the Calais garrison. He had the support of the Earl of Salisbury and
York’s son Edward, the Earl of March. The king and queen were in Coventry when
they received news of the invasion, and they scrambled together an army from
their chief noble supporters and began a hurried march south to meet Warwick’s
men. Time couldn’t be lost, for the men of southeast England weren’t fond of
the Francophile Queen, and by July Edward’s two thousand handpicked soldiers
were supplemented with three thousand citizen soldiers. York’s five thousand
men entered London on July 2 and easily seized it, as the king and queen and
the royal army were outside the city. Lord Scales in the Tower of London
refused to surrender, trusting that the royal forces would relieve the
beleaguered city soon. Warwick assembled a siege around the Tower, left men to
guard it, and took the bulk of his army north to face the king, whose forces
were encamped at Northampton. Warwick and the king clashed at the Battle of
Northampton on July 10.
Henry VI, now in Yorkist hands, was
taken to London, much to the aghast of Lord Scales in the Tower (he sensibly
surrendered the Tower to the victors). The Yorkists forced the king to give his
blessing to a Yorkist government, and Richard returned from Ireland to make his
bid for the throne. He would have to convince the court to make him king, a
daunting feat considering the current king was still alive. Richard hoped the
Yorkist victory would enable him to both woo or cow the government into
compliance, but they were unimpressed with his petitions. He had expected some
sort of respect, and his theatrics only made him look like a fool. Though he
failed to be recognized as king, the court compromised by giving his
wide-reaching powers within the realm, making him and Warwick the de facto rulers of the country.
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| the Battle of Wakefield |
Queen Margaret, meanwhile, wasn’t
restless; though exiled to Scotland, she exerted her energies in winning the
support of Scotland’s new king, James III. Richard wanted to crush her before
she could regain her strength, so in late December he marched north with his
Salisbury and his second son Edmund. They came upon York and the nearby
Pontefract Castle and found them unquestionably loyal to the imprisoned king
and willing to stake their claims on blood. Many of the royalist officers had
lost fathers at St. Albans, and they were eager for blood. On 30 December the
royalists sallied forth from their fortifications to give battle to Richard and
his entourage. The ensuing Battle of Wakefield was a disaster for the Yorkists:
Richard of York was killed (either in battle or after capture; some sources
state that he was captured, mocked with a crown of bulrushes shoved over his
head, and then beheaded); York’s son Edmund was intercepted while fleeing and
executed (rumored to be at the hands of Clifford, who was avenging the death of
his father at St. Albans); and Salisbury, though successful in escaping the
battle’s carnage, was captured the next day and promptly put to death.
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| the Battle of Towton |
Margaret recaptured London, but her
husband remained in Yorkists hands—he’d been seized by the Earl of Warwick and
carried from the city. Margaret began preparations to crush Warwick and rescue
the king, and in the meantime she ordered Richard’s traitorous head displayed
above the four-story stone gatehouse known as Micklegate Bar. This only further
incensed York’s supporters; though Margaret had hoped York’s death would put a
dent in the madness, his supporters carried on with a renewed vigor. York’s
eldest son Edward took the reigns, leading the impetus against the
Lancastrians. In February 1461 the Yorkists beat a Lancastrian force led by Sir
Owen Tudor and his son Jasper Tudor at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross. Margaret
marched the royalist army south and in late February offset Edward’s victory by
defeating the Earl of Warwick at the Second Battle of St. Albans. Margaret
successfully rescued Henry, but Edward was on her scent. She met his forces
mid-March at the Battle of Towton, the largiest and bloodiest battle fought on
British soil to-date. 28,000 men lost their lives, and the king and queen were
forced to flee to Scotland. Edward managed to accomplish what his father had
failed to do: with the help of his supporters (and, more notably, the
assistance of the politically shrewd Warwick), Edward had Henry VI deposed and
took the throne as Edward IV.
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| King Edward IV of England |
Edward didn’t expect the Lancastrians
to back down, and he put all his weight into crushing a major revolt in 1462.
Two years later Warwick defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Hexham.
Henry VI was captured again and returned to the Tower of London. That same year
Edward secured his place in the annals of romance by falling in love with
Elizabeth Woodville, a widowed commoner. She was much older than him, and her
father had been a knight who lost his life in France fighting for the infamous Edward
knew his court and family would never approve of Elizabeth, so he married her
in secret. Months later when Edward’s advisors tried to arrange a marriage
between Edward and a foreign princess, Edward had to come clean—and he did so
with gusto. He ordered London decorated with colored paper and tinfoil and
paraded Elizabeth through the city. He gave her five brothers roles in the
government, and the nobles didn’t like how much power the Woodvilles were
accumulating. Many of the appointments weakened Warwick’s power and even
insulted his family name (which was a worse offense). The offenses ran
throughout the government, and a number of disenfranchised nobles began
pondering thoughts of treason. Warwick, now more popular than the king and with
an army to spare, took arms against his backstabbing compatriot. The two
friends-turned-foes faced each other at the Battle of Edgecoat Moor in the
summer of 1469, and Edward IV suffered grievously: a number of high-ranking
officers were captured and executed, and his beloved wife’s father and brother
were captured, given a mock trial, and executed. Though Edward VI was captured,
the rebellion hadn’t been stymied: skirmishes and family clashes were rippling
through the countryside. Warwick lacked the power to keep things under control,
and he was forced to release the king and make a fragile peace with him. Though
Edward and Warwick maintained a diplomatic relationship even in the wake of
rebellion, the relationship was forever stained by the king’s humiliation and Warwick’s
burning resentment that he had gotten so
close. A number of Edward’s political maneuverings served as insults aimed
at Warwick, and Warwick made a move to recapture the king. His ambition failed,
however, and the Battle of Loosecoat Field put Warwick on the run.
Denied access to Calais, he sought
refuge and support for the French. King Louis XI was related to Queen Margaret
of Anjou (who was French, after all), and he refused to give Warwick support
unless it meant a restoration of Henry VI and Queen Margaret. What reason would
Louis have for supporting a rebellion that was opposed to his kin? Warwick
begrudgingly agreed, knowing it was an impasse that could not be crossed, and
promised to marry his daughter Anne to Margaret and Henry VI’s sole son and
heir Edward, the Prince of Wales. Warwick and his ally the Duke of Clarence
invaded England in September 1470. Warwick’s army swelled with die-hard
supporters, among them his brother Montagu who had his own reasons for
rebelling against Edward. As Edward rushed south to meet Warwick and Clarence,
Montagu marched from the north in a pincer movement to surround the king.
Edward fled to friendly faces in the Duchy of Burgundy, and Warwick, true to
his word, reinstalled Henry VI on the throne.
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| battle of Tewkesbury |
The new government stripped both
Warwick and Clarence of their lands and titles. The Duke of Clarence took over
the Duchy of York, leaving the exiled king legally homeless. But fate
intervened: Louis XI declared war on Burgundy, and Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy, steeled themselves against the French and even lent material to the
exiled king so that he could put the Francophile Lancastrians out to pasture.
Edward marched into England, cutting Warwick down and smashing the Lancastrians
at the Battle of Barnet. Queen Margaret tasted defeat at the Battle of
Tewkesbury, during the course of which her son Edward, the Prince of Wales and
Henry’s only son, was slain. The road was open to London, and the triumphant
Edward took Henry prisoner once more. “My good cousin,” the dethroned king
mused, “I know that in your hands my life will not be in danger.” He was wrong,
murdered in the Tower of London.
The throne thus passed into the hands
of the House of York, and the reign of Edward IV was a period of relative peace
and prosperity. He boosted England’s trade by making deals with the Hanseatic
League of North German trading cities, and a printing press was installed in
Westminster (by 1484 parliamentary statutes would be printed on the press).
Edward IV’s reign wasn’t without personal troubles: he had a falling-out with
his brother George, Duke of Clarence, and had him murdered in the Tower (it’s
rumored that he was drowned in a vat of wine).
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| the Princes in the Tower |
Edward IV died in 1483, and the throne
passed to his 12-year-old son Edward V. Because the new king was in his
minority, he needed help in running the kingdom; in stepped a caring,
compassionate uncle who was willing to help. Richard, the Duke of Gloucester,
saddled up alongside Edward V, and there he put to work the machinery of
political intrigue. He wanted the throne, and all that stood between them was
the new king and his younger brother. Gloucester had Edward V declared
illegitimate, and the new boy-king was deposed in favor of his uncle, now known
by the regal name Richard III. The new king had the boys imprisoned in the
Tower, and after a few months they were never seen again. It’s likely
Gloucester had them murdered; after all, he had seen firsthand how troublesome
close claimants to the throne could be.
England’s new king, Richard III of
York, named the Duke of Buckingham Constable and Great Chamberlain of England,
but Buckingham had the same rebellious spirit that flowed through the king’s
veins: he led a forlorn rebellion in October, but his army was demolished by
the royalists. Buckingham was captured, tried, and executed. Richard III’s
pacification of England marked the end of a tumultuous 1483: Edward IV had
died, his son Edward V had been deposed, and Richard had successfully taken the
throne (and eliminated rival claimants). The next year he established his
headquarters at Nottingham Castle.
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| the Battle of Bosworth Field |
He may have felt secure, but he had to
suffer for his sins: his only son and heir died in 1484, just nine years old,
and his wife Anne died the next year. As his personal life was struck blow
after blow, Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, who had sworn an oath to the
Lancastrians to marry Elizabeth of York—thus uniting the two houses to bring
the dynastic struggle to a close—, was scheming to take the throne. In early
August 1485 he landed at Milford Haven in West Wales and set to work gathering
an army to support him in his quest for kingship. Richard III faced the new
upstart at the Battle of Bosworth field. Richard III was slain and Henry Tudor
took the throne at Henry VII. In his marriage the York and Lancastrian
bloodlines merged, so that his descendants would belong to neither of the rival
houses but to a new house altogether,
that of York. Thus the Wars of the Roses—and the Plantagenet Dynasty--came to
an end. Richard III’s body would be taken to Leicester and buried in Greyfriars
Church. In 2012 his grave was rediscovered beneath a car park; his bones were
reinterred in Leicester Cathedral in March 2015.
