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The House of Lancaster and the House of York
England during the Wars of the Roses
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Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Context and local history are in purple.
Geographical context is in green.
House of Lancaster, 1399-1461
Henry IV, 1399-1413
Henry Bolingbroke, Early of Derby and
then Duke of Lancaster was crowned Henry
IV. He was Richard II’s cousin, but his claim was dubious, justified by
necessity and election.
Rebllions and competitive claims of various
interest dogged the first years of his reign.
1400
Population about 3 million.
1405
Those who had not supported Henry faced
execution. Archbishop Scrope and Thomas Mowbray were
executed.
1412
Civil War broke out in France between
the Burgundians and the Armagnacs of Orleans.
Henry V, 1413-1422
Henry V had his attention immediately
turned to events in France. In French history he might be considered the
usurper of a shaky claim, but in the contemporary context he was faced with the
reality of the situation, and might be seen as a
unifier. His military strategy was new.
1415
The English defeated the French army at
the Battle
of Agincourt on 25 October 1415. The French mounted knights were shot by
the English archers equipped with the six foot
longbow, and they panicked and fell in the mud. It was carnage for the French
knights and for the French aristocracy.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on the defeat of the French at Agincourt in 1415, and explores the cultural legacy of this emblematic
victory.
Henry established his prestige as
monarch.
1420
At the Treaty of
Troyes, Henry agreed to marry Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. Charles’
eldest son, the dauphin, was disinherited for his part in the murder of the
Duke of Burgundy in 1419.
Henry V is remembered as the ablest of
English kings, with a genius for conciliation. However
the achievements were never consolidated because he died on 31 August 1422 at
Vincennes, near Paris.
Henry VI, 1422-1461 (and Henry II of France)
1424
The French were defeated at the Battle
of Verneuil. The English seemed close to complete victory in the wars with
France.
1429
Joan of Arc
confronted Charles and claimed to have orders from the saints to chuck the
English out of France. She was sent as mascot to a relieving army to Orleans.
On 8 May 1429, the English retreated from Orleans.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the Siege of Orléans in
1428, when Joan of Arc came to the rescue of France and routed the English army
with the help of God.
Charles was crowned Charles VII at
Rheims, ignoring the Treaty of Troyes.
In reply Henry
VI was crowned Henry II of France in Paris, using an imitation crown, but the
English food was awful and the Parisians were not impressed.
Joan was captured outside Paris,
condemned for heresy and burned at Rouen. But the tide had already turned.
The English accepted a peace treaty and
abandoned their claim to the French crown.
The right to vote to men over 21 or
owning freehold land.
1440
Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on Margaret
of Anjou, Henry VI’s Queen from 1445 to 1461.
1450
Normandy came under attack by the
French.
A map of Goole Moor (Inclesmoor)
and Thorne Moor in south Yorkshire relating to a land dispute.
The Jack Cade
rebellion of June and July 1450.
1451
The French invaded Aquitaine. Bordeaux
fell on 14 June 1451. This would be the last battle of the Hundred Years War.
1453
The Fall of Constantinople.
The loss of all French lands except
Calais.
The War of the Roses, 1455 to 1485
Henry VI was not an evil King, but a
helpless one.
The Wars of the Roses were not a war
between Yorkshire and Lancashire, but rather between the Yorkist families such
as the Nevilles and the Lancastrians such as the Percys. Pickering Castle was
for instance in Lancastrian hands.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on the
Wars of the Roses, the 15th century wars between the royal Houses of
Lancaster and York, whether they represent the breakdown of the feudal system
or whether the political instability been overstated.
Noticing suddenly that the Middle Ages
were coming to an end, the Barons now made a stupendous effort to revive the
old feudal amenities of Sackage, Carnage, and
Wreckage and so stave off the Tudors for a time. They achieve this by a very
clever plan, known as the Wars of the Roses (because the Barons all picked
different coloured roses in order to see which side they were on) (1066 and all that, Walter
Sellar and Robert Yeatman, 1930).
One of the rules in the Wars of the
Roses was that nobody was ever really King … any Baron
who wished to be considered King was allowed to apply at Warwick the Kingmaker’s,
where he was made to fill up a form, answering the following questions:
(1066 and
all that, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman, 1930).
1455
Within the context of his weakness,
conflict broke out between close relatives of the King, the dukes of York and
Somerset.
On 22 May 1455 the Duke of York attacked
the royal army at the First
Battle of St Albans, killed the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland and
took the King. Having the King in their hands gave power to the Yorkist cause.
Three decades of political instability
followed, albeit there were only a few weeks of direct combat.
The tag, the
Wars of the Roses, was only used centuries later, by Walter Scott, inspired
by a scene in Shakespeare.
1460
The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians
at the Battle
of Northampton on 10 July 1460.
1461
Edward, Earl of March and the new Duke
of York, 18 years old, claimed the throne and marched north. He was victorious
at the
Battle of Towton, near York, on 29 March 1461. Many thousands died during
the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire. The
Battle of Towton was possibly the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on
English soil.
It was fought between York and Leeds and
north of Pontefract, not far from where the Doncaster Farndales
must have been at that time.
House of York, 1461-1485
Edward IV, 1461-1483
Henry VI fled to Scotland.
The Earl of Warwick, the ‘Kingmaker’,
then changed sides in a deal with Queen Margaret brokered by the king of
France.
House of Lancaster restored
Henry VI 1470 to 1471
Henry VI, passive and uncomprehending,
was restored. Edward IV fled to Burgundy.
House of York restored
1471
Edward IV 1471 to 1483
Edward IV returned to England and
defeated the Lancastrians at the Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. He returned
to London and had Henry VI murdered in the Tower.
1483
He died in April 1483.
Edward V May and June 1483 (two months)
Richard III, 1483-1485
Richard III seized the throne in July
1483 amidst violence and factionalism. He lasted two years.
Hopes now focused on Henry Tudor, the
surviving Lancastrian heir.
The founding of the College of Arms.
1485
The Battle of Bosworth.