Plantagenet Rivalry and the Wars of
the Roses
The Plantagenet struggles leading to
the Wars of the Roses
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Let him that is a true-born
gentleman, And stands upon the honour of his
birth, If he suppose that I have pleaded
truth, From off this briar pluck a white
rose with me. |
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Let him that is no coward nor no
flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the
truth, Pluck a red rose from off this
thorn with me. |
(From Henry
VI Part 1, Act II, Scene 4)
Feudalism
gone wrong
The
traditional feudal system had evolved since the Norman Conquest. It was rooted
in a deal that involved the exchange of land and a livelihood within royal and
noble estates for rent and service. It was the source from which an army could
be drawn when it was required. In the late fourteenth century, relying on this
system, Edward III had created duchies for his sons, including the Duchies of
York and Lancaster. Administration was thereby devolved and from that
devolution, new powerful families of rival Houses emerged. The feudal bond was
mutual, so the ordinary classes of folk increasingly demanded protection in
return for their part of the bargain. The duchies grew wealthy and grew in
power to be able to raise powerful armies to protect their interests. This was
all fine during the reign of Edward III, but the seeds of turmoil were sown for
the following decades.
It might be
argued that in a pre modern era, the tiered feudal
system did at least provide some stability when it operated as it was intended.
Then a corrupted form of feudalism started to emerge.
In the
nineteenth century historians invented the term bastard feudalism
to describe the form of feudalism that emerged after Edward III’s reign. In 1885, the historian Charles Plummer blamed
bastard feudalism for the disorder and instability of the Wars of the Roses in
the fifteenth century. Instability arose with multiple sources of claims to the
throne arising when hopeless Kings like Richard II and Henry VI failed to
perform as Kings. This led to struggles at the highest tier of feudal society
as rival Houses sought control of the Crown, whilst in the middle tiers, the
gentry of the middle classes began to think of themselves as the men of their
lord rather than of the king. For the ordinary folk of England, life would only
get complicated, and more difficult.
The period
was satirically summarised in 1066 and All That
by R J Sellar and Yeatman in 1931:
The Gone
Medieval podcast on the
Origins of the Wars of the Roses is quite a good introduction.
Genealogy
of the Wars of the Roses
The
complications of the Royal Dynasty lie at the heart of the Wars of the Roses.
The red text in the genealogy below shows the
passage of the Crown from the main Plantagenet line, to the alternating claims
of the Houses of York and Lancaster, to the Tudors. The Neville family were
integrated into the genealogical mix, as was Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, and
the Holland family, of Stuteville
descendant and proprietor of the lands of Kirkbymoorside, and Farndale.
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Edward III
1312 to 1377 Reigned 1327 to 1377 (1) Plantagenet Married Philippa of Hainault
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John Neville, 3rd Baron
Neville 1337 to 1388
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Edward, The Black Prince
1330 to 1376
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Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence
1338 to 1368
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Edmund, 1st Duke of York 1341 to 1402 Married Isabella of Castile and later Joan
Holland
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John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
1340 to 1399
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Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of
Westmorland
1364 to 1425 Married Margate Stafford
and then Joan Beaufort (daughter of John of Gaunt)
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Richard II
1367 to 1400 Reigned 1377 to 1399 (2) Plantagenet Married Anne of Bohemia and Isabella of
Valois |
Philippa Plantagenet, 5th Countess
of Ulster Married Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl
of March
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Richard of Conisburgh,
3rd Earl of Cambridge
1385 to 1415
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Henry IV (Henry Bolingbroke)
1367 to 1413 Reigned 1399 to 1413 (3) Lancaster Married Mary de Bohun and Joan of Navarre
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John Beaufort, 1st Earl of
Somerset
1373 to 1410 Married Margaret Holland |
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Richard Neville, 5th Earl of
Salisbury
1400 to 1460
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Cecily Neville
1415 to 1495 Married Richard, Duke of
York |
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Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of
March
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Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke
of York
1411 to 1460
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Henry V
1386 to 1422 Reigned 1413 to 1422 (4) Lancaster Married Catherine of Valois
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John Beaufort, 1st Duke of
Somerset
1404 to 1444 Married Margaret Beauchamp
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Richard Neville, 16th Earl
of Warwick The Kingmaker
1428 to 1471 Married Anne Beachamp, 16th Countess
of Warwick
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Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March 1391 to 1425 Potential claimant to the Crown in the 1399 Lancastrian
coup Mortimer’s claim was the basis of revolts
against Henry IV and Henry V and was later taken up by the House of York in
the Wars of the Roses, though Mortimer himself remained loyal to Henry V and
Henry VI. |
Anne Mortimer 1388 to 1411 Married Richard, Earl of Cambridge |
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Henry VI
1421 to 1471 Reigned 1422 to 1461 (5) Lancaster Then 1470 to 1471 (7) Lancaster Married Margaret of Anjou |
Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond
1430 to 1456 |
Lady Margaret Beaufort
1443 to 1509
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Isabell Neville, Duchess of Clarence
1451 to 1476 Married George, Duke of
Clarence |
Anne Neville
1456 to 1485 Married Edward, Prince of
Wales (Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou’s son, 1453 to 1471) and then Richard
Duke of Gloucester, and when he became Richard III was Queen of England |
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Edward IV 1442 to 1483 Reigned 1461 to 1470 (6) York Then 1471 to 1483 Married Elizabeth Woodville (8) York
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Edmund Earl of Rutland 1443 to 1460 |
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence
1449 to 1478 Married Isabel Neville
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Richard III
1452 to 1485 Reigned 1483 to 1485 (10) York Married Anne Neville
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Henry VII
1457 to 1509 Reigned 1485 to 1509 (11) Tudor
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Edward V
1470 to 1483 Reigned 9 April to 25 June 1483 (9) York A Prince in the Tower
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Richard, Duke of York
1473 to 1483 A Prince in the Tower
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Elizabeth of York
1466 to 1503 A princess banished to Sheriff Hutton who
later married into the Tudors Married Henry VII |
Edward, Prince of Wales
1473 to 1484 Born at Middleham and whilst his burial is
unknown, his effigy is in Sheriff Hutton Church |
Henry VIII
1491 to 1547 Reigned 1509 to 1547 (12) Tudor |
The
Lancastrian Coup of 1399
Richard II, son
of the Black Prince and Joan the Fair Maid, came to the throne in 1377 when he
was a boy aged 10, destined to learn the wrong lessons of kingship amidst a
stream of competing advisers led by the Lancastrian John of Gaunt, who didn’t
have his best interests at heart. His mother Joan was a strong mentor but after
she died in 1385 when he was still only 18, his reign became arbitrary, and
beset with military failure.
In his
feudal model for dynastic control, Edward III had established four separate
houses of power in his four sons.
Richard II
took the main Plantagenet line through his father the Black Prince who had died
the year before Edward III had died. Richard II was still King as the
fourteenth century came to a close.
Edward III’s
second son Lionel, the Duke of Clarence had died in 1368 leaving a daughter,
Philippa who had married Edmund Mortimer, the powerful Earl of March. Their son
Roger Mortimer was born in 1374. There were difficult questions regarding the priority of succession through a
daughter of a second son over the son of a later son. So the Mortimer
interest in the succession was a tricky question, and one which would not go
away.
At the end
of the century, Edward III’s third son Edmund, Duke of York was fifty eight,
with his young son Richard only 14, so at the point in time in the late
fourteenth century, they were not a serious challenge to the established
monarchy. So the Yorkist claim to the throne was dormant at this stage. They
arguably had a better claim to the throne than the Lancastrians, but this was
not the right time for them.
The son of
Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt, Henry Bolingbroke was three months
younger than his cousin, Richard II. Henry contrasted with Richard with his
Plantagenet credentials as a jouster, crusader and chivalric hero. The
Lancastrians were the most realistic alternative when there were doubts about
the direction of the current monarch.
The era of
the Plantagenets was dominated by the glamour of chivalry and the glory seen in
the causes against France, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Success in the Five
Nations was compulsory. Stability tended to follow alpha male dominance in
those arenas.
Richard’s
first challenge was the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381, when he was only 14. Richard
initially met the rebels’ demands, but later tensions led to the death of Wat
Tyler. Richard showed a degree of courage and determination, but the threat to
his royal authority tended him towards more absolutist approach as his reign
progressed.
In 1386 there
was a real threat of French invasion and Richard sought an unprecedented level
of taxation from Parliament to defend the realm. The Wonderful Parliament
insisted on the deposition of Richard’s Chancellor, Michael de la Pole and
Richard was forced to give in and to the setting up of a commission to control
royal finances.
Richard came
to rely on a small retinue of favourites, including Robert de Vere, Earl of
Oxford; Sir Simon Burley, Richard’s tutor; and Michael de la Pole, Earl of
Suffolk. A group of three Lords Appellant, Thomas Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester
(Richard’s uncle); Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel; and Thomas de Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick were joined by Henry Bolingbroke (Richard’s cousin) and Thomas
de Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham and later Duke of Norfolk, in pursuing a legal
case against Richard’s unpopular favourites. Richard was humiliated by the
Merciless Parliament of 1388 when his former favourites were executed or
banished.
Richard had reached
a low ebb in his power.
After John
of Gaunt returned from Spain in 1389, Richard gradually rebuilt his power, and
continued to hold a grudge against the Lords Appellant. By 1397 he came to rule
in a more absolutist fashion in a period known as the tyranny. Richard
had Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick arrested and executed or imprisoned. This
left the younger Lords Appellant, Henry Bolingbroke, the King’s cousin and Thomas de Mowbray, the Kling’s
boyhood friend, feeling vulnerable. They soon fell out with each other and
Bolingbroke accused Mowbray of treason. This became a cause celebre and
initially the dispute was to be resolved in a trial by combat.
Richard’s
jealousy of his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, had led him to curb Lancastrian
power, and in 1386 Richard II, who had no children himself, announced that his
heir was to be Roger Mortimer. However Roger Mortimer was killed in Ireland in
1398 at the age of 24, leaving a seven year old son, Edmund Mortimer. It was at
this time that Richard II adjudicated in the quarrel between Mowbray and
Bolingbroke and exiled Bolingbroke and Mowbray. In William
Shakespeare play Richard II, Act 1, Scene 3, Henry Bolingbroke mourned
his sentence of exile: How long a
time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End
in a word; such is the breath of kings.
On 3
February 1399, Henry Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, died. Richard II
clearly intended a Mortimer succession. Such was the breath of Kings.
Henry Bolingbroke’s return from exile and his seizure of the
Crown in 1399 was a bold power grab, an invasion from France in a struggle for
the Crown, unseen since the invasion of William the Conqueror in a succession
struggle between Normans and Godwinsons. Henry Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspur near Hull, ostensibly to reclaim his lands and
uphold the rules of succession. Richard II was soon captured and taken to
Pontefract castle. This was within the geographical ambit of the Farndales of
Doncaster, who had there home there at this time.
The Epiphany Rising was an attempt to seize Henry IV during a tournament, kill him, and
restore Richard II to the throne, but it failed. The rebellion convinced Henry
IV of the threat posed by Richard while deposed and imprisoned but still alive.
Richard would come to his death by means unknown in Pontefract Castle by
17 February 1400.
In our Plantagenet past the smooth
passage of the Crown to a legitimate heir was a prerequisite for the relative stability
of ordinary folk, who had a better chance of getting on with their lives. The
end of Richard II’s reign marked a dangerous new age when rival noble houses
might challenge the Crown and raise armies to defend their competing claims.
Richard had held the legitimate line of succession. Henry had stepped in,
probably forced into a corner by Richard when he seized the Lancastrian lands
and banished him, and Henry had been able to gather support to seize the Crown
from an unpopular, absolutist King. Yet Henry’s power was shaky. Even if he
were able to justify the seizing of the Crown from the legitimate Plantagenet
line, the Mortimer succession arguably had a better claim. Henry relied on a
new idea of the illegitimacy of female succession in his preference over the
Mortimers, but the Plantagenet’s own claims to the French Crown in the Hundred
Years War rested significantly on female succession.
This assault on the stability of the
rules of succession which protected the nation from chaos, was a concern to the
elite classes. Henry Bolingbroke’s seizure of the throne was precarious from
the start. Uneasy lies the head that wears a Crown (Henry IV, Part II).
However Richard had become too problematic as King, and by then was controlling
the nation as a tyrant. The nobility therefore reluctantly supported Henry.
The main support for Henry came from
the great northern family, the Percys.
The Percys and the Nevilles, the elite families of the lands of
our Farndale ancestors, were rivals and key players in the nation’s story of
the fifteenth century.
In order to cement support for his
new dynasty, Henry IV was forced to make concessions, and at least impliedly to
curb the heavy taxation which was a strong element of Richard II’s
unpopularity, as well as to uphold property rights and respect the peoples’
will. He delivered his claim to the throne in London in English, to be
understood by all. His claim had to be rooted in public support because his
claim under the traditional rules of succession was open to challenge. That
would prove a millstone for Henry IV, as a modern political party bound by its
manifesto promises.
As Henry IV’s reign became
increasingly threatened, particularly by the challenges of Owen Glyndwr and Gwilym ap Tudur in Wales and by the Earl of Douglas in Scotland, his rule was not easy, but his strength of character was
sufficient to find a route to somehow keep things together and his iconic
heroic son Henry V was then able to bind the nation together after his
successes in France.
Richard Farndale
fought in Henry IV and Henry V’s campaigns.
Th next
eight five years were to be tumultuous in English history.
Wars of
the Roses 1455 to 1487
The
Yorkist Coup of 1461
The
fragility of the Plantagenet dynasty came to be exposed when Kings were unable
to perform. Just as Richard II’s weakness provided the flashpoint for
explosion, Henry VI’s reign was another disappointment, which gave rise to
opportunity.
This time it
was the House of York who exposed the fragility of the Lancastrian dynasty, in
the early stage of the wars of the Roses.
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 the Duke of 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
(“the Kingmaker”) captured Henry again at the Battle
of Northampton. After attempting to seize the throne, Richard of York was
killed at the Battle
of Wakefield, and his son Edward inherited his claim which Richard of York
had negotiated with Henry IV, the controversial Act of Accord. The Yorkists
lost custody of Henry IV in 1461 after the Second
Battle of St Albans, but defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle
of Towton.
Edward IV
was crowned in June 1461.
Coup and
Counter-Coup of 1470 and 1471
In 1464,
Edward married Elizabeth Woodville against the advice of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and
reversed the Kingmaker’s policy of seeking closer ties with France.
Richard
Neville switched sides to the Lancastrians 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.
However
within a year, Warwick launched an invasion of England alongside Henry VI's
wife Margaret of Anjou. Edward IV fled to Flanders, and Henry VI was restored
as king in 1470.
Edward IV
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.
The
18-year-old Richard, Duke of Gloucester, played a crucial role in the revival
of Yorkist fortunes and was in the thick of the fighting at the Battles of
Barnet and Tewkesbury.
Shakespeare depicted
his famous soliloquy as the Yorkists came to power again, Now is the winter
of our discontent, Made glorious summer by this son of York, And all the clouds
that loured upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our
brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruisèd arms
hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our
dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his
wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbèd
steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s
chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But
Shakespeare did not paint Richard of Gloucester as a gallant soldier, but
rather as a scheming hunchback who was already plotting his own power grab,
though this was probably Tudor propaganda. The soliloquy continued But I,
that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking
glass; I, that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty, To strut before a
wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of
feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into
this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them— Why, I, in this weak piping time of
peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to see my shadow in the
sun And descant on mine own deformity. And therefore, since I cannot prove a
lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determinèd
to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I
laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set
my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate, the one against the other; And
if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This
day should Clarence closely be mewed up About a prophecy which says that “G” Of
Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be. Dive, thoughts, down to my soul.
(William
Shakespeare, Richard III, Act 1, Scene 1)
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
III Takes Charge 1483
In March
1483, Edward IV fell ill during a fishing expedition and died. Upon his death,
his son Edward, only 12 years old, became King Edward V. In a codicil to his
will, written a few days before he died, Edward IV had named his brother
Richard as Lord Protector.
Edward V had
been living with his uncle Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, brother of the
widowed Queen Elizabeth Woodville. The Woodvilles
tried to use this advantage of control over the new young King to overthrow
Richard as Lord Protector and retain control of the new King Edward V’s destiny
themselves.
In York,
Richard heard of his brother’s death and headed south calling on the Woodvilles to meet him with Edward at Northampton. Edward V
also headed south with the Woodvilles in a long
procession, but did not head for Northampton, but for London. However Richard
took control and seized the Woodvilles, sending Earl
Rivers to Pontefract Castle to be executed. In this chaotic situation, there
was disquiet and rioting in London. At Sheriff Hutton Castle Anthony Woodville
was imprisoned by Richard of Gloucester, and there he made his will before
being removed to Pontefract for execution in 1483.
Richard then
accompanied Edward V to the Tower of London, then a royal residence as much as
it was a prison.
Shakespeare
naturally depicted a scheming Richard, reassuring the princes Where it seems
best unto your royal self. If I may counsel you, some day or two Your Highness
shall repose you at the Tower; Then where you please and shall be thought most
fit For your best health and recreation (William Shakespeare, Richard III,
Act 3, Scene 1).
The young
King Edward V was to be prepared for his Coronation in May. Elizabeth Woodville
took sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. Richard then announced a delay to the
Coronation. In June Elizabeth was persuaded to allow her second son, Richard of
Shrewsbury join her brother in the Tower of London.
The Canon of
St Paul’s then declared that Edward IV had been betrothed to another women
before he married Elizabeth Woodville, which made the marriage to Elizabeth
void, and their offspring illegitimate.
The
Coronation was called off. Richard III was crowned King on 6 July 1483. Richard
gave his oath in English, for the first time at a Coronation. It appears that
he wanted the people to understand his oath as be promised to rule with justice
and mercy and to protect the rights of people and church.
The Princes
disappeared. If they were killed it is generally felt they would have died in
about September 1483. There were subsequent Yorkist Pretender claims by Lambert
Simbel in 1487 and Perkin Warbeck in 1490 who claimed to be the princes Edward
and Richard respectively, bur Warbeck was certainly an imposter.
Richard has
been made villein by the Tudor cause, who having seized the Crown from Richard
III had reason to legitimise themselves. This was led by Sir Thomas More during
the reign of Henry VIII, the story later taken up by Shakespeare during
Elizabeth I’s reign. Whether he really was the monster portrayed is a matter of
strong debate, and Richard’s cause is still advanced by the Ricardian Society.
The case
against Richard is that he had control of the princes, the ability to silence
witnesses, the motive to kill them, and the events suggest that he usurped the
Crown.
The case in
his favour suggests that if Richard’s intention was to have usurped the throne
he would more likely have displayed the bodies of the young children to prove
they had died and secure the throne, claiming natural causes or blaming someone
else. There were other suspects, including Margaret Beaufort, who sought the
coronation of her son Henry Tudor.
Richard was
still only thirty years old when he was crowned Richard III, and his past
history, including his governance of northern England, do not suggest a
villainous man
The Tudor
Coup of 1485
In 1485
having fled to Paris after Buckingham’s failed rebellion, Henry Tudor secured
support from the French regent Anne of Beaujeu, who supplied troops for an
invasion. On 22 August 1485, Richard III met the outnumbered forces of Henry
Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard rode a white courser, an
especially swift and strong horse. The size of Richard's army has been
estimated at 8,000 and Henry's at 5,000, but exact numbers are not known,
though the royal army is believed to have substantially outnumbered Henry's.
Thomas, Lord
Stanley, was a close ally of Richard, but also Henry Tudor’s stepfather. He was
a wily strategist and kept his intentions to himself. There were effectively
three armies at the Battlefield of Bosworth. Richard sent a threatening message
to Stanley demanding that he support Richard’s cause. However at the critical
moment, Stanley came to the support of Henry Tudor.
On 22 August
1485, Richard III was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth.
He was killed after losing his horse. His corpse was stripped, stabbed with
blades and treated with disdain. He was taken to Leicester and hastily buried
in a rough grave at Greyfriars. He lay there until his burial place in a
Department of Social Sciences Car Park, under the letter “R” for “Reserved” (or
“Richard” or “Rex” perhaps) was excavated and he was found and DNA tested.
Five
Powerful Mums
The years of
Plantagenet struggle have been traditionally depicted through a story of the
male Kings. However there were five powerful women who may have been
instrumental in how the story played out.
When Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent,
heiress of the Stuteville
lands, lost her Black Prince in 1376, and her father in law Edward III the
following year, her nine year old son, Richard II relied on her Mum to steer
him through the Coronation and beyond. She used all her guile to protect her
somewhat hopeless son until she too died in 1385.
The Mumless Richard II was left with only scheming advisers,
including the wily Lancastrian John of Gaunt, who nevertheless remained loyal
to the Crown until he died on 3 February 1399. But left to fend for himself,
Richard II finally lost his throne to John of Gaunt’s son Henry Bolingbroke on
30 September 1399. So started the dynasty of the House of Lancaster.
Ralph
Neville had married Joan Beaufort, the daughter of the Lancastrian John of
Gaunt by Gaunt’s third marriage to Katherine Swynford.
Joan’s brother was John Beaufort, the first Earl of Somerset, great grandfather
of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby who married
Edmund Tudor, with whom they had Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII.
Ralph
Neville and Joan Beaufort’s youngest daughter was Cecily Neville. Cecily
married the Yorkist Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. Their
sons were Edward VI, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence and Richard of
Gloucester, the future Richard III. When the Yorkists took the throne from the
Lancastrians in 1461, Cecily, rather as Joan of Kent had done, was the Queen
mother who guided her son through the early challenges of monarchy.
The nemesis
of Edward IV and his mother Cecily Nevile, was Margaret of Anjou,
the wife of the ousted Lancastrian King Henry VI, who had been the real power
behind the Lancastrian cause in previous challenges with the House of York, and
during the period of the Yorkist Edward IV’s first reign. Margaret of Anjou was
portrayed by the Wars of the Roses spinmaster, Cecily
Neville’s nephew, Richard Neville the Younger, Earl of Warwick, known as the
Kingmaker, as an apocalyptic woman at the head of a Viking like army, who
threatened the folk of southern England. He promoted a probably unfair legend
of Margaret of Anjou as evil. Cecily Neville’s Edward of York was a powerful,
charismatic individual, easily contrasted to Margaret’s Henry VI and the
Kingmaker promoted the Yorkist claim to the throne.
Edward IV
secretly married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464, in much the same way as
Joan of Kent had secretly married Thomas Holland and later the Black Prince,
upsetting the plans of their mentors. Elizabeth Woodville was ambitious but in
the early years Cecily Neville seems to have retained some influence over her
monarch son. However when Edward IV died in 1483, trusting the protection of
his son Edward V to his brother Richard III, the young prince Edward was with
the Woodville family, and the Woodvilles made their
move to control the minority rule of Edward V.
Edward V and his young brother soon disappeared, the princes in the
tower, and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage to Edward IV was declared invalid.
You can read the historical facts as might take your fancy, to decide whether
Richard III was the evil king made out by Shakespeare or not. Cecily Neville
continued to be on good terms with Richard’s new wife Lady Anne Neville, her
own kin through her brother and nephew the Kingmaker.
Then from
stage right came the return of another threat, the Beauforts,
descendants of the Lancastrian John of Gaunt, who had married into the Tudors. Lady
Margaret Beaufort supported her son,. Henry Tudor, to seize the throne from
Richard III who he defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 to become the
first Tudor King Henry VII. In the following year, 1486, Henry VII would secure
his legacy by marrying Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth
Woodville, the granddaughter of Richard of York and Cecily Neville.
Joan the Fair Maid
of Kent was the
power behind the reign of the hopeless Plantagenet Richard II, at least until
she died in 1385.
Margaret
of Anjou was the
power behind the reign of the equally hopeless Lancastrian Henry VI, until
outmanoeuvred by the Yorkist power grab in 1461, though with a short counter
offensive in 1470
Cecily
Neville was the
mother and mentor of the Yorkist Kings Edward IV and Richard III.
Elizabeth
Woodville was
the wife of Edward IV, who attempted an unsuccessful power grab to protect her
son Edward V against the designs of Richard III, but whose daughter, Elizabeth
of York married the Tudor King Henry VII.
Lady
Margaret Beaufort
was the mother of the Tudor King Henry VII, who she helped to steer to his
monarchy.
The blood of
Lady Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth Woodville and Cecily Neville
was passed through Henry VII to all the English and British monarchs who
followed.
If you would like to really understand the politics behind the Wars of the Roses, don’t be tempted to become too focused on the battles fought between the menfolk, but take note of the powerful women who really called the shots.
Podcasts
In Our Time
– The Wars of the Roses
Gone
Medieval – Dynastic
War - The
Battle of Towton 1461 – Rise
of the Beauforts - The
Uncrowned Queen (Margaret Beaufort) – Endings
The Hollow Crown is a BBC
series which comprises all the Henriad play.
Orson
Welles’ Chimes
at Midnight is a classic film which explores the relationship between
Prince Hal and Falstaff.