The Wars of the Roses
We're going to begin a small series. The history is relatively short-lived but the resentment was deep.
The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) were a series of dynastic civil wars fought in England between supporters of the Houses of Lancaster and York. Although armed clashes had occurred previously between supporters of Lancastrian King Henry VI and Richard, Duke of York, head of the rival House of York, the first open fighting broke out in 1455 and resumed more violently in 1459. Henry was captured and Richard became Protector of England, but was dissuaded from claiming the throne. Inspired by Henry's Queen, Margaret of Anjou, the Lancastrians resumed the conflict, and Richard was killed in battle at the end of 1460. His eldest son was proclaimed King Edward IV after a crushing victory at the Battle of Towton early in 1461.
After several years of minor Lancastrian revolts, Edward fell out with his chief supporter and advisor, the Earl of Warwick (known as the "Kingmaker"), who tried first to supplant him with his jealous younger brother George, and then to restore Henry VI to the throne. This resulted in two years of rapid changes of fortune, before Edward IV once again won a complete victory in 1471. Warwick and the Lancastrian heir Edward, Prince of Wales died in battle and Henry was murdered immediately afterward.
A period of comparative peace followed, but Edward died unexpectedly in 1483. His surviving brother Richard of Gloucester first moved to prevent Edward's widow Queen Elizabeth's unpopular family from participating in government during the minority of Edward's son, Edward V, and then seized the throne for himself, using the suspect legitimacy of Edward IV's marriage as a pretext. This provoked several revolts, and Henry Tudor, a distant relative of the Lancastrian kings who had nevertheless inherited their claim, overcame and killed Richard in battle at Bosworth in 1485.
Yorkist revolts flared up in 1487, resulting in the last pitched battles. Sporadic rebellions continued to take place until the last (and fraudulent) Yorkist pretender was executed in 1499.
Fought largely by the landed aristocracy and armies of feudal retainers, support for each house largely depended upon dynastic factors, such as marriages within the nobility, feudal titles, and tenures. It is sometimes difficult to follow the shifts of power and allegiance because nobles acquired or lost titles through marriage, confiscation or attainture. For example, the Lancastrian patriarch John of Gaunt's first title was Earl of Richmond, the same title which Henry VII later held, while the Yorkist patriarch Edmund of Langley's first title was Earl of Cambridge. However it was not uncommon for nobles to switch sides and several battles were decided by treachery.
Name and Symbols
The name "Wars of the Roses" is not thought to have been used during the time of the wars but has its origins in the badges associated with the two royal houses, the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York. The term came into use in the nineteenth century, after the publication of Anne of Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott. Scott based the name on a fictional scene in William Shakespeare's play, Henry VI part 1, where the opposing sides pick their different-coloured roses at the Temple Church.
Although the roses were occasionally used as symbols during the wars, most of the participants wore badges associated with their immediate feudal lords or protectors. For example, Henry's forces at Bosworth fought under the banner of a red dragon, while the Yorkist army used Richard III's personal symbol of a white boar. Evidence of the importance of the rose symbols at the time, however, includes the fact that King Henry VII chose at the end of the wars to combine the red and white roses into a single red and white Tudor Rose.
The unofficial system of livery and maintenance, by which powerful nobles would offer protection to followers who would sport their colours and badges (livery), and controlled large numbers of paid men-at-arms (maintenance) was one of the effects of the breakdown of royal authority which preceded and partly caused the wars.
...to be continued.
www.wikipedia.org
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