The Wars of the Roses and how a royal family feud tore England apart
In the middle of the 15th century, medieval England was moving towards a civil war that would leave the country bloodied by constant battles and split by personal loyalties.
This conflict would become a struggle inside the royal family itself, which it set cousin against cousin, and brother against brother.
What were the causes of the war?
The causes of the conflict had begun almost 100 years earlier during the reign of King Edward III, who ruled from 1327 to 1377.
Edward III had fathered many children, so his family included several people who believed that they had a right to the English throne.
When Edward III died, his grandson Richard II became king, even though he was only ten years old.
Because Richard was a child, a group of powerful men took charge of the kingdom under the leadership of his uncle John of Gaunt.
When Richard II had grown old enough to rule for himself and John of Gaunt had died, he punished the men who had taken power from him in 1399.
He even confiscated the lands of John of Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke.
Henry Bolingbroke was outraged, so he invaded England and deposed Richard II. Richard later died in captivity.
This had set an important example. It showed that a king could be removed by force, and it likely fed rivalry between the different branches of Edward III’s family.
The Houses of Lancaster and York explained
The Wars of the Roses involved two main rival groups, which were known as the Houses of Lancaster and York.
Both houses traced their family line back to King Edward III of England, so the struggle was, in effect, a family feud.
The Lancastrian line began with John of Gaunt, who was the third surviving son of Edward III.
John was the Duke of Lancaster, and his descendants, including his son Henry Bolingbroke, became known as the Lancastrians.
After Henry Bolingbroke had deposed Richard II, he became King Henry IV. This event effectively established the Lancastrian claim to the throne.
The Yorkist line came from two sons of Edward III. One was Edmund of Langley, who was the first Duke of York and the fourth surviving son.
The other was Lionel of Antwerp, who was Duke of Clarence and the second surviving son.
Richard Duke of York first pressed the Yorkist claim to the throne during the Wars of the Roses, and he had descended from both Edmund and Lionel.
He believed that this gave him a better claim than the Lancastrians had.
What were the differences between the two Houses?
The main difference between the two houses lay in their rival claims to the English throne.
The Lancastrians held the crown through Henry IV. The Yorkists argued that their claim was more direct and more lawful because they descended from both the second and fourth sons of Edward III.
The Lancastrians descended from the third son.
Each house used a rose as its badge: Lancaster used the red rose, and York used the white rose.
These symbols became closely tied to each side and are still recognised today as signs of the conflict.
Over time, each house drew support from different nobles and from different parts of England.
The Lancastrians generally had substantial backing in the north, and the Yorkists had important support in the south and east.
The main power-players of the war
King Henry VI was the Lancastrian king who stood at the centre of the conflict, and his weak rule helped to open the way to civil war.
His periods of mental illness and his failure to provide firm leadership arguably created a power vacuum that power-hungry nobles tried to fill.
His queen Margaret of Anjou became a powerful Lancastrian leader in her own right, and she defended her husband’s claim to the throne as well as her son’s chances of succeeding him.
The instability of Henry’s reign gave the House of York an opening. Richard Duke of York first led that challenge against Lancastrian control of the throne.
The key events of the Wars of the Roses
The First Battle of St Albans (22 May 1455)
The first major clash came at St Albans in 1455. The streets rang with steel and with the cries of wounded and dying men. The Yorkists won the battle and captured King Henry VI, who was mentally unwell.
The Battle of Wakefield (30 December 1460)
The Yorkists suffered a serious defeat at Wakefield, where Richard Duke of York was killed. His death, however, did not end the Yorkist cause. His son Edward took control, and he had already shown that he was young and highly determined.
The Battle of Towton (29 March 1461)
Edward led the Yorkists to victory at Towton, which was one of the bloodiest battles fought on English soil. After this success, Edward became King Edward IV.
The restoration of Henry VI (October 1470 to April 1471)
The struggle for the throne had become unstable and full of betrayal. One of the most important men of the period was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who became known as the Kingmaker. He had first supported the Yorkists, but he later changed sides and restored Henry VI to the throne.
The Battle of Tewkesbury (4 May 1471)
This restoration did not last long. The Lancastrians suffered a crushing defeat at Tewkesbury in 1471, and Prince Edward was the heir to the Lancastrian claim and was killed during the battle.
After the defeat, the Lancastrian king Henry VI was imprisoned in the Tower of London and died soon afterwards, perhaps by murder. Edward IV then recovered his crown.
The Princes in the Tower
When Edward IV died in 1483, his two young sons were placed in the Tower of London and later disappeared.
Their fate became one of the greatest mysteries in English history.
The final act of the struggle came when Edward’s brother Richard III rose to power. His reign quickly drew suspicion because many people believed that he had ordered the disappearance of his nephews in the Tower.
After his nephews had been removed, Richard III became king of England, and the Yorkist hold on the throne appeared secure.
One final challenger then arrived from across the English Channel. Henry Tudor had only a weak claim to the throne, but he was determined to take it.
The Battle of Bosworth Field (22 August 1485)
This battle became the final and best-known clash of the wars. Henry Tudor met Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485. After a fierce encounter, Richard III was killed, and this opened the way for a new ruling house.
End of the war and its consequences
The Wars of the Roses largely ended at Bosworth Field. Richard’s defeat and death in that battle brought the conflict to a close and began the Tudor dynasty.
Henry Tudor was crowned Henry VII and married Elizabeth of York, a marriage which symbolically united the two rival houses through the joining of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York.
In the years that followed, the Tudor dynasty ruled England for more than a century.
Henry VII, in particular, worked to strengthen royal authority and reduce the power of the nobility, so that another civil war on this scale was less likely.
The wars also had a major effect on English culture. They inspired many works of literature and drama, and they offered a clear reminder of the human cost of internal conflict.