The War f

the R ses
1455- 1485

Prof. Jesús Centen Camarg

"England hath long been mad, and scarr’d herself:
The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood;
The father rashly slaughter’d his own son;
The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire.
All this divided York and Lancaster...“
William Shakespeare, Richard
III
 C au
both houses were
se s
dire c t

de s ce ndents of king Edward III;

the ruling Lancastrian king, Henry VI,

surrounded himself with unpopular nobles;
the civil unrest of much of the population;
the availability of many powerful lords with
their own private armies;
the untimely episodes of mental illness by King
Henry VI.
• Henry VI was crowned king of both England and France when he
was an infant. During his reign his country lost the Hundred Year's
War and all of its French territories except for Calais. In 1445 he
married Margaret of Anjou.
• At the age of 32 (1453) he suffered his first attack of mental illness
and control of the country was taken up by Richard, duke of York.
The next year he recovered and clashed with Richard over who
would rule England thus starting the Wars of the Roses.
• At the battle of Northampton in 1460 he was captured by the
Yorkist forces and forced to acknowledge Richard as the rightful heir
to the throne.
• In 1461 he lost the throne to Richard's son Edward IV. He was briefly
restored as ruler from 1470 to 1471 but before the battle of Barnet
in April he was captured by Edward and sent to the tower of London
where he was murdered on May 21, 1471.
• Edward IV ascended to the throne in 1461 finally achieving the goal
of seating a member of the York family pushed forth by his father,
Richard, duke of York, for the entire decade of the 1450s.
• Edward defeated the Lancastrians at Mortimor's Cross and was
proclaimed king in March 1461.
• In 1464 he married Elizabeth Woodville which became the root of
many future troubles. Unable to muster enough forces to confront
a set of Lancastrian armies (one of which was led by Richard Neville,
earl of Warwick), Edward fled to Holland in September 1470.
• The next year he returned and defeated the Lancastrian forces at
the battle of Tewkesbury. That same year he had Henry VI executed.
• Upon his death in 1483, his legacies include two young sons, Edward
V and Richard, both of which would be murdered in the Tower of
London that year.
• Edward V was 12 years old when his father (Edward IV)
died in 1483 leaving him next in line for the throne. His
coronation date was set for May 4, 1483. On his way to
London, Edward was intercepted and detained by Richard,
Duke of Gloucester (Richard III), his uncle and designated
protector. Richard canceled the coronation and kept
Edward confined at the Tower of London where his
brother, Richard joined him, in mid-June. Later that same
month the young king was declared illegitimate by
Parliament because the marriage of his father to his
mother (Elizabeth Wydville) was declared illegal. Both boys
were murdered sometime later creating one of the most
notorious murder mysteries in history.
• Richard III, the younger brother of Edward IV,
was made duke of Gloucester at age nine.
• He fough for Edward at the battles of Barnet
and Tewkesbury in 1471. When Edward died in
1483 he took control of Edwards heirs, Edward
V and his brother Richard. The young brothers
were held in the Tower of London and
murdered in June 1483.
• Richard III was crowned king that year. He was
killed by Henry VII at the battle of Bosworth
Field in 1485.
Henry VII
 Sources
• A concise history of Britain, Robert M. Rayner
BA, Longmans
• Wikipedia.com
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/04/ric
hard-iii-dna-bones-king
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2013/feb/0
4/richard-iii-skeleton-last-plantagenet-king-live