The war of the roses

The war of the roses

The War of the Roses.

[pic]

The Prehistory

It was in this year [1411], that Richard Plantagenet was born to
Richard, fifth Earl of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer. His father was the son of Edmund, the first Duke of York, who was in turn the fourth son of Edward
III. If Henry VI had died before 1453, the year of the birth of Edward,
Prince of Wales, then Richard would have undoubtedly been crowned King of
England, since there was no other noble (since the death of Henry VI's uncle and heir Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who had died in 1447) with such a strong claim to the throne at that time, other than Richard himself.

Being so highly placed in the royal household, Richard was destined to play a significant role in the Government and politics of England throughout his lifetime and in England's affairs in France during the later stages of the Hundred Years War. He was appointed Lieutenant of France in
1436. Throughout his service in Europe, he had to pay for the services of his men and finance the army in France from his own personal funds.

Although York was a wealthy man in his own right, (York was the sole benefactor of the childless Edmund Mortimer, who had died of plague in
Ireland in 1425). It was his marriage to Cicely Neville in 1438 (who was known as 'The Rose of Raby'), daughter to Ralph Neville, Earl of
Westmoreland and sister of Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, which had brought him great wealth. Thus, he was able, albiet unhappily in doing so, to fund the English army overseas. By the time he left France, York had forwarded some Ј38,000 of his own money to maintain English interests in
France. To add insult to injury, in 1445 he was replaced as Lieutenant of
France by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. It is not to be doubted that it was on Somerset's advice (who was Henry VI cousin, and someone Henry trusted more than the Duke of York) that Henry VI created York Lieutenant of Ireland, which was in reality, exile by office. Somerset was no doubt fearful of York, a fear enhanced by the fact that Somerset, a man whom York equally detested, and a favourite of Henry VI was forwarded funds to the sum of Ј25,000 to sustain the king's army in France.

Not only did York detest Somerset because of his favouritism with the king, but he also detested the fact that he had been given the office he had previously held in France and the funds to support it, despite his inability as a soldier. York's fears over the management of the campaign in
France was soon realised, as the war began to go badly for the English. The
Duke of Somerset was personally responsible for the surrender of the strategic town of Rouen which subsequently led to the fall of Normandy to
Charles VII of France. Because of this, Somerset became distinctly unpopular at home. However, because he retained the king's favour, he maintained his prestigious position at court. In June 1451, Bordeaux in
France, and Gascony, were lost to the French. This was disastrous news for the English and the King, Henry VI, took the loss very badly. York in turn, was quick to blame Somerset for the disaster and, with support for the king and his adherents at such a low point (due mainly to English failings in
France), York, decided to risk all and attempt to wrest control from the king by force of arms and arrest the Duke of Somerset, thus removing him from his position as the king's most senior advisor.

Doubtless this move was not only inspired by York's fear for the conduct of the war in France, but also because he was equally fearful that Somerset might take over the very position that York felt was his own, that of the most likely heir to Henry in the absence of the king having any children of his own. Thus York, believing that he had more popular support than he actually had, sailed from Ireland and landed in North Wales, gathered his forces and travelled straight for London and the encounter at Blackheath.

The Wars of the Roses Begin

After York's release from custody, there then followed several years of relative peace. However, by the year 1453, the political storm clouds were once again gathering over the country. By this year, England's possessions in France had been almost lost as the disastrous Hundred Years War had all but come to an end . It was this - it is said - that brought about the first bout of madness in Henry VI. What form this illness took is not recorded, but it seems that it manifested itself in a form of paralysis.
York, with the king incapacitated, was made protector of England and took the opportunity to seek revenge on his earlier enemies, namely the Duke of
Somerset, who was sent to the Tower on a revised charge of treason (for his poor management of the war in France) in September 1453. The Earl of
Salisbury, Richard Neville and his eldest son Richard, Earl of Warwick, also took the opportunity afforded by the king's illness and, under the cover of their kinsman's protectorate began to seek their revenge against the Percy family, the Earls of Northumberland, with whom, they had held a long running feud, over the issue of ownership of property in
Northumberland and Yorkshire .

Thus, England was plunged into a series of minor wars between the land's most powerful lords to which the Duke of York, as protector was able to use his authority to the advantage of his family and supporters. However, this all came to an end when the king recovered from his illness in January
1455. Somerset was released from the Tower, and immediately formed a natural alliance with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland (and Percy's ally in the north Lord Clifford), against the Duke of York - who was stripped of his powers as protector - and his supporters, namely the Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of Warwick. With this the battle lines for the 'Wars of the
Roses' were drawn. The pact between Somerset, Northumberland and Clifford, supported by the king would in later years go by the name of Lancastrians, taken from the family name of the House of Lancaster to which the lineage of Henry VI was derived. While the followers of the House of York, Warwick,
Salisbury and the Duke of York himself became known as the Yorkists.

1455-1464

First St. Albans, Northampton, Wakefield, Mortimer's Cross, Second St.
Albans, Towton and Hexham.

In May 1455 the queen and Somerset summoned a Council, to which no prominent Yorkist was invited, and ordered a gathering of the peers at
Leicester to take steps for the king's safety. York marched south to secure a fair hearing from the king, while the court moved towards Leicester, escorted by a large number of nobles and their retainers. The king and
Somerset did not learn of York's actions until they were en route to
Leicester. They tried to assemble an army, but there was insufficient time; at nightfall on 21 May, when the two sides camped only 20 miles apart, the king's 'army' still consisted of just his escort and their retainers.

Both sides decided to advance against their adversary during the night, and these marches became a race for the chief town of the area, St. Albans.
The king's army arrived there at 7am, and York halted at Key Fields, east of the town, at about the same time. There followed a pause of three hours while reconciliation was attempted, York offering to withdraw if the king would surrender Somerset, whom York considered a traitor. The king (i.e.
Somerset!) refused, and York ordered the attack(see map).

Warwick was to lay down a barrage of arrows in support of flank attacks by York and Salisbury. However, these attacks were repulsed and Warwick therefore ordered his archers to concentrate on their own front. He then attacked the center, broke through to the Chequers, and here established a rallying point. Falling back to prevent their divided forces from being outflanked by Warwick, the Lancastrians weakened their defense of the
Sopwell and Shropshire Lanes, and the forces of York and Salisbury almost immediately burst into the town. The Lancastrians began to falter, panicked, and broke, to be pursued up St. Peter's Street by the triumphant
Yorkists.

Somerset and some retainers took cover in the Castle Inn while Lord
Clifford, with Percy, Harington and some other knights and esquires, fought on outside the inn. When those outside were slain, Somerset led his men in one last charge. He killed four men before being felled by an axe. The king, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earls of Devon and Dorset were captured; Clifford, Somerset, Stafford, Percy and Harington were amongst those killed.

York was appointed Protector in October and Warwick became Captain of
Calais, the city which possessed the only standing army of the king. For the next three years there was an uneasy peace. York lost the protectorship at the beginning of 1456 and returned to Ireland. Margaret gained control of court and government, but Warwick refused to surrender Calais to her, and this city thus became a refuge for the Yorkists, from which an attack might be launched at any time.

In the late summer of 1459 both sides began arming again, and in October
York's forces were defeated at Ludford – mainly due to the treachery of
Andrew Trollope, captain of a body of professional soldiers sent over from
Calais by Warwick. York was forced to flee to Ireland again and his troops dispersed.

In June 1460 Warwick landed at Sandwich with 2,000 men of the Calais garrison, accompanied by the Earl of Salisbury and York's son Edward, Earl of March. The king and queen were at Coventry when they received news of the landing. Hastily gathering an army from his chief supporters – the
Percies, Staffords, Beauforts, Talbots and Beaumonts – the king began to march south. However, in the meantime the men of south-east England had flocked to the standard of the popular Warwick, and on 2 July he entered
London with 5,000 men. Only the Tower, commanded by Lord Scales, held out for the king and, hearing that London had gone over to the Yorkists, the king halted at Northampton and took up a defensive position to await reinforcements.

Pausing only to establish a siege force round the Tower, Warwick led his army northwards, arriving between Towcester and Northampton on the 9th.
Early the next morning - 10 July 1460 – he deployed for battle, but first attempted to negotiate a settlement. At 2pm, no agreement having proved possible, Warwick gave the order to advance, with the three 'battles' in
'line astern'.

It was raining hard as the Yorkists arrived and Edward's 'battle', consisting entirely of men-at-arms, made slow progress over the sodden ground. As they came within bow range they were met by a fierce barrage of arrows and this, together with a ditch and stakes, prevented the Yorkists from getting to close quarters. At this critical moment Lord Grey suddenly displayed Warwick's ragged staff badge and ordered his men to lay down their weapons. Indeed, the men of Grey's command actually assisted their enemies over the defenses and, once established within the defenses in sufficient numbers, Edward and Warwick led their men-at-arms behind the king's archers in the center to strike Buckingham in flank and rear. Unable to maneuver within the narrow confines of the defenses, the Lancastrians soon broke and fled, many being drowned in the shallow but wide river at their backs. The Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Shrewbury, Thomas Percy, Lord
Beaumont and Lord Egremont were among the Lancastrian dead. The king was captured again, taken to London, and compelled to sanction a Yorkist government.

York arrived from Ireland in mid-September and in October put forward a claim to the throne. The peers rejected his claim (while Henry lived) but made him Protector in view of the king's periods of insanity.

The queen and her son, who had remained at Coventry, fled to north
Wales, then to the North, where she began to gather a new army. With these forces she overran Yorkshire, and a large number of Lancastrian supporters from the West Country began to march across the Midlands to join her. York sent his son Edward, Earl of March, to the Welsh borders to recruit an army and to handle the minor local troubles stirred up by the Earl of Pembroke.
He left Warwick in London to ensure the capital's support and guard the king; and on 9 December he led the Yorkist army northwards to deal with the queen. He took with him his younger son Edmund and all the artillery then available at the Tower of London.

On the 16th York's 'vaward battle' clashed with the West Countrymen, suffered heavy losses, and was unable to prevent the Lancastrians from moving on to join the queen. Learning that Margaret's main force was at
Pontefract Castle, York marched to his castle at Sandal, two miles south of
Wakefield and only nine from Pontefract. He arrived at Sandal Castle on the
21st and, learning that the queen's army was now almost four times as numerous as his own, remained in the castle to await reinforcements under
Edward. The Lancastrian forces closed round the castle to prevent foraging.

On 30 December 1460 half the Lancastrian army advanced against Sandal
Castle as if to make an assault, but under cover of this movement the
'vaward battle', commanded by the Earl of Wiltshire, and the cavalry under
Lord Roos, unobtrusively took up positions in the woods flanking the open fields.

York, believing the entire Lancastrian army to be before him, and much smaller than he had been told, deployed for open battle, and led his troops straight down the slope from the castle to launch an attack on Somerset's line. The Lancastrians fell back before the advance, drawing the Yorkists into the trap, finally halting to receive the charge.

The Yorkist charge almost shattered Somerset's line and the Lancastrian reserve under Clifford had to be committed to stem the advance. But then
Wiltshire and Roos charged from the flanks, and the battle was over. York, his son Edmund, his two uncles Sir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer, Sir Thomas
Neville (son of Salisbury), Harington, Bourchier and Hastings were among those killed. The Earl of Salisbury was captured, and subsequently beheaded by the Percies because of their feud with the Nevilles.

The death of Richard of York was a severe blow to the Yorkists; but
Warwick in London and Edward, now Duke of York, in the Welsh Marches, were both raising new armies. In the Welsh Marches, in particular, men flocked to Edward's banner to avenge Richard and their own lords who had died with him, and by the end of January 1461 Edward had a fair-sized army gathered round Hereford.

From here he set out to unite with Warwick, probably at Warwick Castle, in order to halt the queen's march on the capital. However, shortly after starting out he learned that the Earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire were moving towards Worcester from the west with a large force and, in order to avoid being caught between two Lancastrian armies, Edward moved northwards
17 miles to Mortimer's Cross, not far from Ludlow and only three and a half miles from his own castle at Wigmore, ancestral home of the Mortimers. Here the River Lugg, flowing south to join the Wye, was bridged for the main road from central Wales and the Roman road from Hereford, the two roads meeting close by the bridge. Edward deployed his army at this important crossroads and river crossing early on the morning of 2 February 1461.

The Lancastrians deployed for battle on the morning of the 2nd and advanced against the Yorkist line about noon. After a fierce struggle the
Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond succeeded in forcing Edward's right flank back across the road (see map), but at the same time Pembroke's 'main battle' was completely defeated by Edward. Ormond's 'battle' reformed and moved on to the center to support Pembroke but, finding him already defeated, for some inexplicable reason halted and sat down to await the outcome of the fighting on the other flank.

Owen Tudor's 'battle' was the last to become engaged, having swung right in an attempt to outflank the Yorkist position. In carrying out this maneuver the Lancastrians exposed their own left flank, and the waiting
Yorkists promptly seized the opportunity to charge, cutting the
Lancastrians in two and scattering them in all directions. A general retreat by the Lancastrians in the direction of Leominstcr followed, quickly transformed into a bloody rout by the Yorkists. Owen Tudor was captured and later executed.

After the battle of Wakefield the queen's army of borderers, Scots,
Welsh and mercenaries had begun to march on London, pillaging as it went and leaving a 30-mile-wide swathe of ruin in its wake: Margaret, whose aim was now to rescue the king, was unable to pay her army and had promised them the whole of southern England to plunder in compensation. London was panic-stricken, and Warwick found himself faced with the problem of being unable to raise enough men either to stop the Lancastrian advance or to defend the city. Edward's victory at Mortimer's Cross solved this problem, for men flocked to Warwick's banner when news of the battle reached London on about 10 February; and on the 12th Warwick was able to leave London with a force large enough to attempt to halt the queen, sending word to Edward to join forces as soon as possible.

Warwick marched to St. Albans and began to prepare a defensive position there with a three-mile front barring the two roads to London which passed through Luton and Hitchin. Detachments were also placed in St. Albans and
Sandridge to watch the flanks, and in Dunstable to guard the Watling Street approach to St. Albans.

The queen left York on 20 January, marching down Ermine Street towards
London. At Royston she swung left and moved south-west as if to prevent a junction between Edward and Warwick. On 14 or 15 February the queen received details of Warwick's deployment from Lovelace, who had commanded the Yorkist artillery at Wakefield but who had been spared by the
Lancastrians. Margaret allowed the borderers to continue ravaging the countryside due south from Hitchin to divert Warwick's attention, and took the rest other army on a hard march south and west past Luton to Dunstable, intending to follow this with another march against St. Albans from the west, so turning Warwick's defensive line.

The queen's army arrived at Dunstable late on the 16th, took the
Yorkists detachment there by surprise, and killed or captured every man.
After a brief halt the Lancastrians set out on a 12-mile night march to St.
Albans, arriving on the south bank of the River Ver before dawn. After a short pause to rest and organize an attack, at about 6am on 17 February
1461 the 'vaward battle' crossed the river and entered the town. The
Yorkists were again taken by surprise but, as the Lancastrians rushed up
George Street towards the heart of the town, they were halted by a strong detachment of archers left in St. Albans by Warwick, and eventually were driven back to St Michael's church.

Shortly afterwards scouts reported an unguarded entrance through the defenses via Folly and Catherine Lanes, and at about loam the town fell to the Lancastrians. The king was found in a house in the town.

Warwick's defense line had been rendered useless and he was now faced with the task of re-aligning his army in the presence of the enemy. His
'rearward battle', stationed by Beech Bottom Ditch, was wheeled to face south, and Warwick then rode off to bring up the 'main' and 'vaward battles'.

The Lancastrian army now attacked the Yorkist 'rearward battle' which, after a long and brave struggle, finally broke and fled towards the rest of the army. Warwick was already on his way to reinforce them with the 'main battle', but this now broke up as the fugitives streamed past, joining in the general flight. Warwick rode off to bring up his 'vaward battle', but on reaching it he found that Lovelace's detachment had deserted to the enemy and the remainder was badly shaken. Somehow Warwick managed to form a new line and held off further Lancastrian attacks until dark, when he managed to extricate about 4,000 of his men and march westwards to join
Edward.

Margaret waited nine days at St. Albans while negotiating the surrender of London, only 20 miles away. London, panic-stricken by the behavior of the queen's army, which looted St. Albans after the battle, refused to open its gates to the queen and her king. The borderers began to desert in droves; and with Edward and Warwick united and advancing rapidly from the west, Margaret finally abandoned her attempt on the capital and withdrew to
York with the king. Twelve days after second St. Albans the united forces of Edward and Warwick entered London: on 4 March Edward was proclaimed king by the Yorkist peers and by the merchants and commons of London.

Edward set off in pursuit of Margaret and Henry on 19 March, but his advance guard was defeated by a Lancastrian delaying force at Ferrybridge on the River Aire on the 27th. At dawn on the 28th the Yorkists forced their way over the bridge and all that day fought to push back the
Lancastrian rearguard towards Towton, reaching the village of Saxton by nightfall. The next morning the queen's army, commanded by Somerset, was seen drawn up less than a mile away (see map).

At 9am on 29 March 1461, with heavy snow falling, the two armies advanced towards each other. When they were about 300 yards apart the
Yorkists halted to discharge one volley of heavy armour-piercing arrows which, aided by a following wind, hit the Lancastrian line and caused some casualties. The Yorkist archers then fell back a short distance. The
Lancastrians responded with several volleys, using the lighter flight arrows not normally used at all except short range. Impeded by the wind, these arrows fell short by some 50 yards, but the Lancastrians continued to discharge their arrows until their quivers were empty. The Yorkist archers then advanced again and poured a barrage of arrows into the Lancastrian ranks. Unable to respond, the Lancastrians moved forward to contact as quickly as possible.

The battle raged all day, but at about 3pm Lord Dacres, one of the senior Lancastrian commanders, was killed, and at the same time the Duke of
Norfolk's force of several thousand men arrived to reinforce the Yorkist right flank. The Lancastrians began to ease off, the slackening of pressure increased to a withdrawal, and suddenly their whole line collapsed. About
12,000 Yorkists were killed or died of wounds and exposure, while some
20,000 Lancastrians were killed, making Towton the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. It was also the most decisive battle of the wars, in the very heart of Lancastrian country, and firmly established Edward IV on the throne. The queen, Henry, and their son Prince Edward fled to
Scotland.

Страницы: 1, 2