The Wars of the Roses 1455-1485

Essential Histories

The Wars of the Roses 1455-1485

OSPREY Michael Hicks PUBLISHING MICHAEL HICKS is Professor of Medieval History at King Alfred's College, Winchester. He holds three history degrees from English universities and has written extensively on the Wars of the Roses, mainly biographies of important protagonists such as Warwick the Kingmaker, False Fleeting Perjur'd Clarence and Richard III who shaped successive stages of the conflict. He is a regular contributor to history journals and to The Ricardian.

PROFESSOR ROBERT O'NEILL, AO D.PHIL. (Oxon), Hon D. Litt.(ANU), FASSA, Fr Hist S, is the Series Editor of the Essential Histories. His wealth of knowledge and expertise shapes the scries content and provides up-to-the- minute research and theory. Born in 1936 an Australian citizen, he served in the Australian army (1955-68) and has held a number of eminent positions in history circles, including the Chichele Professorship of the History of War at All Souls College, University of Oxford, 1987-2001, and the Chairmanship of the Board of the Imperial War Museum and the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. He is the author of many books including works on the German Army and the Nazi party, and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Now based in Australia on his retirement from Oxford he is the Chairman of the Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Essential Histories

The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 Essential Histories

The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

OSPREY Michael Hicks PUBLISHING a First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Osprey Publishing, For a complete list of titles available from Osprey Publishing Elms Court, Chapel Way. Botley. Oxford OX2 9LP please contact: Email: [email protected] Osprey Direct UK, PO Box 140. © 2003 Osprey Publishing Ltd. Wellingborough. Northants, NN8 2FA, UK. Email: [email protected] All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Osprey Direct USA. c/o MBI Publishing, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of tbs publication PO Box I. 729 Prospect Avenue. may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in Osceola Wl 54020. USA any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, Email: [email protected] optical, photocopying, recording or otheiwise. without the prior www.ospreypublishing.com written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the Publishers.

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ISBN I 84176 491 4

A CIP catalogue record for this boo< is available from the British Library

Editor: Sally Rawlings Design: Ken Vail Graphic Design, Cambridge, UK Cartography by The Map Studio Index by Susan Williams Picture research by Image Select International Origination by Grasmere Digital Imaging Leeds. UK Printed and bound in China by L. Rex Printing Company Ltd.

03 04 05 06 07 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents

Introduction 7

Chronology 9

Background to the wars Collapsing regimes 10

Warring sides Part-timers, professionals, and people 17

Outbreak Force for change 24

The fighting Dash to battle 30

Portrait of a soldier Nicholas Harpsfield 61

The world around war Life goes on 66

Portrait of civilians Female victims 78

How the wars ended Decisive victories 82

Conclusion and consequences

Return to normality 87

Further reading 92

Index 94 King Edward IV, on his throne and attended by courtiers, receives a suitor (Ann Ronan Picture Library) Introduction

The Wars of the Roses were the longest period were three periods of sustained conflict: of civil war in English History. They followed 1459-61, 1469-71, and 1483-87. immediately after the final English defeat in The loss of English occupied France made the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and it difficult for Henry VI's government to commenced under the Lancastrian Henry VI resist its critics. Calls for reform by Richard (1422-61), a weak and ineffective king, who Duke of York (d. 1460) and the emergence of was briefly mad (1453-54). The wars did not two sides, Lancaster and York, several times end In 1485 at the battle of Bosworth, as so overflowed into violence before sustained many historians since the Tudors have conflict began in 1459. Defeated and exiled, claimed, and they did not actually cause the the Yorkists under Warwick the Kingmaker strong rule of the Tudors, although they may returned triumphantly in 1460 to present have made it easier to achieve. The Tudor York's claim to the Crown and thereby dynasty managed to keep the throne and provoked the most violent phase, from endured for more than a century. The last which there emerged York's son Edward IV serious challenge was in 1497, with the defeat (1461-83) as the first Yorkist king; Towton and capture of the pretender Perkin Warbeck, (1461) was the deciding battle. but the potential threat supposedly posed by Edward's new regime took until 1468 to the White Rose of York continued at least achieve recognition and to eliminate lingering until 1525. Lancastrian resistance in Northumberland, This book surveys these wars as a group north-west Wales and Jersey. Yorkist divisions and investigates them in detail. It treats the led to a coup in 1469 and the Lincolnshire international scene and the contexts of Rebellion of 1470, both led by Warwick and particular battles, and considers the impact of Edward's next brother, George Duke of the wars on English society as a whole and on Clarence (d. 1478). Defeated and exiled, as in particular individuals. It deals not with a 1459, the rebels allied later in 1470 with single war or campaign, but with a series of Lancastrian exiles and swept Edward away. conflicts spread over thirty years. Some of the Henry VI reigned again: his Readeption same issues are therefore examined separately (1470-71). With foreign support, Edward for each war. It concerns itself with what the exploited divisions amongst his enemies, wars have in common - the underlying causes decisively defeating first Warwick at Barnet and systems - and what is distinct about each. and then the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury The Wars of the Roses cannot simply be (1471); his triumph was complete. lumped together as a single conflict with Edward IV was succeeded in 1483 by his common objectives, sides and personnel. The eldest son Edward V, aged 12, but 11 weeks book looks at the causes, course, and the later Edward IV's youngest brother Richard results of each war. III seized the throne. He alienated many of the Yorkist establishment, who rebelled, apparently initially on behalf of Edward V, General summary who disappeared, and then Henry Tudor. Buckingham's Rebellion in 1483 failed, but The Wars of the Roses were a series of wars. the Bosworth campaign of 1485 did defeat Besides the minor clashes and also the lesser and kill Richard. Opposition to the new disorders that occurred in every reign, there regime and a plethora of Yorkist claimants 8 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 and pretenders led to further rebellions, Concise summary invasions, and plots. The battle of Stoke in 1487 did not end the Yorkist conspiracies The first war was from 1459 to 1461, when against Henry VII (1485-1509) and even his King Henry VI was replaced by the Yorkist son Henry VIII (1509-47). Edward IV (1461-83). Originating in the call for reform and personal animosities, it became irreconcilable when Richard Duke of The place of the wars in history York laid claim to the throne. The Lords in London agreed that York should succeed The Wars of the Roses happened over 500 Henry VI on his death, thereby disinheriting years ago and created little if anything of the Henry's son Edward (the Accord). Lancastrian modern Britain familiar to us today, having supporters of Prince Edward rejected the causes particular to its time and to no other. deal, led by Queen Margaret of Anjou and It was not a significant stage in the Henry Duke of Somerset. Richard and development of the English monarchy, Edward Dukes of York were backed by constitution, society or military science. The Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the best-known cause, the dynastic claims of Kingmaker (d. l471). rival sides, have little appeal to a modern age The second war was in 1469-71, that prioritises merit, democracy and equal beginning with Warwick's attempts to control rights; and yet the Wars of the Roses are Edward IV through imprisoning him (1469) surprisingly well-known. and then to replace him by Clarence (March One reason is the abiding influence of 1470). Exiled in France, the rebels allied with William Shakespeare, whose cycle of eight representatives of Henry VI - notably Queen fifteenth-century history plays - especially the Margaret, her son Edward, another Duke of masterpieces Richard II, Henry V and Richard Somerset and Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke III - are constantly revived both in - invaded and replaced Henry on his throne performance and in film and continue to (October 1470). Next year Edward returned attract the best actors. Both Warwick the and exterminated his opponents. Kingmaker and King Richard III remain The third war was in 1483-87. Almost household names. Older generations were bloodlessly Edward IV's brother Richard III taught all periods of English history including (1483-85) deposed his son Edward V (1483). the Middle Ages, whereas those under 40, the A full-scale rebellion of southern England in beneficiaries of subsequent educational 1483 led by Henry Duke of Buckingham reforms, lack this background and few have (d. 1483) and the family of Edward IV's studied the Wars of the Roses at school. They queen, the Wydevilles, was followed in 1485 have been familiarised with the events and by a successful invasion. Richard lost his personalities through the rise of interest in throne to the Tudor King Henry VII military history, especially in war-gaming and (1485-1509), repeated attempts to reverse by the modern fascination with Richard III. the process being defeated. Chronology

1399 Deposition of Richard II; accession Oct-Dec Collapse of Warwick's regime of Henry IV (1399-1413), first and reconciliation with Edward IV Lancastrian king 1470 12 Mar The Lincolnshire Rebellion; 1450 Oct Richard Duke of York takes the defeated at Losecote Field (Empingham) leadership of reform Apr Warwick and Clarence flee into 1452 Feb-Mar York's abortive Dartford exile in France coup d'etat 22-25 July Treaty of Angers between 1455 22 May First battle of St Albans; Warwick and Margaret of Anjou Somerset killed York's Second Prince Edward of Lancaster marries Protectorate Warwick's daughter Anne Neville 1458 25 Mar The Loveday at St Pauls Sep-Oct Warwick invades and 1459 23 Sep The battle of Blore Heath; Edward IV flees into exile in Salisbury defeats Audley Burgundy. Readeption (Second Reign) 12-13 Oct The rout at Ludford. The of King Henry VI begins Yorkist leaders desert and flee to 1471 14 Mar Edward IV lands at Ravenspur Ireland (York) and Calais (the Nevilles) in Yorkshire 1460 26 June The landing of the Yorkist 14 Apr Battle of Barnet; Edward earls from Calais at Sandwich defeats Warwick. Death of Warwick 10 July The battle of Northampton 4 May Battle of Tewkesbury; Edward Oct York lays claim to the throne in defeats Margaret of Anjou and the parliament and is recognised as Lord Lancastrians. Death of Prince Edward Protector/heir to Henry VI in the Accord of Lancaster. Henry Vl's death 30 Dec The battle of Wakefield; York followed on 21 May and Salisbury killed 1483 9-10 Apr Death of Edward IV; 1461 2-3 Feb The battle of Mortimer's succession and deposition of his eldest Cross; Edward Duke of York (son of son as Edward V (1483) Duke Richard) defeats the Welsh 26 June Accession of his uncle Richard Lancastrians Duke of Gloucester as Richard III 17 Feb The second battle of St Albans; (1483-85) Margaret defeats Warwick Oct-Dec Buckingham's Rebellion 4 Mar Edward IV's reign (1461-83) 25 Dec Exiled rebels recognise Henry commences Tudor as king in Rennes Cathedral 29 Mar Battle of Towton; decisive 1485 7 Aug Landing of Henry Tudor at defeat of the Lancastrians Milford Haven 1461-64 Mopping up operations against the 22 Aug Battle of Bosworth; Richard III northern Lancastrians culminating in killed; Henry Tudor succeeds as Henry Yorkist victories at Hedgeley Moor VII (1485-1509) and Hexham 1487 4 June Invasion of Lambert Simnel 1469 June Rebellion of Robin of Redesdale, from Ireland front-man for Warwick 16 June Battle of Stoke; Simnel 24 July Battle of Edgecote; Edward IV defeated; Earl of Lincoln killed is taken into custody 1491-99 Conspiracies of Perkin Warbeck Background to the wars Collapsing regimes

Everything in the 1450s appeared to be going wrong. A savage slump of c. 1440-80 beset most parts of the economy and the majority of people, the Hundred Years' War ended abruptly with English defeat, and the government was powerless to remedy these disasters. The problems were connected - war had plunged the government deep into debt and the depression had slashed its income - but the ineffectiveness of Henry VI himself, a king incapable and unwilling to reign, also contributed. People blamed the government for the state of the economy, which actually no late medieval state could control, and were unwilling to attribute England's military humiliation to the recovery of France. The king's bankruptcy and the loss of Normandy alike were blamed on the corruption and even treason of ministers and commanders, who were widely believed, incorrectly, to have been plundering the king's mythical resources. Hence parliaments and people refused financial help to the government, advocating instead retrenchment and recovery of what had been given away. They demanded reform, refusing to acknowledge when reforms had been achieved and kept repeating the same message. The year 1450 commenced with the impeachment and murder of William Duke of Suffolk, the king's principal councillor, followed by the murder of two ministers and two bishops and with the massive rebellion of Jack Cade in the south-east, and ended with the government on the defensive against another parliament bent on reform. Critics saw themselves as a single movement seeking the same objectives through different means. They lacked a leader until

Richard Duke of York (1411 -60), champion of reform, three times protector, and claimant to Henry Vl's throne. (Ann Ronan Picture Library) Background to the wars 11

October, when Richard Duke of York - the made him his principal adviser, but York, premier duke, the richest nobleman, and who had earlier been lieutenant of France a prince of the blood - returned from himself and who lost materially by defeat, Ireland where he had been lieutenant to wanted Somerset executed for treason, take up the leadership of reform. Reform repeatedly rejecting the king's exoneration implied no challenge to the king and of him. York focused his attacks particularly Henry VI resisted the challenge. He against Edmund Duke of Somerset, the simply refused to give way to an apparently defeated commander in France and the most effective of Henry's favourites. Henry VI and his queen. A court scene. Henry VI held Somerset blameless and (Topham Picturepoint) 12 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 irresistible alliance and still enjoyed enough III's third son John of Gaunt (the house of unquestioning loyalty to get away with his Lancaster) and of his second son Lionel (the obstinacy. With Somerset's help, Henry houses of Mortimer and York). Shakespeare rebuilt the effectiveness of his government starts the story with the deposition of and was on the point of bringing the Richard II in 1399 and the succession of the powerful Nevilles to order in the summer of Lancastrian Henry IV as male heir rather 1453. York continued to pursue the cause of than Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March reform. A first attempt to seize control of (d. 1425) as heir general. Edmund was a the government with an army recruited child in 1399, when the rules of inheritance from his Welsh estates ended in 1452 at for the Crown were yet to be defined. It may Dartford in humiliating capitulation. York even be that the ageing King Edward III had was obliged to promise in St Paul's entailed the Crown on the house of Cathedral that he would not resort to force Lancaster. Once on the throne, the again. York's opportunity came when the Lancastrians were entitled to the allegiance king went mad in 1453 and York was the and service of all their subjects, including majority candidate among several to head a Mortimer and his heir York, and received it new government as Lord Protector many times. Others wove plots around (1454-55). He owed much to his new allies, Mortimer and repeatedly ascribed dynastic the two Richard Nevilles, father and son, significance to the names of Mortimer and Earl of Salisbury and Earl of Warwick, and York. Examples are the Southampton Plot of rewarded them accordingly. York imprisoned 1415, the destruction of the obscure Sir John but could not destroy Somerset, who was Mortimer in 1423-24, and the Mortimer restored to favour on the king's recovery alias of the rebel Jack Cade in 1450; Edmund early in 1455. Perhaps fearing vengeance, Mortimer himself repeatedly dissociated York and the Nevilles ambushed the court at himself from such conspiracies. York's father the first battle of St Albans (22 April 1455), Cambridge was executed for his part in the eliminated Somerset and other opponents, Southampton Plot but until 1460 York and again took control of the government. himself was careful not to identify himself York's Second Protectorate (1455-56) ended as a dynastic rival to the king. Whatever he with his dismissal. A period of tense may have privately thought, York accepted stalemate was ended by Henry VI's the highest of commands and patronage peacemaking in February 1458 (the Loveday from his cousin, King Henry VI - he at St Paul's), but the peace did not last, certainly could not consider himself slighted perhaps because the Yorkists expected too or out of favour - and showed him all the much favour and too much influence once requisite humility when politically they had been forgiven. The first stage of ascendant in 1450 and 1455. York always the wars proper opened in 1459 with yet claimed to be acting on the public's behalf another loyal rebellion - another attempt by and in the king's best interests. The houses the Yorkists to supplant Henry VI's of York and Lancaster had never fought government without changing the king. before 1460. Their initial defeat and subsequent victory The first stage of civil war grew out of 10 preceded and permitted York's claim to the years of political debate, in which Richard Crown the following year. Duke of York presented himself as a reformer committed to good government and aligned himself against each set of 'evil The origins of the conflict councillors'. Such critiques were legitimate forms of political activity, for reform was Traditionally the Wars of the Roses have always popular and reforming manifestos in been seen as a dynastic conflict originating this era repeatedly brought the people out in the rival claims to the Crown of Edward in force. From 1453 York was greatly Background to the wars 13 strengthened by his alliance with the councillors of the king. The majority of the Nevilles of Middleham (Yorks.), who needed House of Lords, as always, stood outside his support against rival claimants to their factions, but put their allegiance to the sway in the north (the Percies) and their king first. If York was ruthless and readily inheritances in Wales and the west resorted to force and political murder, it midlands (Somerset). The enemies of the was because he was allowed to behave in Nevilles became York's enemies also as his this way. King Henry was amazingly attacks on successive groups of the royal forbearing and merciful. Repeatedly he favourites and the repeated culls of them in pardoned offences that would have been 1450, 1455 and 1460 inflamed pre-existing treasonable and deserving of death in lesser personal animosities. The sons of Somerset men. He constantly laboured for and Northumberland, two peers slain at the reconciliation although York's three solemn first battle of St Albans, wanted revenge and explicit oaths to abstain from strong- and were only reluctantly persuaded to arm tactics did not discourage him from accept compensation instead. Gradually further coups. It was hard for the regime to two sides emerged, both comprising a operate properly with such distractions - minority of the elite: York, the Nevilles, and governments were allowed no credit for the protagonists of reform; and their reforms that had been achieved or for the enemies, comprising both their victims and difficulties they had in managing when the understandably fearful ministers and resources were so short.

Pedigree I :The titles of Lancaster, York and Beaufort in 1460-61

EDWARD III 1327-77

Lionel Blanche (I) = John of Gaunt (2) = (3) Katherine Swynford Duke of Clarence Duke of Lancaster d. 1368 d. I 399

MORTIMER LANCASTER BEAUFORT (legitimated)

Henry IV 1399-1413 YORK John Earl of Somerset d. 1410 Henry V 1413-22 RICHARD DUKE OF YORK Edmund Duke of Somerset d. 1460 HENRY VI 1422-61 d. 1455

EDWARD IV 1461-83 Edward HENRY Prince of Wales DUKE OF SOMERSET d. 1471 d. 1464 14 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

The later outbreaks of violence, in mobilisation of civilians, both on sea and 1469-71 and from 1483, had shorter-term land, to counteract Warwick's piracy in the causes, resulting from divisions, ambitions Channel in 1459-60 and 1470, and in and struggles for power within the ruling anticipation of invasions in 1460, 1470-71 elite, although in each case rebels attracted and in 1483-85. What such emergencies the support of unreconciled supporters of meant in practice is hard to detect for even the previous regime. Warwick and Clarence these campaigns were brief, unsustained and in 1470 allied themselves to Henry VI, geographically restricted, so that the Queen Margaret, Prince Edward and challenge of feeding, accommodating and Lancastrians both at home and in exile, paying large numbers of troops for long whilst Henry VI's half-brother Jasper Tudor, periods never had to be faced. Civil war was Earl of Pembroke and their nephew Henry not apparently paid for through taxation, Tudor were retrieved from exile and the Earl though the Crown borrowed wherever it of Oxford from prison by those opposed to could; defeated armies did not have to be Richard III. Such men carried earlier paid. Normal life continued apparently resentments, rivalries and principles from undisturbed for most of these 30 years and conflict to conflict, but there were very few the campaigns directly affected few people, of them. Jasper Tudor was almost alone in either as fighters or victims. Ironically participating in all stages of the conflict, things were getting better when Richard from the first battle of St Albans in 1455 to took the throne so that Henry VII benefited Stoke in 1487. Henry Tudor was a from a 'feel- good' factor. completely fresh face in 1483.

What might have been The effects of the wars The wars were not inevitable for at each The Wars of the Roses started after defeat in stage there was a choice. Henry VI staged a the Hundred Years' War in 1449-53. major reconciliation of the warring parties Conflict in the Channel and raids on the in 1458 and Edward IV did likewise both in south coast impeded trade and threatened 1468 with Warwick and on his deathbed in foreign invasion, coinciding with the 'Great 1483. Kings were prepared repeatedly to Slump' of roughly 1440-80. People in all pardon rebels and traitors on condition that walks of life were feeling the pinch, looked they accepted them as kings and their back nostalgically to better times and authority. This was true not only of Henry blamed the government as they do today. VI in 1459 and 1460, but of Edward IV in The wars themselves were short lived and 1469 and 1470; he even offered terms to the actual fighting was brief, so that there Warwick in 1471. Richard III reconciled was no calculated wasting of the himself to the Wydevilles and was probably countryside, few armies lived off the land willing to make peace with others if they and there was little storming of towns or would agree - very few people, perhaps pillaging. A few individuals may have been Jasper Tudor in 1471, were beyond fined or ransomed but they appear forgiveness. That conflict happened in each exceptional. The devastation wreaked by case was because the aggressors - always the Queen Margaret's much-condemned rebels - refused to give way. northern army on its progress southwards in This is surprising because they had so 1460 made little impact on surviving much to lose - their property, their lives and records, while Northumberland and north­ their families' futures - and were faced by west Wales in the 1460s suffered from stark choices. Their motives were a mixture repeated campaigns and sieges. More serious of pragmatism, self-interest and principle, may have been the effects of large-scale with mistrust being an important element: Background to the wars 15 disbelief that forgiveness could be genuine. trumped-up charges in 1478, but besides If Henry VI's motives could be trusted, could such negative motives, there were positive those of the people close to him who had ones. York in the 1450s was sure that he private grounds for revenge? Whatever could provide better government. So Edward IV's promises in 1469, his household probably was Warwick a decade later. His men spoke otherwise: Warwick and Clarence breach with Edward IV was attributed by our feared that in due course Edward would most authoritative contemporary source to wreak his vengeance on them. Was it differing foreign policies. Richard III claimed possible for York in 1460 or Warwick in to want better government and his 1471 to live with former enemies and could opponents certainly thought this could be they accept the political eclipse that achieved by removing Richard himself. To submission implied? George Duke of submit meant abandoning these principles: Clarence, who did submit, was executed on temporary setbacks and submissions proved acceptable - York had three times to renounce his cause - but definitive abandonment was not. Pride, honour and self-esteem were intertwined with other motives. Although Warwick had submitted to Edward IV in 1469 and had abased himself to his former enemy, Queen Margaret of Anjou, to secure Lancastrian support in 1470, he refused all that was offered in 1471. Turning his coat again was bound to dishonour him. And, finally, of course there was dynastic principle. If York and later Warwick initially saw dynasticism as merely a means to an end - the end being better rule and control of the government - York from 1460, Richard III, and later White Rose claimants saw the Crown as the main objective. It was not that the dynastic struggle caused the Wars of the Roses, but that the wars created the dynastic struggle and that dynasticism became the principal issue. Since the drown could not be divided, it made compromise impossible and conflict inevitable. Whilst Edward IV claimed to be seeking only his duchy of York in 1471, neither he nor any other reigning king was prepared in practice to surrender his crown for peace - death on the battlefield was to be preferred. Difficult choices faced not merely the leadership, but the nobility, gentry, and the rank and file. Risks that had seemed acceptable early in the wars, when so many rebellions succeeded, became too stark once most leaders perished. An unwillingness to Richard III (1483-85): the vanquished general at Bosworth. (Topham Picturepoint) take the risks, which was present from the start, was reinforced; some always sat on the 16 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 fence. The Stanleys in particular sympathised with the rebels in the first two wars, but somehow escaped commitment until the last minutes at Bosworth in 1485. A succession of rebels in 1469 and from 1486 sheltered behind the aliases of pretenders. Later plots failed or never really started because The Tower of London, besieged in 1460. Note London Bridge, attacked by the Bastard of Fauconberg in 1471, supporters declined to commit themselves, at behind. Here the Tower serves as a luxurious prison for a which point, when too few were willing to French prince of the blood royal. (Ann Ronan Picture rebel, the wars ended. Library) Warring sides Part-timers, professionals, and people

Who were the protagonists? not the numbers contained within each, not the proportions, which must surely have The leadership during the wars were the rival varied by campaign and battle. kings and the high nohility - dukes, earls, The nucleus of every army, so historians and lords - who were also the social and believe, was composed of the companies or political elite, and whose activities are well retinues of the great nobility, the greatest recorded. Them apart, we know the identity being that of the king. Such retinues were of very few of the combatants. Mere made up of several elements. The core was hundreds are named in the case of Towton the noble household, both upstairs (1461), mere dozens at Barnet (1471) and at aristocrats and downstairs menials, who Bosworth (1485) - out of forces always were generally young and may have been thousands and sometimes tens of thousands tall men selected with military potential in strong. There survive no muster rolls, no mind; all were especially committed to their payrolls, and no comprehensive lists of lord. Second come the estate officers, casualties. The vanquished, anxious to avoid stewards and receivers, all aristocratic; it punishment, had good reason to conceal was they who deployed and commanded themselves, and the victors to exaggerate. If the tenants from their lords' estates, the everyone claiming credit from Henry VII or rustic peasantry. Third were the subsequently celebrated in the Stanley extraordinary retainers, typically country ballads Lady Bessy and Bosworthfield, had gentry retained for life by formal contracts actually been at Bosworth, the Tudor army for annual salaries (fees), with their own must have been several sizes larger than we household and their own tenants. believe it to have been. Archaeology here is Sometimes, perhaps not infrequently, there little help - 38 bodies from Towton are a pitiful fraction of the casualty list. The Falcon and Fetterlock, a badge of Richard Duke of How the armies were comprised, therefore, York worn by his retainers. is speculative. We know the components, but (Topham Picturepoint) 18 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Badges of the house of Lancaster including the Red Rose And, finally, there was the populace. At and Double S. two points in the Wars of the Roses, in June (Topham Picturepoint) 1460 and October 1470, the populace were others, possibly many others, recruited committed themselves to the cause of for the occasion by the issue of livery; 2,000 reform. Obviously made up of people armbands bearing the Stafford knot were otherwise susceptible to array, they turned made for the Duke of Buckingham in 1454. out in such numbers against the king that On occasion the Calais garrison, as in no semi-professional army could stand 1459-60, or contingents of foreign against them: if they really amounted to the mercenaries were involved. 60,000 suggested in 1470, sheer numbers Only rarely can such aristocratic or made it no contest. In Yorkshire in 1489 and professional companies have been the in Cornwall in 1497 such cross-class majority. At Blore Heath and Ludford in uprisings were confined to particular 1459 and at Stoke in 1487, when they were, regions. it was a sign of weakness of the aggressors, who lost, having failed to engage the What were their motives? imagination and secure the commitment of The majority of the political nation wished to the vast majority outside their own estates preserve the status quo most of the time, and and employment. Much larger numbers of in particular the current king, right or wrong, more doubtful effectiveness could be raised to whom they had sworn allegiance. Inertia, through enlisting the populace of town and however, was seldom allowed to prevail. country en masse through commissions of Much more quickly mobilised were the array, which only kings and their retinues on which political leaders, on commissioners could do. The value of this whatever side, principally relied - those with mechanism emerges clearly in 1470-71, personal ties with them, such as their when Warwick and Clarence secured such household and extraordinary retainers; those commissions and diverted the manpower to with long-standing traditions of dependence; their own causes; not to do so, as Warwick those subject to their commands; and those also discovered, was a fatal defect, as it lost specifically hired for the purpose. Some him the support even of his own retainers. perhaps followed automatically or did as Because of the potentially overwhelming commanded, as kings supposed the people numbers that such commissions could did; whereas others - such as the Calais deploy, the longer that campaigns lasted, captain in 1459 and the Derbyshire squire the larger the royal armies grew: Henry VI in Henry Vernon in 1471 - weighed their 1459 and Edward IV in early 1470 options carefully before making their own ultimately led such overwhelming forces considered choices. Loyalty, trust and that their opponents fled. obedience, mixed in varying proportions, Warring sides 19

turned them out. Sympathy with a lord's Richmond Castle. Yorkshire. The banners show the parts objectives did matter. Not only might such of the castle for which particular feudal tenants, such as congruence reinforce existing bonds, but its the Nevilles of Middleham, the Lords Scrope and FitzHugh were responsible. (The British Library) absence could cause even the most long­ standing and most committed adherents to withdraw their support. Dynasticism, the legitimacy of a particular An element in such sympathy was title to the Crown, was first raised in 1460 conformity to accepted political principles and was apparently a key issue in the popular and perhaps especially to the course of enthusiasm that swept Henry VI back to his reform. It was such ideas, carefully throne in 1470. Rival claims were crucial for nurtured, cultivated and inflamed by claimants from Richard III, but they do not skilfully targeted propaganda, that York and appear to have prompted such large numbers then Warwick in 1450-71 used to convert of any rank to put themselves at risk. popular discontent into effective political Participants were well motivated - there and military action. Such notions were was little time for desertion - and generally recycled by Richard III in 1483 and Perkin expected to be paid, though there is almost Warbeck in 1497 when, however, the no evidence that they were. We know of necessary precondition of popular many rewards bestowed on the victors after discontent may have been absent. Certainly the event, but only the Calais garrison and the popular component was not impressive foreign contingents were professional in the conflicts of the 1480s. salaried soldiers. 20 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

The combatants 1 At sea from professional mariners, such as those enlisted by Warwick from the mid- All Englishmen aged from 16 to 60 had an 1450s most probably from West Country obligation of home defence against pirates, and unleashed by him on foreign invasions or rebellions, being called out by commerce, on Henry VI's Kentish levies in commissioners of array or by the lords 1459-60, and against London by the whose tenants they were. They were Bastard of Fauconberg in 1470-71. responsible for their own armaments, which 2 From the Calais garrison, about 1,000 were generally rudimentary, and their own strong, the only truly professional force training, principally practice in archery. In maintained to contemporary European Wales and Cheshire archery may have been standards by the Crown, which Warwick more highly developed. Towns arrayed not directed into English politics in 1459-60. the whole citizenry, but smaller contingents, 3 From the borderers of the northern properly equipped at public expense, marchers, where feuding and raiding with probably pre-selected from those with the Scots was endemic. The wardens of military predilections. The protection of the marches were not only exempt from society against its enemies justified the legal restrictions on retaining, but were privileges of the officer class, the aristocracy, actually paid to raise private armies. who therefore had a chivalric style of Successive wardens of the West March - education. They read histories and romances from the Earls of Salisbury (1455) and about past heroes and Vegetius' account of Warwick (1470-71) to Gloucester (1483), Roman warfare. Such inspiring and and successive Percies Earls of theoretical book-learning was accompanied Northumberland in the East March by physical pursuits that equipped them to committed to the struggle manpower that, fight on horseback - apart from jousting, to southern eyes, was harder, wilder and such lifelong recreations as hunting and more effective than their southern hawking regularly refreshed these skills. counterparts. The service of the men of Wartime experience was needed, however, to Middleham and Richmond to Salisbury, make generals out of aristocrats and to Warwick, and Gloucester was crucial. convert disparate individuals into 4 Foreign contingents. Numbers are seldom disciplined and effective fighting forces. recorded and are difficult to assess. The Wartime experience was generally Scottish borderers of the early 1460s and lacking. The Wars of the Roses could not be mid-1490s were comparable to their contested by veterans of the Hundred Years' English counterparts, but confined War, for so long had the English been in themselves to the far north. A mere retreat that potential recruits had been handful of Burgundian handgunners deterred. English forces were ageing even under seigneur de la Barde fought in before they were severely culled by the 1461, but a substantial French force, led decisive defeats of 1449-53. Sir John Fastolf, by the experienced Pierre de Breze, Sir Andrew Ogard and Sir William Oldhall intervened significantly in died before the conflict proper commenced, Northumberland in the early 1460s. and York himself, Bonville and Kyriel in Warwick in 1470 and Edward IV in 1471 1460-61. English campaigns in France, in came in foreign ships equipped at foreign 1475 and 1492, were short lived and expense and containing at least some involved no serious fighting. Even the forces foreign supporters. Professional and of the great lords, though physically fit, well experienced French and Scottish forces equipped and well exercised, lacked practical were hired by Henry VII in 1485 and military experience. Armies, therefore, were featured prominently at Bosworth. In predominantly raw. Experience came from 1487 it was not the wild Irishmen or the four principal sources: northerners, but the veteran Martin Swart Warring sides 21

and his German troops, who were the developments in warfare. Both built up nucleus of Lamhert Simnel's defeated ordnance that was useful in the infrequent army at Stoke. sieges, but actually ineffective in the battlefield. Richard Duke of Gloucester, the Many individuals fought in more than one future Richard III, presented himself as a stage of the Wars of the Roses, which were soldier to contemporaries. Involved as a however too brief and sporadic for much teenager in the upheavals of 1469-71, being expertise to be developed, but such wounded slightly at Barnet and commanding intermittent service may have contributed to a division at Tewkesbury, he participated in morale. the abortive Picquigny expedition of 1475 As for the commanders, those with and was commander-in-chief against the significant experience in the early stages - Scots In 1480-83; the recovery of Berwick, a York, Somerset, Salisbury, Northumberland - conspicuous success, nevertheless appears were in their fifties when fighting began and less impressive in the absence of Scottish failed to survive into Edward IV's reign. resistance. On the other hand, Pembroke and Merely 19 at this stage, the young king Oxford had track records principally of was to prove the most successful general of failure and defeat. the Wars of the Roses, deriving his experience entirely from domestic conflict. Where did they come from? Both he and his cousin Warwick, who had It follows that combatants came from all prior experience as keeper of the seas and over the country, but seldom did either side Calais, were students of modern deploy all their potential manpower. Great noblemen were strong in many different areas - York in Ireland, Wales, Yorkshire and Richmond Castle today, showing its formidable natural defences across the River Swale. East Anglia, his son Gloucester in the north (Heritage Image Partnership) and in south Wales - and their forces could 22 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 Warring sides 23 not easily be united. The brevity of Queen Margaret's armies in 1460-61 and campaigns, which militated against this, was Northumbrian resistance until 1464. It was deliberate, for it was generally more supposedly the 4th Earl of Northumberland's important to deny complete mobilisation to neutralisation of such men that enabled opponents than to turn out all one's own Edward IV's invasion to get off the ground in supporters. 1471. York, the greatest of Welsh marcher Particular groups mattered at different lords, relied in 1455 and 1459 on his Welsh times. The Calais garrison and men of Kent tenants, who were surely the source of were the foundation of Warwick's three Edward IV's victorious army at Mortimer's invasions in 1459, 1460 and 1469. The Cross; Jasper Tudor in 1461-71 also relied Nevilles' northerners, especially the men of repeatedly (but always unsuccessfully) on Richmondshire in Yorkshire, played Welsh resources. Men from the West important roles at the first battle of St Albans Country, supporters of the Courtenays and (1455), in Robin of Redesdale's uprising of Beauforts, mattered in 1460-61 and 1469, in 1470 (twice), in 1471, underpinned 1470-71, while Cornishmen rebelled twice Gloucester's usurpation in 1483, and were in 1497. The Stanleys' Cheshiremen and the apparently unresponsive focus of Lancastrians intervened decisively at recruitment in 1486-87. Supporters of Bosworth. Yet we know little of the origins of Lancastrian northerners, especially the Percy most combatants. In 1485 and 1487, it earls of Northumberland, supplied most of appears, fewer Englishmen turned out.

The brass of William Catesby, by the notorious henchman of Richard III, and his wife Margaret Zouche. (Geoffrey Wheeler Collection) Outbreak Force for change

The initial outbreak

Contemporaries had high hopes of the Loveday at St Paul's - Henry VI's reconciliation of the warring factions on 25 March 1458 - but it did not endure. There appear to have been a series of minor frictions, misunderstandings and attempted reconciliations; perhaps also a more substantial, but undocumented, plot. However that may be, the Yorkist lords were charged with unspecified offences in a great council at Coventry in June 1459 where, having been convicted, York and Warwick were again forgiven, and allowed to renew their promises to behave. They suffered no other penalties, such as loss of offices and were free to resume their lives as loyal (but not special) subjects if they wished. On leaving, they immediately embarked on a new rebellion, in which they claimed to be the king's true lovers - loyal subjects anxious to clear the slur of unjust accusations and to reform the government in the public interest. Control of the government was the key objective. Their manifestos were designed to attract wider support, but they were prepared to go it alone. York was to recruit in Wales, Salisbury in the north, and Warwick in Calais, their agreed rendezvous being not far from the king's base at Kenilworth. We need not doubt the later statement of the rebels that they had not wished to fight: as in 1455, they hoped to coerce the king and his civilian court with overwhelming military force. Such an elaborate plan involved time to recruit in different areas and to bring the component parts together; it also demanded

Yorkist Earls flee from Henry VI (on throne with sceptre) at Ludford to Calais, 1459. (The British Library) Outbreak 25 secrecy. It is unlikely that the king's advisers notice. The king shadowed the earl's progress anticipated the insurrection or knew the south-westwards, diverting him through plan, since no obstacles hindered Warwick's Cheshire, where he was confronted at Blore march from Kent through London to the Heath near Market Drayton on the West Midlands, although Salisbury's Shrewsbury road by a substantial force mobilisation in Yorkshire did come to their commanded by Lords Audley and Dudley. 26 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Pedigree 2: Outline Pedigree of the Lancastrian, Yorkist, and Tudor kings

EDWARD III 1327-77

Lionel John of Gaunt Edmund Duke of Clarence Duke of Lancaster Duke ofYork

MORTIMER LANCASTER YORK

Henry IV 1399-1413

Henry V 1413-22

HENRY VI 1422-61

Edward of Lancaster 1453-71

Anne Mortimer Richard Earl of Cambridge

RICHARD DUKE OF YORK d. 1460

EDWARD IV 1461-83 RICHARD III 1483 85

EDWARD V 1483 Elizabeth ofYork HENRY VII 1485-1509

TUDORS

At this stage, remember, Salisbury had done the whole plan. Unable to negotiate his nothing irrevocable - nothing from which opponents out of the way, on 23 September he could not withdraw and that imperilled Salisbury attacked and defeated his opponents his allegiance - but not to fight would stymie - the Yorkists had struck the first blow and Outbreak 27

the way was clear for Salisbury to join up lieutenant; his son Edward, Salisbury and with York as originally planned; so did Warwick went to Calais, where Warwick was Warwick. So long had the process taken, captain and royal keeper of the seas. In each however, that King Henry was able to recruit case they were well received, took control and a formidable army of his own so that the could be winkled out only by force. Meantime Yorkists were obliged to retreat to Ludford. A the 'Parliament of Devils' at Coventry rightly last stand was rendered impracticable by the condemned them to forfeiture as traitors, but desertion of the Calais contingent and so the the king, still more lenient than his advisers, Yorkist nobles deserted their followers. was again prepared to compromise and Once again Henry VI was prepared to offer forgive. The Yorkists repudiated their terms to the Yorkist leaders. They however sentences, rejected all such offers and planned made good their escape - York fled to Ireland, to return by force. The government was where he was Earl of Ulster and a past obliged to recover Calais by force, sending first Henry Duke of Somerset, who was marooned at Guines Castle, and then Lord Rivers, whose Margaret of Anjou, queen to Henry VI, who took up the leadership of the Lancastrians against the Yorkists late in expeditionary force at Sandwich and he 1460. (Topham Picturepoint) himself were captured by a combined 28 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 operation. Warwick's command both of the other or rely on its doubtful mercy. Edward IV's only professional English garrison and the decision to raise the stakes even further, by king's fleet was not surprisingly decisive. declaring himself king, was his only way out. Henry could not afford effective naval or Towton was the decisive battle. military defences against the threatened invasions, which could have fallen almost anywhere around the coast from Lancashire to The second outbreak East Anglia. Skilful Yorkist propaganda asserted that they were blameless, that they were loyal Edward used his first reign (1461-70) to to the king, and that they wished only to rid establish his government, to secure foreign him of his evil councillors. In June 1460 the recognition and to crush remaining Yorkists landed unopposed at Sandwich, Lancastrian resistance, the task being progressed triumphantly through Kent into completed in 1468. Henry VI was captured in London, from which the king had withdrawn, 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower. His queen and pursued him to his encampment outside and son retired to St Michel in Bar, one of Northampton. The royal army was defeated on her father's properties, where they 10 July at the battle of Northampton and maintained a shadowy government with Sir Henry's principal supporters were eliminated. John Fortescue as chancellor in exile. The king himself was captured, brought back Warwick was the man behind the throne: a to London with every sign of respect and a famous joke by the Calais garrison was that new parliament was convened to cancel the there were two rulers in England, one being sentences against the Yorkists. Warwick, and the other whose name they Had the Yorkists been content to control the had forgotten. As the teenaged king grew up, government on Henry VI's behalf, York could he was bound to assert himself, being have secured the permanent Third Protectorate naturally anxious to make himself king of the that he desired, and his opponents, as on both whole nation and to look to others beyond previous occasions, might have accepted his the faction that had him king, to others apart authority as legitimate. Instead he now laid from Warwick and his brothers, who had claim to the Crown, as the rightful heir of been exceptionally rewarded. The Edward III through Lionel Duke of Clarence, advancement of the queen's family, the the elder brother of the Lancastrian ancestor Wydevilles, and their kinsmen, the Herberts, John of Gaunt. Even a parliament packed with was achieved partly through manipulating York's supporters would not consent to the the marriage market, which denied removal of a king who had reigned for almost appropriate spouses to Warwick's daughters forty years. The Accord that was agreed left and heiresses and gave the earl a legitimate Henry on the throne, with York to govern, but complaint. The key issue that came to divide set aside the king's son Edward of Lancaster in them, however, was foreign policy. Warwick favour of York himself. The Accord brought not apparently recognised that the Hundred peace but war, creating a party for Queen Years' War was lost and wished to ally with Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI's consort, and Louis XI of France against Burgundy, the their son, who had taken refuge in the north. third great state of northern Europe that York's own attempt to suppress them failed on included the modern Benelux countries. 30 December 1460 in his disastrous defeat and F.dward, however, aspired to resume the death at Wakefield. On 17 February the second Hundred Years' War and allied himself to battle of St Albans restored the person of Henry Burgundy. Several shadowy clashes and VI, the key figurehead, to Lancastrian hands. reconciliations culminated in Warwick's Henceforth the Yorkists could no longer marriage, without Edward's permission, of his convincingly claim to be ruling on his behalf - daughter to the king's brother George Duke both sides had wrongs to avenge and neither of Clarence at Calais on 11 July 1469, and his side could afford to compromise, tolerate the attempt to seize control of the government. Outbreak 29

It is apparent that this had been carefully the queen's family, the Wydevilles, the late planned. An uprising was arranged by king's chamberlain Lord Hastings, and his Warwick's northern retainers, which was brother Richard Duke of Gloucester carried disguised as a popular call for reform, led by over into Edward V's reign and explained at one 'Robin of Redesdale' and publicised by a least to some extent what happened. The supposedly popular manifesto modelled on Wydevilles wanted to convert their kinship those of 1459-60, probably originating from to the young Edward V into power and to Warwick himself. The earl again advanced use it to settle old scores with Hastings. from Calais through Kent and London. The Perhaps Richard's usurpation as Richard III Earl of Pembroke's Welsh supporters of the was a defensive measure, a pre-emptive king were defeated at Edgecote near Banbury. strike against his Wydeville foes, although Edward himself was arrested by Warwick's such explanations now appear unlikely for brother, Archbishop Neville, and imprisoned, Gloucester and the Wydevilles were not at while Rivers, Pembroke and Devon, his odds before Edward IV's death. It was principal favourites, were murdered. Warwick Gloucester who was the aggressor at all governed on the king's behalf. The models of stages: it was he who first employed 1455 and 1460 are obvious. However violence and shed blood; and Gloucester Warwick could not maintain control and was staged two coups d'etats. The first at Stony obliged to release the king, forcing a Stratford wrested the young king from his compromise on both parties. Whatever the Wydeville entourage and enabled king's long-term intentions, Warwick's Gloucester to become Lord Protector, albeit objectives remained; and the Lincolnshire temporarily; the second, on 13 June, Rebellion that he orchestrated next led destroyed Lord Hastings, who was beheaded inescapably to the subsequent conflicts. without trial. Edward V's uncle Earl Rivers and half-brother Richard Grey were also executed. Having discredited the young The third outbreak king's hereditary claim by questioning the legitimacy both of him and his father Barnet and Tewkesbury were decisive battles, Edward IV, Richard acceded to the Crown with Warwick and the Lancastrians being on 26 June and was crowned less than a annihilated, so that for the next twelve years fortnight later. Unfortunately his arguments Edward IV was more secure on his throne failed to convince or to carry the Yorkist than he had ever been. His second reign establishment with him so that henceforth ended in 1483 with his natural death and they opposed him and proceeded to the automatic succession of his young son, extraordinary lengths, even backing Edward V. The Yorkist dynasty was secure. Henry Tudor, to get rid of him. Thus Ten weeks later Edward V had lost his Richard's usurpation created a wholly new throne to his uncle Richard III. It used to be civil war, with all subsequent events supposed that factional disputes involving stemming from that. The fighting Dash to battle

Overview complete victory for one side or another, the annihilation or flight of the The Wars of the Roses were not continuous vanquished, the total scotching of plots, - thirteen campaigns were spread across 30 and the suppression of rebellions. Wars years, in 1459, 1460, 1460-61, 1462, 1463, were brief, lasting generally only a few 1464, 1469, 1470 (2), 1471, 1483, 1485 and months or a few weeks. The longest, from 1487. Before, in 1452 and 1455, and mid-September 1459 to 29 March 1461, fell afterwards there were coups d'etat actual into three distinct phases separated by and attempted, abortive plots, local months of actual or apparent peace. The insurrections, sieges and raids (1461-68, 1469 (2), 1473-74, 1486, 1489, 1497), The battle of Northampton. The victorious Edward Earl private wars and private battles. Most of March (later Edward IV) kneels before the captured campaigns were decisive, ending in Henry VI outside his tent. (The British Library) The fighting 31

The 1459 Campaign

most protracted hostilities were possible The Neville Earls join York at Ludlow, Warwick from only because there existed foreign refuges Calais and Salisbury (after brushing aside the Lancastrians in Calais, France, Scotland, Ireland, at Blore Heath) from Middleham. Advancing to Burgundy and Brittany - where the Worcester, they were confronted by Henry VI, withdrew via Tewkesbury and Leominster to Ludford, just south of defeated could retire, regroup and plan Ludlow, and then dispersed. York fled to Ireland and the their return. three Yorkist Earls to Calais. Such bases and the backing of foreign powers explain why the defeated were so often able to return and even overthrow from overseas, in 1459, 1460, 1469, 1470, their conquerors in the extraordinary 1471, 1483, 1485 and 1487, five of which reversals of fortune that were so - in 1460, 1469, 1470, 1471 and 1485 - characteristic of the Wars of the Roses. succeeded in capturing or overthrowing the There were at least eight major invasions government and three (1470, 1471, 1485) 32 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 in changing both king and dynasty. The armies that fell short of continental Scots occupied Berwick from 1461 to 1483 standards of equipment, training, and and crossed the northern frontier numbers. Relatively small diplomatic, repeatedly in 1461-63 and in 1480-82. financial and military investments paid Lesser raids occurred almost annually in foreign powers big dividends, at the very the 1460s and in 1472-74. There were least preventing effective English series of northern rebellions in 1469-71 intervention in Europe. and in 1486-92. Never before or since has The campaigns themselves were very the kingdom of England seemed more of short. Aggressors sought first to outgrow an island, exposed to attack anywhere local resistance and to recruit locally, and along 2,000 miles of coast and land frontier secondly to force a battle with the ruling and nowhere more than a day from enemy regime's field army before all those owing bases overseas or from Scotland. Hard allegiance could join the king. Having though they tried, no regime was able to failed to prevent a landing, the control the sea, although Warwick came establishment also sought to crush its rivals closest in 1459-61, and there were no before they were too strong. Both sides successful interceptions of seaborne always hastened to settle the issue in battle, attackers throughout the period. Once so that neither faced the major logistical ashore, admittedly, small expeditions were problems of accommodating and supplying at risk, but they quickly outgrew the forces armies for months and years in the face of available locally. No government could the enemy in the field. Outside the years guard effectively against landings that 1461-64, when the Lancastrians could occur anywhere, in Kent or Devon in maintained their toehold in 1470, in Norfolk and Yorkshire in 1471, in Northumberland, there was little Essex and Cornwall in 1472-74, or at garrisoning or blockading of castles or Milford in Hampshire or Milford in towns. Multi-pronged attacks were as much Pembrokeshire in 1485. Nor could they about distracting defensive efforts as afford to keep their defences alert for bringing together all the aggressor's prolonged periods. Often enough, resources; only four times was such a moreover, such landings were part of multi- combination attempted - in 1455, when it pronged attacks that diverted attention, so was successful, in 1459, when it took too where did the real threat lie? long, and in 1469 and 1470, when the One difference between the Wars of the decisive battle happened first. Inevitably, Roses and the periods before and after was therefore, opposing sides joined in battle the willingness of foreign powers to dabble before their fullest strength was achieved. in English affairs and in English politics. Each preferred known risks to what might Their actions were self-interested, arising have been, hence there were no semi­ principally from the rivalry of the great permanent frontiers between rival spheres north European powers of France (and its of influence, no gains or losses in one Scottish ally) and Burgundy. The Wars of another's territory and no stalemates the Roses were part of the struggle between between rival front lines. Several times France and Burgundy that was fought on efforts were made to settle quarrels by English soil. Merely providing the shipping negotiation - in 1455, 1459, 1460, 1470 enabled Louis XI, Charles the Bold and and 1471 - always by securing the same Margaret of Burgundy to exploit pre­ concessions as were sought by force, but existing political divisions within England. agreement was never achieved. It was A handful of Burgundian handgunners unusual for either side to refuse battle, in 1461 and a few thousand French (1485) although the Scots did at Alnwick in 1463 and German professionals (1487) exerted and Warwick did at Coventry in 1471, and disproportionate force against amateur rarer still for such policies to succeed. Four The fighting 33 times the weaker party acknowledged although several times flanks were its weakness by fleeing abroad. These inadequately secured. At Ludford (1459) were wise decisions in retrospect, since and at Northampton (1460), in 1470 in each case the vanquished returned and at Bosworth (1485) it was treachery triumphant within two years. The that was decisive. What marked Edward original strategy, even in these cases, IV out as the best general was his as in all others, whether aggressive or repeated success, the result as much defensive, was to force a decisive battle of his decisiveness and aggression early in the campaign. Indeed there as the conspicuous superiority of were no drawn battles and no commander his tactics. ever withdrew his defeated army in good Armies were rarely brought to battle order from the field. Victory in battle unwillingly - they fought where and when almost always fulfilled all the victor's they did because this was what both strategic objectives. commanders wished. Sometimes indeed, If the strategy was always offensive, this at Northampton, the second battle of was not always true of the tactics, which St Albans and Towton, one army selected were often defensive. Armies were typically the terrain well in advance and waited for organised in three or four divisions. At the other to arrive and attack. Armies Towton the Yorkists advanced in column, would draw up in line opposite one with a vanguard, second and third line, but another with the troops on foot; more commonly the divisions were aristocrats and others with horses stretched across the field, with a right normally dismounted. At Towton wing, centre and left wing, sometimes Warwick allegedly dismissed his horse with a reserve or (as at the second battle to signify his willingness to fight to the of St Albans, Towton, Barnet and death. Battle would commence with a Tewkesbury) with detachments on the barrage of artillery and archery, which flank. Crucial roles were played by late­ caused many casualties and which was so comers at Towton and Bosworth when the much to the advantage of the Yorkists at Duke of Norfolk and Sir William Stanley Towton and at Tewkesbury that the respectively arrived late on the scene. At Lancastrian armies were obliged to leave Barnet both armies advanced, while at their prepared positions and attack. Hand- Wakefeld (1460), Edgecote (1469) and to-hand conflict would ensue, although not Bosworth (1485) preparations were always all along the line. Once the battle incomplete before highly confusing battles was joined, rival commanders could do were joined. At the first battle of St Albans little to influence the results except when (1455), Blore Heath (1459), Northampton they committed their reserves; Richard III (1460), the second battle of St Albans at Bosworth hoped to kill his rival and and Towton (1461), Barnet (1471) and forced his way directly at him. Once one Bosworth (1485) one army took a defensive side had the upper hand, the other was stance, sometimes behind entrenchments almost inevitably routed and scattered, and artillery - that all but the last were everybody seeking to save themselves by defeated suggests an advantage in attack. fleeing the battlefield, concealment or In three other instances, however, at sanctuary, many being slain in flight. Wakefield, Empingham and Tewkesbury, Only after the second battle of St Albans rash aggression, beyond defences or was a defeated army reconstituted even in before all forces were available, part to fight again. proved fatal. Precisely where the battles were fought Such generalisations oversimplify - the is generally unknown. Plaques and size of an army mattered, but was seldom monuments, as at Blore Heath, Towton, decisive; favourable ground helped Barnet and Stoke, may reflect local 34 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

The 1461 Campaign

Queen Margaret (top) advances southwards to St are based on scanty contemporary Aibans, where she defeats Warwick (17 February). accounts, written years later, sometimes Following the defeat of the Welsh Lancastrians at long afterwards, normally by non-soldiers Mortimers Cross (2-3 February), Edward Duke of York who were not at the battle. These have beats her into London, where he is recognised as King Edward IV (4 March). Margaret retreats northwards to been compared to the surviving landscape Yorkshire, where Edward pursues her and wins the and rationalised to fit it, yet the landscape decisive battle of Towton (29 March). has changed. The marsh (redemore) at Bosworth has been drained. Where are the traditions, but they all date from long after small hedged fields and the hollow ways the events. Past historians have produced that the Arrival records at Tewkesbury? The detailed maps of each battle of the Wars of proposed sites for the battle of Bosworth, at the Roses, often contradictory; almost all Ambion Hill, Dadlington, Sutton Cheney The fighting 35

(Leics.) or at Merevale (War.) are seven northern borderers, including archers and miles apart. The battlefields of Wakefield, artillery, outnumbered, outgunned and Edgecote and Empingham are vague overwhelmed the king's civilian indeed. We cannot be sure precisely where administrators and ill-prepared courtiers. Warwick set out his lines of battle at the Temporarily thwarted by barricades at the second battle of St Albans in 1461 and at town gates, Warwick broke through the Barnet in 1471. Archaeology so far has houses into the market place, and cut been little help - battlefields were evidently down his principal opponents (Somerset, combed by contemporaries with Northumberland and Clifford). Henry VI extraordinary thoroughness for anything of was wounded by an arrow. No more than value, especially if metallic, and corpses five days had passed between the initial were robbed and stripped before they were signs of trouble and the first battle of St interred. Sometimes we can be more certain Albans (22 May). Victorious, York took - for example, at Blore Heath, power (his Second Protectorate), Parliament Northampton and at Towton, where a perversely declaring him blameless and concentration of metal-detected finds condemning the fallen lords as the indicates the approximate location, albeit aggressors. The first battle of St Albans was in the adjacent parish of Saxton. Even in the model for numerous later coups, several these cases, however, the respective sizes of of which also succeeded. the opposing forces, their precise orientation and movements, the structures The 1459 Campaign of commands and locations of divisions, The great council at Coventry in June 1459 are much less certain than one would wish. sought to bring the Yorkist peers to order, This discussion focuses therefore on the but provoked them to a further uprising. campaigns and on the strategies, rather Intending to seize control of the king and than the tactics. hence his government, the plan was to unite their forces as in 1455, but bringing together such disparate forces presumed The campaigns secrecy and no opposition, neither of which happened. Salisbury's march from Precursors: Dartford and St Albans Middleham (Yorks.) was diverted westwards The first major campaign was preceded by and then blocked at Blore Heath. Having Richard Duke of York's two attempted defeated his opponents (23 September) - coups. On the first occasion, in 1452, York Audley being killed and Dudley captured - had raised his supporters in the Welsh Salisbury met York at Ludlow (Salop.). borders, declared at Shrewsbury his Warwick meantime crossed from Calais intention to seize power, and progressed with members of the royal garrison south-westwards towards London. commanded by Sir Andrew Trollope, almost Attracting less forces for him than against certainly on horseback, and marched via him, he was diverted around London and London (20 September) to the west capitulated at Dartford. The preliminary Midlands (21 September) and Ludlow. stage of his next attempt in 1455 is Emerging therefrom and protesting their concealed from us, deliberately. York's peaceful intention to set the government to Welshmen, Warwick's midlanders, and rights, the Yorkists advanced to Worcester, Salisbury's northerners were already at arms before retreating before the king's advance and together at Royston in Bedfordshire in stages via Tewkesbury and Leominster to before York despatched his ultimata to Ludlow again. Blore Heath had discredited London to the king and intercepted King their claims to be loyal subjects in pursuit Henry at St Albans on his progress to a of the public good. All the king's overtures great council at Leicester. Hardened of peace failed, because the Yorkists still 36 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

insisted that all their demands be which the king could not accept. conceded. At the last, confronted at Preliminary mediation having failed, the Ludford across the River Teme by the king's Yorkists attacked all along the line in superior forces in battle array and certain conditions that were too wet for effective that any resistance would brand them use of the Lancastrian guns. A change of traitors, Trollope and the men of Calais sides by Lord Grey of Ruthin on the defected. During the night of 12/13 Lancastrian right flank enabled the Yorkists October the Yorkist leaders followed, York to break through and roll up the to take refuge in Ireland and the earls of Lancastrian army in a few minutes. There March, Salisbury and Warwick in Calais, may have been as few as 300 casualties, where they were well received by the most of high rank, though others were garrison. The king spared the rank drowned attempting to cross the river. The and file, though some were fined and Lancastrian peers Buckingham, Shrewsbury others attainted. and Egremont were cut down and King Henry was captured in his tent. Returning The 1460 Campaign to London, where Salisbury had by now Henry VI was willing to commute the captured the Tower, Parliament was sentences against the Yorkists, but his induced to overturn the sentences of the overtures were again rejected. Repeated previous year. York's claim to immediate efforts to winkle the Yorkist earls out of kingship was rejected: Henry VI would Calais failed: with the support of the continue to reign, York would rule on his garrison and control of the sea - he had behalf (his Third Protectorate), and on been the king's keeper of the seas since Henry's death York would succeed. 1456 - Warwick repelled and cut off his replacement Somerset, struck pre-emptively The 1460-61 Campaign against a force in preparation against him Queen Margaret of Anjou and other at Sandwich, and captured its commander, Lancastrians refused to accept this Accord, Lord Rivers; he even visited York in Ireland which disinherited Henry's son Prince to agree the strategy for the next campaign. Edward. The king's half-brother Jasper Warwick's activities were a model of Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, was active in contemporary combined operations. Wales, whilst Margaret herself retreated to Whereas the substitute navy impressed by the north and based herself at York. There Henry VI and commanded by the Duke of she was joined by the West Country men Exeter as Lord Admiral was unpaid, led by Somerset and Devon. She also mutinous, and dared not take on Warwick's negotiated for support from the Scots. York squadron, it was the Yorkists at Calais who despatched his eldest son, Edward Earl of acted, although York, in fact, held back. March, to Wales, whilst he himself and Landing unopposed at Sandwich on 26 Salisbury repressed the northerners. June, the three Yorkist earls encountered no Arriving at Sandal (Yorks.), which proved opposition and much support from the inadequately provisioned, they found the men of Kent and London where they were Lancastrian forces, though dispersed, to be admitted to the City, causing four much larger than expected. Obliged to sally Lancastrian peers to retreat into the Tower. forth, they were crushed at the battle of The king, who was in the north Midlands, Wakefield (30 December 1460) in which summoned his supporters to Northampton, York, Salisbury and their sons Edmund and where Warwick and March marched to Thomas were all killed in battle or executed meet him. The royal army was strongly soon afterwards. The topography and other entrenched south of the town across a details of the battle are highly confused. bend of the River Nene. Again the Yorkists Margaret's victory at Wakefield were uncompromising in their demands, emboldened her to march southwards on The fighting 37

London, where the Yorkist regime still held to claim to be acting on his behalf, the Henry VI and governed in his name. Yorkists were obliged to legitimise their Warwick, now the senior Yorkist regime by laying claim to the Crown commander, drew up a defensive line themselves - Duke Edward thus became north-east of St Albans across the two roads King Edward IV (4 March 1461). south from Luton (Beds.). The best of Margaret meantime withdrew contemporary defensive technology - northwards, thereby abandoning much of cannon, handguns, pallisades with the kingdom to her own opponents, and loopholes, nets with nails, caltrops, pikes - drew up her army in line of battle at made up for the inadequacies of a large Towton south of Tadcaster in Yorkshire to untrained force. Warwick's intention was to await the Yorkist response. Edward followed shoot to pieces a Lancastrian frontal assault slowly, to maximise his support, forcing a down the main roads, but unfortunately crossing over the River Aire at Ferrybridge the Lancastrian field commander (28 March 1461). Although we cannot be manoeuvered with speed and decision, certain of the numbers on each side, the traversing eastwards from Dunstable and Lancastrians containing more noblemen, then southwards by night to St Albans, the battle of Towton (29 March) was where he overran Warwick's outlying probably the largest of the Wars of the defences on 17 February 1461, and fell on Roses. It was windy, cold and there was his left flank. Although Warwick tried to even a snowstorm. The battle was hard realign his forces and counter-attacked, the fought and lasted for most of the day. terrain was against him, his army lost its Having advanced within bowshot, the cohesion and melted away. Several Yorkists showered the enemy with arrows, prominent Yorkists were taken and adverse winds preventing the Lancastrians executed, Henry VI himself being captured, from replying effectively. Responding by a while Warwick and Norfolk withdrew headlong charge, the Lancastrians initated westwards and abandoned London to a lengthy hand-to-hand struggle, pushing the Lancastrians. the Yorkists back and outflanking them London lay exposed before Queen with men concealed in woodland to the Margaret, but fearful of bad publicity and right. The late arrival of Yorkist reserves anxious to negotiate admittance to the under Norfolk first redressed and then City, she allowed her opportunity to pass. reversed the balance so that eventually the Meantime York's son Edward, now Duke of Lancastrians broke. Most of their leaders York, had marched from Gloucester to were killed or executed. The fugitives were intercept the Welsh Lancastrians under pursued for ten miles, some drowning in Pembroke and Wiltshire on their march the rivers, the bridges having been eastwards. Meeting at the crossroads of destroyed, and others being cut down by Mortimer's Cross (2-3 February 1461), near their pursuers. A mass grave of 38 such his marcher castle of Wigmore and not far victims has been excavated at Towton Hall. from Ludlow, Edward was the victor in an obscure and probably small-scale battle Lancastrian Resistance 1461-68 distinguished principally by the strange Towton secured the throne for Edward IV atmospheric conditions: apparently three and his Yorkist dynasty. There were many suns were observed, a good omen for the Lancastrians like Lord Rivers who realised Yorkists, whose emblem was the sunburst that their cause was irretrievably lost, or sun in splendour. Proceeding westwards, although a handful fought on. Henry VI, Edward met up with Warwick in Queen Margaret and their son remained at Oxfordshire and entered London on liberty. Foreign powers, such as Scotland 27 February. No longer in possession of and France, were sympathetic and offered Henry VI and hence unable convincingly help, admittedly with conditions: the 38 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

The battle of Mortimer's Cross 1461. The victorious munitions and supplies, he wrote to King Edward Earl of March, later Edward IV, stands in the Edward, were preferable to more men. On centre. The prophetic signs seen at the time, three 5 January 1463 Warwick's bedraggled forces golden suns (of York) shining through three golden outside Alnwick were confronted by the crowns, are shown above. (The British Library) Franco-Scottish army of de Breze and the Earl of Angus, which however contented surrender of Berwick to the Scots and of itself with removing the Lancastrian the Channel Isles to France. Several garrison. Thrice the Lancastrians recovered noblemen and gentry, in particular several the coastal castles from the Yorkists and northerners, fought on. Edward IV, at first thrice they were ousted, finally in 1464 in person, then through his deputies following the decisive defeat of the paltry Warwick and Warwick's brother John, Lord Lancastrian field army at Hedgeley Moor Montagu, quickly quelled resistance west of (25 April 1464) and at Hexham (10 May). the Pennines, but Northumberland proved Since the castles were never adequately much more recalcitrant. This was Percy supplied, they were apparently starved out country, two Percy earls of rather than stormed, although the Northumberland having been slain in 1455 and 1461, and was easily reinforced across AfterTowton, the Lancastrians held out in coastal castles the border by the Scots, and from the sea in Northumberland and in North Wales, which were by Pierre de Breze's 800 Frenchmen. repeatedly supplied and reinforced from the sea by the French, and in Northumberland's case, by the Scots. Campaigning so far from base, often in the Several campaigns in Northumberland culminated winter, strained Warwick's considerable decisively in Yorkist victories at Hedgeley Moor and logistical abilities to the full: more Hexham in 1464. Harlech held out until 1468. The fighting 39

The Reduction of the Lancastrians 1461-64 40 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 surrender of Bamburgh in 1464 followed its The 1469 Campaign destructive bombardment. Somerset, Lords Warwick and the Neville family dominated Moleyns and Roos, and other Lancastrian the early years of the dynasty, but gradually aristocrats were executed. Edward IV asserted his independence. Resistance at Harlech and at Mont Warwick denounced the king's evil Orgueil in Jersey persisted. Harlech was councillors and found an ally in Edward's impregnable to direct assault and was brother George Duke of Clarence, who readily supplied and reinforced from wanted to marry Warwick's daughter the sea. A succession of commanders Isabel. It was to take control of Edward's failed to capture it before William Lord government that Warwick and Clarence Herbert (henceforth Earl of Pembroke) planned a coup d'etat in 1469, to be in two succeeded in 1468. Several times parts. A northern uprising was arranged, Jasper Tudor had brought French ostensibly a popular rebellion led by a reinforcements, which in 1465 penetrated figurehead called Robin of Redesdale, almost as far as Denbigh, where they were certainly Warwick's northern retinue led by defeated. John Conyers, son of Warwick's steward of Middleham. It was to defeat this that Edward abandoned a pilgrimage in East Anglia and After his defeat at Edgecote. Edward IV is arrested in called out the Welshmen and West Country his bed at Olney by Archbishop Neville, whose brother Warwick. Clarence, and their soldiers appear men of his favourites, the earls of Pembroke on the right. and Devon. Following Clarence's marriage to The fighting 41

Isabel Neville at Calais, Warwick and in Lincolnshire, what appeared to be a Clarence, as in 1459 and 1460, landed in popular insurrection, the king set off in Kent and proceeded rapidly via London to force from London via Waltham Abbey and meet the northerners. The battle of Edgecote Cambridge. Warwick and Clarence, as (26 July 1469), east of Banbury, appears to earnest of their new-found trust, were have happened almost by accident. A commissioned to raise a force in the division in command had caused Devon and Midlands and join the king later. The 'great Pembroke to camp separately. The captain of Lincolnshire' who fomented northerners attacked Pembroke first, while rebellion was in fact Sir Robert Welles, son Devon's forces and Warwick's advance guard of Lord Welles, who was in league with joined in later. The result, however, was a Warwick and Clarence, and hoped to trap clear-cut victory for Warwick, with the king's the king between their forces. Three things three favourites, Rivers, Pembroke and went wrong, First of all, Warwick and Devon, all being executed. Edward IV Clarence were unable to raise the troops himself missed the battle and was arrested in they hoped for and hence postponed their his bed at Olney (Bucks.) by Warwick's arrival. Secondly, the king discovered brother Archbishop Neville. Warwick took Welles' involvement and threatened to power. execute Lord Welles. Thirdly, therefore, the Lincolnshiremen attacked prematurely, at The First 1470 Campaign Empingham (12 March 1470), perhaps in Warwick's regime collapsed in the autumn, the face of Edward's artillery, and were King Edward resuming control, but a routed. In fleeing, they cast off their jerkins reconciliation between him and Warwick so that the battle became known as was arranged. Perhaps neither trusted the Losecote Field. The two Welles were other. Warwick and Clarence, it appears, executed. Captured documents exploited disturbances in Lincolnshire incriminated Warwick and Clarence, who arising from rivalries between the principal aristocratic family of Welles and the king's Harlech Castle, which the Lancastrians held against master of the horse, Sir Thomas Burgh of allcomers until 1468.The castle was then on the coast Gainsborough. Hearing of renewed troubles and was supplied by sea. (Heritage Image Partnership) 42 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

The 1469 Campaign

Robin of Redesdale from the North and Warwick and The Second 1470 Campaign Clarence from Calais defeated Edward IV's forces, under Edward IV refused to offer terms and the Pembroke and Devon, at Edgecote. Edward himself was exiles were desperate. Unable to recover by absent and was arrested at Olney. any other means, Warwick and Clarence agreed with Louis XI of France and Queen unsuccessfully sought support from Margaret at the treaty of Angers on a Clarence's north Midlands, Warwick's combined attack designed to replace Henry Richmondshire, and Stanley's Lancashire VI on his throne, with ships and crews estates, their usual supporters heing being supplied by Louis XI. Warwick, unwilling to commit treason against the Clarence and the Lancastrians prepared king. Their orderly retreat became a flight their supporters in England and issued into exile. propaganda stressing the rights of Henry VI that was designed to elicit popular support. The fighting 43

The First 1470 Campaign (March)

Probably preparations had to put back. 1 Edward IV marches north from London to Northern uprisings, led by Lord FitzHugh Empingham, where he defeats the Lincolnshire rebels in the Richmond area of Yorkshire and by under Sir Robert Welles (Losecote Field) before Warwick and Clarence can join them. Richard Salkeld at Carlisle, both areas of 2__Warwick proceeds to Manchester but fails to recruit, Warwick's strength, took place in August, and is pursued southwards to Dartmouth where he around the original date, diverting Edward flees into exile in France. IV northwards, away from the real point of danger. Edward had anticipated trouble in Dartmouth and Exmouth in Devon, and Kent, although there appear only to have proceeding via Bristol to Coventry, where been riots in Southwark led by Warwick's they were allegedly 60,000 strong. What is own men. The main attack came in the certain is that their supporters were south-west, an area of Lancastrian strength, numerous whereas Edward attracted hardly with the invaders landing at Plymouth, any backing. The final straw was when 44 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Warwick's brother Montagu, on whom did not combine against Edward's invasion Edward had counted, changed sides. and were defeated in detail. Edward himself Edward narrowly evaded capture and recognised his victory to be miraculous and embarked on 29 September 1470 from sought to forestall popular indignation in King's Lynn into exile in Flanders, part of future. the dominions of his brother-in-law Embarking with three ships from Charles the Bold. It was a bloodless victory Flushing, Edward IV found effective and King Henry VI began his second reign, measures had been made to prevent him his Readeption. from landing. Cromer in Norfolk proved too inhospitable, so he re-embarked and The 1471 Campaign landed instead on 14 March 1471 at It had been the desire to defeat a common Ravenspur on the Humber, where he would enemy that had brought together former have been overwhelmed had he not Lancastrians and Warwick, their conqueror claimed to be seeking merely his duchy of in 1470. Once victory was achieved, old York, which nobody could doubt was his grievances were revived. Although Edward's right, rather than his crown. Hence he enemies remained more numerous and passed through hostile Yorkshire to more popular in 1471 just as in 1470, they Nottingham and Leicester, where he was joined by many committed adherents. At Newark he rebuffed the Earl of Oxford, George Duke of Clarence. A sixteenth-century portrait of him as constable of Queenborough. Duke of Exeter, and other eastern (The British Library) Lancastrians, before turning west to The fighting 45 confront Warwick, whose army was much landed at Weymouth. So unhappy had they the stronger, hut who nevertheless entered been with Warwick as an ally that Coventry, sheltered behind the city walls, supposedly they even claimed not to be and refused to fight. Warwick expected a weakened by his defeat, but actually decisive advantage in numbers when he strengthened. Having recruited an army in was reinforced by his son-in-law Clarence, the West, they proceeded to Bristol en who had been recruiting in the West route to join up with Jasper Tudor's Country, but Clarence joined his brother Welshmen. No sooner had Edward defeated Edward IV. Together they marched to Warwick, than he had to embark on a new London, where they were admitted without campaign, marching along the Thames opposition and arrested Henry VI. After valley to intercept the West Country men. meeting up with Montagu's northerners, He wanted to force a battle, the Oxford, Exeter and the easterners, Warwick Lancastrians to avoid it. They feinted approached London with a view to a towards him, apparently offering battle at surprise attack over Easter. Edward, Sodbury (Gloucs.), but dashed instead however, was alert, left the City, and drew through the Vale of Berkeley to the Severn up his line of battle opposite Warwick's in crossings of Gloucester, which was blocked, Hertfordshire, somewhere near Barnet, the and Tewkesbury, whilst Edward pursued precise site being uncertain. Warwick's them along the Roman road across the army was in four divisions, with Oxford on Cotswolds via Cirencester. Both armies the right facing Lord Hastings, Warwick's marched record distances in appalling brother Montagu in the centre facing conditions of heat, dust and no water. The Edward, and Exeter on the left against exhausted Lancastrians won the race, Gloucester, Warwick himself being in reaching Tewkesbury first and might reserve. Warwick's bombardment of the perhaps have crossed the Severn that night Yorkist line during the night had little and defended the ford, but they chose effect, since Edward's army was closer than instead to make their stand on 4 May south Warwick supposed and in dead ground, and of the town. Again the precise position is the battle of Barnet commenced at dawn uncertain. Edward's artillery so troubled the on Easter Sunday, 14 April 1471. Both Lancastrians, who had few guns, that armies advanced into combat but darkness Somerset abandoned his defensive position and fog meant that the armies were in the Lancastrian centre and somehow misaligned, so each was outflanked, advanced undetected to outflank the Hastings' division being routed, Yorkist centre. He was repulsed, the rest of although as this could not be seen along the Yorkist army came into combat, and the Yorkist line, morale was unaffected. The the Lancastrian army was destroyed. The front lines may have wheeled and in the defeated Lancastrians fled across the consequent reorientation, the divisions of Bloody Meadow into the town, many Oxford and Montagu in Warwick's army taking sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey. came to blows. The result, eventually, was a Queen Margaret was captured, her son decisive victory for Edward; Warwick and killed; Somerset, Lords Wenlock and St Montagu were slain, Exeter captured, John, and the other principal Lancastrians and only Oxford of the principal were executed. Although Tudor remained commanders escaped. in arms in Wales, Warwick's Middleham connection in the North, and the Bastard Edward was fortunate that he had to of Fauconberg's shipmen near London all fight only some of his opponents, since the realised that Tewkesbury was decisive. Lancastrians of the South-West and Wales Tudor fled abroad; the others submitted. were elsewhere. Somerset and Devon had Even long-standing, irreconcilable actually left London almost undefended in Lancastrians like Margaret's chancellor Sir order to meet Queen Margaret when she 46 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455 1487

John Fortescue and the future Cardinal again, returning to Lincoln by 11 October, Morton made their peace with Edward. when he heard of plotting against him. This extensive conspiracy, traditionally The 1483 Campaign known as Buckingham's Rebellion, was Richard III made himself king through two originally meant to restore Edward V to his almost bloodless coups and overawed crown. It consisted of three principal London with a northern army. After his coronation he progressed west through the The execution of Lancastrians after the Battle of Thames valley, and then via the north Tewkesbury, 1471. King Edward IV (left) looks on. Midlands to York, where he wore his crown (Geoffrey Wheeler Collection) The fighting 47

The Second 1470 Campaign

elements: Buckingham was to bring his 1 Edward IV marches to Ripon to suppress rebellions Welshmen from Brecon across the Severn; in Yorkshire and Carlisle. there were to be uprisings organised by the 2 Meantime there were disturbances in Southwark. Warwick. Clarence and the Lancastrians, after landing county establishment in every county of in the south-west, advance to Coventry. southern England, led by the family of 3 Edward IV marches south to Nottingham, before Edward IV's queen, the Marquis of Dorset fleeing via King's Lynn to the Low Countries. and the Wydevilles; and Jasper and Henry Tudor, exiles in Brittany, were to land on prematurely, at least two months before the the south coast. Such an extensive Cornish, and were suppressed, thus alerting conspiracy was difficult to counteract, but Richard to what was happening. A it also proved impossible to co-ordinate, for combination of decisive countermeasures it seems that the Kentishmen rose and skilful manipulation of public opinion 48 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 contributed to the failure of the rebellion. to Cornwall, and then back through Extensive use was made of propaganda; Somerset, Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey leaks of Edward V's death probably to London. There was no fighting and most removed the object of the rebellion and the of the leadership escaped to fight another insurgents were abashed. Immediately after day, joining the Tudors in exile in Brittany, Buckingham departed, his Welsh enemies, where on Christmas Day 1483 in Rennes the Vaughans of Tretower, sacked Brecon Cathedral they recognised Henry Tudor as Castle. Bad weather prevented the duke their king. Apart from Buckingham, only from crossing the Severn, so he abandoned Richard's brother-in-law, Sir Thomas St his forces and fled to Wem (Salop.), where Leger, widower of his sister Anne, was he was arrested. He was executed at executed, although Tudor's mother, Salisbury on 2 November, the day before Margaret Beaufort, consort of Thomas Lord revolt was proclaimed at Bodmin in Stanley, was also implicated. Cornwall. Bad weather also prevented the Tudors from arriving till too late. Richard The 1485 Campaign himself marched decisively to Coventry to Shakespeare wisely presented Bosworth as a counter Buckingham, then, finding this re-run of the 1483 campaign, for the past unnecessary, to Salisbury, through Dorset 20 months Richard had been on the

Pedigree 3: Richard III and his Rivals in 1483-85

EDWARD III 1327-77

YORK STAFFORD LANCASTER BEAUFORT

HENRY Duke of Buckingham ex. 1483

Edmund Tudor Earl of Richmond (I) = Margaret Thomas Lord Stanley (3) d. 1509

EDWARD IV GEORGE RICHARD III 1461-83 Duke of Clarence 1483-85 attainted d. 1478 Edward Prince of Wales Illegitimated 1483 EDWARD d. 1484 EDWARD V Earl of Warwick Richard Duke of York d. 1499 5 daughters including Henry Tudor Elizabeth HENRY VII 1485-1509 The fighting 49 lookout for an anticipated invasion by the held back. Hence Richard committed his Tudors and the southern exiles from 1483, reserve prematurely, slaying even Tudor's but he could not afford to maintain his standard bearer, but leaving nothing to defences continuously. He almost withstand the attack of the Stanleys, succeeded in negotiating the Tudors into who had hitherto held back. Richard his hands, and the latter long sought was slain in the field, and the Tudor financial and military support unavailingly. dynasty commenced. When Henry Tudor finally embarked in 1485, he brought with him a substantial The 1487 Campaign core of French veterans commanded by Although Richard left no obvious heir, a l'hilibert de Chandec, and Scottish troops. series of attempts were made to overthrow Besides the exiles of 1483, he was Henry, the most formidable in 1487. The accompanied by his uncle Jasper Tudor, figurehead was Lambert Simnel, who Earl of Pembroke and John Earl of Oxford, pretended to be Clarence's son Edward Earl the veteran of Barnet. Undoubtedly some of Warwick, a prisoner in the Tower. He supporters knew of their coming, which was recognised and supported by Margaret, was also probably true of his mother, his Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Stanley stepfather, his stepbrother Lord Edward IV and Richard III, who despatched Strange, and uncle, Sir William Stanley. him with German veterans commanded by Other acquaintances of his youth, the earls Martin Swart to Ireland. Richard Duke of of Huntingdon and Northumberland, may York and his son Clarence had been have been persuaded not to oppose them. popular lieutenants of Ireland; now Simnel Uncertain where on his long coastline the was welcomed and indeed crowned as King blow would fall, Richard deployed Edward VI in Dublin cathedral. A key figure supporters along the whole of it - many of was John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, a whom were unable to be at the battle - and nephew and perhaps designated heir of posted himself centrally, at Nottingham, Richard III, who may have hoped for the where he was joined by Brackenbury from throne for himself. With German and Irish London and Northumberland from support, Simnel landed on 4 June 1487 in Yorkshire. Richard distrusted the Tudors' Lancashire and crossed the Pennincs to kinsmen, the Stanleys, but needed their Richmondshire, where he expected to manpower, their heir Lord Strange being recruit former supporters of Richard III. hostage for their good behaviour. On 7 Apparently he was unsuccessful, although August 1485 Henry Tudor landed at Milford the two Lords Scrope launched a Haven in Pembrokeshire, and marched up diversionary attack on York whilst Simnel the coast to Aberystwyth, across mid Wales proceeded southwards to Newark and to Shrewsbury, and thence via Coventry crossed the Trent to East Stoke. The battle towards Leicester. The whole campaign of Stoke was fought on 16 June 1487, only took only a fortnight. Somewhere between twelve days after the landing. Simnel's Coventry and Leicester, he joined Richard army was small, little time having been III in the battle later known as Bosworth allowed for recruitment and Henry's public on 22 August. Bosworth was apparently a display of the real Warwick may have smaller battle than many others of the deterred potential sympathisers. The rebels Wars of the Roses, Tudor having little time were also mixed in quality, continental to recruit and Richard's forces containing veterans being interspersed with ill- few of the peerage; also, both sides wished equipped and ill-trained Irishmen and at to fight before the other became stronger. least some Englishmen. Altogether Henry Tudor was on the defensive. Norfolk in VII's forces must have been larger, with Richard's centre attacked, but was repelled, troops from East Anglia under Oxford and whereas Northumberland, on the wing, the Stanleys' levies from Lancashire and 50 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Pedigree 4: Who was Henry VII?

John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster

LANCASTER FRANCE BEAUFORT

Henry IV Charles VI John 1399-1413 1380-1422 Duke of Somerset d. 1444

TUDOR

Henry V (I) Katherine Owen Tudor Charles VII 1422-61 1413-22(1) of France d. 1461 d. 1437 Louis XI 1461 83

Charles VIII 1483-98

Henry VI 1422-61 Jasper Edmund (I) Margaret Earl of Pembroke Earl of Richmond d. 1509 & Duke of Bedford d. 1456 d. 1495 Edward HENRY TUDOR Prince of Wales 1157-1509 d. 1471 HENRY VII

Cheshire; Northumberland had not yet elements of the royal army arrived and arrived. Simnel's disadvantages were partly won the day for the king. Lincoln and compensated for by surprise, since Henry Swart were killed, Simnel was captured and was unaware that he had crossed the Trent. his pretence exposed. Initially it was Oxford's vanguard alone marching down the Fosse Way that unexpectedly encountered the rebels in The reality of combat line of battle on a hill. Although outnumbered he attacked, but was forced The Wars of the Roses were largely fought back on the defensive and was perhaps in between armies of infantry. Horses were danger of being routed. It was only after used to convey troops to the battlefield - fighting had commenced, and perhaps just hence the speed with which the in time to save the situation, that other Kingmaker, for example, travelled - and to The fighting 51

The 1471 Campaign (1/2)

The 1471 Campaign (I) The 1471 Campaign (2) 1 Edward IV lands at Ravenspur and proceeds via York 5 Too late for Barnet, Queen Margaret lands at to Coventry, beating the Earl of Oxford near Weymouth, recruits the West Country Lancastrians, Newark. and marches northwards via Bristol to join Jasper 2 After Warwick refuses to fight, Edward joins his Tudor's Welshmen. brother Clarence and enters London. 6 Confronted by Edward IV from London, they race side 3/4 After being joined by Montagu's northerners and by side to Tewkesbury where Margaret is obliged to fight Oxford's easterners, Warwick advances to Barnet, and is decisively defeated. Other enemies, Fauconberg's where he was defeated and killed by Edward IV. men around London and in Yorkshire, dispersed. draw the baggage and artillery, but for genteel or otherwise, who fought hand to battle itself the troops dismounted. hand, which was what the king demanded Overseas expeditions comprised three in his contracts with the captains archers to every man-at-arms, a combatant, (indentures of war) and what he therefore 52 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 secured. For civil wars, armies were more pole-axes, and longbows than swords, disparate, raised by different means - crossbows, handguns, pikes or lances. household service, indentures or array - by Cannon were more common and were different captains from different categories highly valued, having replaced trebuchets, of men. Equipment must have varied mangonels and other sprung ordnance for greatly, as must military training, if any, sieges. The greatest pieces had names, such and fighting potential. On occasions the as the great bombards 'Newcastle' and sources report deficiencies, of the commons 'London' used against Bamburgh in 1464. in 1460 and 1470 and the Irish in 1487, There were however few sieges in the Wars although sheer numbers even of such of the Roses and even during sieges troops could not be withstood. ordnance was sparingly used because it was There survive contemporary too destructive - it was only reluctantly illuminations depicting the battles of that King Edward turned his guns on his Edgecote, Barnet, and Tewkesbury, which own rebel castle of Bamburgh, which he ought to show how participants were would later have to repair, causing such equipped and fought. They depict them damage that it quickly capitulated. Artillery clad from head to foot in shining plate was useful also for defending fortifications armour and armed with swords, halberds, - the Calais garrison had the use of 135 longbows and crossbows. At Barnet, pieces of various calibres during the 1450s. Warwick and Edward are depicted charging In 1460, when the Lancastrian lords took into battle with couched lances as in refuge in the Tower, and in 1471, during tournaments. These illuminations, Fauconberg's siege, gunfire was exchanged however, are the work of continental artists across the Thames, causing considerable who were not at the battle, while the two civilian damage and loss of life. So hot was illuminated accounts of the 1471 campaign the fire from the City in 1471 that were added in Burgundy to existing Fauconberg's troops were cannonaded from narratives and agree neither with the text their positions. Several times Warwick nor with one another. No doubt the brought guns from Calais for use within peerage and gentry did wear such armour England, for they were also of value in the and carry such weapons as they are field. In 1453, in a manner reminiscent of depicted so attired in their brasses, funerary the charge of the Light Brigade at effigies and in heraldic manuscripts; an Balaclava, Charles VIl's guns had destroyed English roll of Edward IV's campaigns in the Earl of Shrewsbury's advancing army at 1459-61 also portrays them thus. Such Chatillon, the last battle of the Hundred equipment, however, was extremely costly Years' War. Edward IV took an expensive as no large arsenals were maintained, and artillery train with him to France in 1475; we cannot be sure how typical it was. We the great nobility also had their own. The know of the padded jackets in which towns Yorkists used cannon to batter the clad their contingents, but whether non- Lancastrian barricades at St Albans in 1455. townsmen were so well equipped we Warwick rated them particularly highly, cannot tell. The unique Bridport muster taking his own ordnance northwards from roll of 1459 suggests that at least half the Warwick on the Lincolnshire campaign in men lacked any protective equipment and 1470, which he left at Bristol as he fled that almost none had a complete suit of southwards and recovered later that year armour. Virtually no equipment has been on his return. On at least three occasions, recovered from any battlefield, but the in 1461 at the second battle of St Albans, head injuries of fleeing Lancastrians after in 1463 at Alnwick, and in 1471 at Barnet, Towton suggest that they lacked protection, Warwick took up defensive positions or that it was ineffective. The weapons that protected with cannon, hoping that his commoners used were more probably bills, enemies would dash themselves to pieces, The fighting 53 but the tactic failed. Even light pieces were The winner took all, so that except perhaps too heavy to be mobile and were unsuited briefly in the winter of 1460-61 or around for some of the lightning campaigns of the Lancastrian fortresses that still held out, Wars of the Roses. They were also inflexible there were no rival areas of rule, frontiers, to use, needing to be set up in advance and gains or losses. Only in 1459, 1463, 1470 were difficult to adjust to new situations. and 1471 did armies in the field seek to At Northampton in 1460 the Lancastrian avoid or postpone battle - usually one guns were bogged down, while at Barnet in commander and often both wanted to fight. 1471 the Yorkists were virtually unscathed Most everyday military life during the being in dead ground. However Edward IV's Wars of the Roses is quite unrecorded. In cannon helped repel the Lincolnshiremen contrast to our good historical at the poorly recorded battle of understanding of the supplying and Empingham in 1470. They were also munitioning of national armies against credited the following year with dislodging France, scarcely anything is known the Lancastrians from their prepared regarding wars at home. We do not know to position at Tewkesbury and provoking what extent troops were supplied during the Somerset's disastrous assault. Wars of the Roses, supplied themselves or Only twice, at the first battle of St Albans foraged, though the pillaging of Queen and in 1471 at Tewkesbury, were armies Margaret's march southwards in 1461 was brought unwillingly to battle. On other long remembered and perhaps exaggerated. occasions, we must presume, opposing sides Castles, manor houses and monasteries selected their ground, or at least found it along the way accommodated noblemen acceptable. Generals sought information on and kings - who also had their own enemy movements, collated it, and were luxurious tents; although unsubstantiated, influenced by it in their planning. The ordinary soldiers might be billeted. quality of such preliminary reconnaissance, Apparently Warwick's army blockading however, appears uneven, since several Alnwick bivouacked in 1463, when they times - at the second battle of St Albans were 'grieved with cold and rain'; so did and Barnet - flanks were not secured and at both sides the night before Barnet, Wakefield the situation was completely Tewkesbury and most other battles. miscalculated. Both at Edgecote in 1469 and Campaigns were generally too short, it at Stoke in 1487 armies stumbled into battle appears, for clothes to be reduced to rags, or against enemies of whose proximity they for sanitation, living and sleeping had been unaware. Communication on the conditions, and disease to excite remark, for battlefield was rudimentary and overall leave to be granted, or for committed troops control, once the battle had been joined, to desert. We are ignorant of all these topics, was almost impossible. At Barnet in 1471 although naval life on ships impressed for troops were reduced to acting on heraldic service would probably have scarcely badges, famously mistaking Oxford's star differed from normal conditions at sea. with streamers for York's sun with rays, Heralds were responsible for counting and with disastrous consequences. Apart from identifying the fallen and may indeed have throwing up reserves, as in 1485, no done so, but none of their records survive. At commander could restrain victorious troops best the names of only a couple of hundred in one sector of the battle, realign his participants on both sides, dead or surviving, position to counter the actual threat, or are known for any battle, in some cases withdraw his army from the field. Victory much fewer. Apart from the first battle of St or rout were the only alternatives, Albans, where less than 50 are known to determined either by the original strength have died, there were surely hundreds and and disposition of the opposing forces or more commonly thousands killed at each of the course that the fighting actually took. the set-piece battles, and yet we know the 54 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

The 1483 Campaign

names of only a fraction of them, generally The rebels planned rebellion in Wales, throughout the men of birth and lands. Besides the dead, we south, and a landing in the south-west. All failed. must suppose that many more were injured, 1 Buckingham failed to cross the Severn from Wales and fled to Wem, where he was arrested, and Henry but we know neither of their wounds nor Tudor's ships were dispersed and arrived too late. their subsequent lives. The armies lacked 2 Richard III advanced decisively from Lincoln, first even the most rudimentary medical support towards Buckingham, then south-west, and finally to for those despatched on service abroad. the south-east and prevented the southern rebels Many casualties curable today must have from joining forces. They fled in exile to Brittany. proved mortal. For the most part, we must deduce, the dead were interred in mass or was deduced when they did not return, unmarked graves where they fell. Their fate whereas notables were singled out for was reported by companions who survived. separate, more honourable burial, even The fighting 55

The 1485 Campaign

for repatriation to their family mausolea 1 Henry Tudor from Brittany invaded Pembrokeshire at home. and proceeded to near Leicester; where he was met by Richard III, the Stanleys and Northumberland. The battlefield was not necessarily the 2 He defeated and killed Richard III at Bosworth. end. The Wars of the Roses were especially costly for the leadership. Kings were often prepared to spare the rank and file, who Towton, Hexham and Tewkesbury defeated they saw as blindly following their betters, leaders were executed, their severed heads but deliberately set out to cull the and in some cases their quarters being leadership. Their destruction was clearly posted on town gates as a warning to the objective both at the first battle of St others. Vengeance was a natural response. Albans and at Northampton. After Ludford, It was the revenge sought by the victims of Wakefield, the second battle of St Albans, the first battle of St Albans that Henry VI 56 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Old St Pauls Cathedral London, the site ofYork's their allegiance; 'false, fleeting, perjur'd humiliation in 1452 and the Loveday (1458). Note the Clarence' traditionally betrayed both sides. pulpit in the foreground where Edward V's bastardy was Kings and other defeated notables on preached in 1483. (The Geoffrey Wheeler Collection) the losing side during the Wars of the Roses were attainted and suffered forfeiture. sought to allay at the Loveday at St Paul's; Treason was regarded as the most shocking and it was certainly vengeance that Edward of crimes and was considered to have IV sought against the slayers of his father corrupted the blood (attainted) not just of at Wakefield, who were attainted as though the traitors themselves but their York had actually been a king. That same descendants. From 1459 parliaments passed Earl of Worcester, 'the Butcher' constable of acts of attainder against named individuals, England, who had even impaled his living or dead, in custody or at liberty, and victims, was also executed and as many as 113 in 1461, whose lands were dismembered to popular acclaim, because confiscated and generally granted to new of 'the disordinate death that he used'. holders. Some potentially liable to Many such individuals thought at the time attainder, such as Sir William Plumpton in that they were on the right side, fighting 1461 and those indicted for being at for the current king. 'Many gentlemen were Barnet, were allowed to pay fines instead. against it,' we are told, when Henry VII Warwick's possessions were allowed to had attainted those who had supported descend to his daughters who had married Richard III at Bosworth on the pretence the king's brothers. Attainders could that he, Henry, had become king the day however be reversed and most were. The before, but the king insisted. Most so-called 1459 attainders of the Yorkists were traitors believed themselves to be in the reversed wholesale the following year and right, although some, admittedly, did break so too were those of Buckingham's rebels The fighting 57 attainted in 1484. Edward IV annulled The souls of the victims were important; most of his attainders, to the advantage of the prayers of the living could help them the original culprits or their heirs, normally through purgatory. It was commonplace after they had submitted and earned for the propertied to give to the Church in forgiveness for good service. Henry VII was life and in their wills, to repay debts somewhat tougher: less of his own traitors material and spiritual, and to endow were forgiven and they were seldom masses for the good of their souls, often allowed to recover everything. Some indeed for ever - hence the chantry for the families were permanently disinherited; victors of the first battle of St Albans that others suffered for years, many of them the Henry VI made the victors found within 25 years from 1461 to 1486, deprived of the abbey church. This was the function of their inheritances, with many undesirable the chaplain at the chapel erected on the repercussions. field of Towton, that has now totally Ordinary soldiers were probably buried disappeared. It was his own retainers who in mass graves, although only one such fell by his side at Barnet that the future example has been found, at Towton Hall. Richard III lamented by name and for Notables fared better, whether slain in the whom he endowed prayers at Queen's field or executed afterwards, amongst the College Cambridge. Aristocrats at least victims being Randall Lord Dacre, who lies were not forgotten, but were added to in Saxton Church, Leo Lord Welles who rests family pedigrees, their anniversaries were in his family mausoleum at Methley (Yorks.), noted in family service books, monuments and the 3rd Earl of Northumberland at York. erected over their tombs and prayers said Such remains were honourably buried, like for their souls. Lesser men were grouped the victims of Tewkesbury within the abbey together in confraternities to share such church, or were released to their families benefits. Some took care, like the 4th Earl after a short time. Even the corpse of of Northumberland before Bosworth, to Richard III, displayed nude and buried like a make their wills nevertheless, he and many dog in a ditch, was solemnly reinterred, after others placing their lands in trust to a decent pause, by Henry VII at the Leicester ensure that their own deaths would not Greyfriars. Two such reinterments became place family wealth, welfare and marriages legendary. Richard Earl of Salisbury and his in the hands of self-interested guardians. second son Sir Thomas Neville, both Following Northumberland's violent death victims of Wakefield and interred at only four years later, a most pompous Pontefract, were removed by his sons to the funeral was organised on his behalf. Death Salisbury family mausoleum at Bisham on the winning side entailed no loss of Priory in Buckinghamshire in 1463. So normal obsequies. Had Northumberland elaborate was the ceremonial that it became fallen in defeat, however, his possessions the model for the funeral of an earl; an would have been forfeit, his prudent heraldic roll of past earls of Salisbury marked planning and pious dispositions set at the event. Similarly in 1476 Salisbury's naught. Yet those slain, executed and leader York and his teenaged son Rutland attainted on the losing side were denied were removed with just as much pomp to such provision. The Kingmaker's will, for the family mausoleum at Eotheringhay instance, was never proved and his College. Records survive in several versions intended chantry was stillborn; so, too, of the ceremonies, which required much with his brother Montagu. Both, however, preparation and may have cost as much as benefited from the prayers of the canons staging a parliament. If both undoubtedly of Bisham Priory, their intended served propaganda purposes, they mausoleum, and the many other nevertheless demonstrate the sense of loss foundations of which they were hereditary of the bereaved. patrons. Also intestate, yet more •

58 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 The fighting 59

OPPOSITE Edward IV (1461-83): the most successful ABOVE King Henry VI (right) depicted as a saint from general of the Wars of the Roses. the screen of Ludham church. (Ann Ronan Picture Library) (Topham Picturepoint) 60 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Pedigree 5: Dynastic Rivals of Henry VII and Henry VIII

YORK

Edward IV 1461-83 George Margaret d. 1503 Elizabeth Duke of Clarence = Charles = John ex. 1478 Duke of Burgundy Duke of Suffolk d. 1477 backer of d. 1491 Richard Simnel and Warbeck Duke of York. Probably d. 1483 Alias of Perkin Warbeck, DE LA POLE 1491-97 Richard IV Edward Margaret Pole Earl of Warwick Countess of ex. 1499 Salisbury Alias of Lambert ex. 1541 Simnel, 1487, crowned at Dublin as Edward VI

John Edmund Richard Earl of Lincoln Earl of Suffolk k. 1525 Richard Ill's ex. 1513 designated heir k. 1487 remarkably, were Warwick's two sons-in-law, all of which were aborted. Both brothers widowers of his daughters, the dukes of were remembered, much more sparingly, in Clarence and Gloucester, later Richard III. the wills of former dependants. Edward IV Clarence at least was interred at Tewkesbury and Henry VI were regally interred and were in the chantry he had planned, but prayed for, ironically together, at St George's Gloucester lay in none of his three colleges, Chapel, Windsor. Portrait of a soldier Nicholas Harpsfield

It is the leaders, not the rank and file, who practices - especially the appearance of the principally interested the chroniclers of the ordinary soldiers - and certainly not English Wars of the Roses; heroic individual exploits terrain; moreover the Besancon artist has are almost entirely lacking. Like most of the embroidered the story contained in the combatants, Nicholas Harpsfield was not a text, perhaps correctly, from other tales professional soldier, but a civilian, who current at the time. The Memoire is also the became embroiled in the conflict. Of core of a much longer English history, The Harpsfield Hall in Hertfordshire, the son of Arrival of Edward IV, probably also by an English soldier in Normandy, where he Harpsfield. The Arrival is a precise day-to­ was probably brought up bilingual, he was day account of events between 2 March and with York in Ireland in 1460 and thereafter 16 May 1471 - eleven weeks - which sets became a clerk of the signet, a career civil out how, with God's help, Edward had servant In the king's own secretariat, an overcome almost overwhelming odds and educated man fluent both in Latin and which looks forward to future peace and French, and a married man with children. tranquillity. Although known only through Presumably in October 1470 Harpsfield one copy, it was therefore a propaganda was with King Edward when the piece and sought to impose an official Lancastrians invaded and the king himself Yorkist interpretation on what had was almost captured, fleeing via King's Lynn occurred. No matter who the author was, he to Burgundy, where he was certainly in was a Yorkist partisan, in his own words 'a Edward's company. Presumably he returned servant of the king's, that presently saw in in March 1471 and shared in Edward's effect a great part of his exploits, and the victories, since on 29 May he wrote in residue knew by true relation of them that French to Duke Charles the Bold on the were present at every time'. Where the king's behalf. There were two enclosures: a Memoire is the sparest of narratives, The copy of the alliance between Henry VI and Arrival is a much fuller and more elaborate Louis XI of France against Burgundy, a clear account, which often tells both sides of the breach of the treaty of Peronne, and a brief story, recounts events happening Memoire on paper. The Memoire is a short simultaneously in different places, and factual account in French of the Barnet and explains them at length. Tewkesbury campaign that Harpsfield had The story commences with Edward's almost certainly penned himself. Many invasion across the North Sea from Zeeland. copies were made, some incorporated into Where the Memoire refers briefly to French and Flemish chronicles, and two, unfavourable weather, The Arrival is much now at Ghent and Besancon, were more circumstantial. Adverse weather held up illuminated later in the 1470s by Edward's initial departure for nine days and Burgundian artists who cannot have been his first landing at Cromer was abortive. eyewitnesses of the events. These two sets Sailing northwards to Ravenspur, there 'fell of pictures are commonly used to illustrate great storms, winds, and tempests upon the the Wars of the Roses and indeed this book. sea' and he was 'in great torment', observes They may authentically record the our author - obviously no mariner - as his equipment and tactics current on the ships were scattered along the Holderness continent, but not necessarily English coast. Coming ashore, he found the country 62 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 altogether hostile. How the king's small force Louis XI of France (1461-83), the architect of the was allowed to pass between much larger Readeption. (The British Library) local levies, to enter York and proceed southwards is elaborately explained in terms Following thanksgivings at St Paul's, of Edward's audacity, his deceit - his claim where the bodies of Warwick and his brother being only for his duchy of York, not the were displayed, The Arrival records, secondly, Crown - and the Percy Earl of the western campaign against Queen Northumberland's role in restraining his Margaret, when the king marched to Bath, retainers. The Arrival faithfully reports but Margaret retreated into Bristol. Edward's dealings with the improbably (but Thereafter he records some cunning correctly) named Michael of the Sea, the manoeuvring, as each army sought to outfox recorder and other emissaries of York, and the the other, which culminated in their race for disappointing numbers who joined him at the Severn crossing into Wales at this stage. Only once across the Trent did Tewkesbury. Although the Lancastrians Edward secure numbers enough to confront marched through dust in the vale, whilst the Warwick who, however, declined to fight. Yorkists took the easier Roman road across Warwick was disappointed in Clarence, who the Cotswolds, their sufferings - his joined Edward instead, The Arrival referring sufferings - marching 30 miles on a very hot to negotiations and intercession, particularly day were acute: 'his people might not find, from the royal ladies, antedating Edward's in all the way, horse-meat nor man's meat embarkation and the ceremonial of a nor so much as drink for their horses, save in reconciliation that all parties needed to one little brook, wherein was full little relief endure. The Arrival records both Edward's [because] it was so muddied with the attempts to shame Warwick into battle by carriages that had passed through it.' We parading his army in formation and by cannot doubt that the author was there. occupying his home town of Warwick, and Though the Lancastrians won the race, they his negotiations, at Clarence's instance were obliged to stand and fight. Again The though probably insincere, 'to avoid the Arrival, best informed on the king's effusion of Christian blood', which put movements, is confused, unable to explain Warwick further in the wrong. When these precisely how Somerset in the Lancastrian tactics failed Edward marched instead to van managed to attack their flank, but clear London - The Arrival reports at Daventry a enough about its disastrous consequences. miracle of St Anne, 'a good prognostication He was with the king also as he progressed to of good adventure that should befall the Worcester and to Coventry, about news of king' - and captured the City, the Tower, further northern disturbances, their King Henry VI and Archbishop Neville. dissolution, and the to and fro of messages When Warwick rushed southwards, hoping between the king and his northern and to pin Edward against the walls and to London agents. surprise him at Easter, the king confronted The Arrival recounts here, from outside, him near Barnet. Our informant surely shared the Bastard of Fauconberg's uprising, which the noisy night in a hollow, overshot by is the first-hand focus of the third section. Warwick's artillery, and actually saw the king Considerable duplication is best explained by beating down those in front of him, then Harpsfield's presence with the king and the those on either hand, 'so that nothing might composition by someone in London of the stand in the sight of him and the well- final section up to 21 May, when the king assured fellowship that attended truly upon was ceremonially received in London and him'. Assuredly he saw little else: his account knighted the mayor, recorder and aldermen faithfully records confusion in the fog as the 'with other worshipful of the City of two armies were misaligned and the London' who had distinguished themselves Lancastrians mistakenly fought one another. against the bastard. It is likely that the Portrait of a soldier 63 64 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455 -1487

Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, who helped Edward Probably a southerner, the author of The IV recover his throne, and his duchess Margaret of York, Arrival is as unfamiliar with Yorkshire as who backed both Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck the Cotswolds, while his account lacks the against Henry VII. (Hentage Image Partnership) insight into terrain and tactics and the technical jargon of a military commander author accompanied the king on suppression or a professional soldier and the interest in duty to Kent, to Canterbury on 26 May, for individuals, their feats of arms, coats of he was explicitly not with Richard Duke of arms and casualties appropriate to a Gloucester at Sandwich that day. herald. Vivid though The Arrival is, Portrait of a soldier 65 historians have found it hard to convert melancholy'. He seems also to have his narrative into concrete accounts either departed from the truth in his anxiety to of the two battlefields or the course of the reconcile the king's pardon to those two battles. It is the version of a layman, a taking sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey combatant in an inferior role, who tells us with their subsequent executions. If he nothing about his own exploits, yet was indeed Harpsfield, his authorial witnessed those of the king at first hand achievement did him little good for, and knew little of what else happened on having slain one of his own colleagues in the battlefield; perhaps the king did not 1471, he pleaded benefit of clergy to save either. We learn of Gloucester's wound at his life, suffered brief imprisonment, Barnet from other sources. Our author was disgrace and dismissal, and in mid-1474 evidently on the central staff, au fait with had to seek employment abroad. But he calculations, comings, goings and was forgiven, returning as chancellor of negotiations alike, being particularly well the exchequer and lived out his last informed on the political dimensions, on years, till about 1489, in secure strategy and on morale. On occasion also employment and relative prosperity he launders the story in the Yorkist surrounded by a growing family. interest, both versions claiming Harpsfield's legacy is the most complete improbably that Henry VI died a natural and vivid account of any of the Wars death 'of pure displeasure and of the Roses.

Pedigree 6:The Dynastic Contestants in 1469-71

YORK BEAUFORT LANCASTER legitimated residual heirs to Lancaster

Main line Male line Margaret Countess EDMUND of Richmond d. 1509 Duke of Somerset d. 1471

HENRY TUDOR d. 1509 HENRY VI 1470-71 later Henry VII NEVILLE

EDWARD IV Richard 1461-83 Earl of Warwick Kingmaker d. 1471

ELIZABETH GEORGE = Isabel Anne = EDWARD of York Duke of Clarence Prince of Wales d. 1471 b. 1466 d. 1478 The world around war Life goes on

The Wars of the Roses were superimposed It was a cause for remark, and on a peaceful realm. In 1460 and 1470 the compensation, that the passage of Henry issues drew large numbers into the conflict, VII's army in 1485 lost an abbot his crops at but these years were exceptional for the Merevale (Warw.). Foreign invasion, the actual fighting was brief and peripheral with threat of foreign invasion, and Warwick's most people in the shires not being directly piratical attacks on foreign shipping in the involved. There were no chevauchees, no Channel both in 1459-60 and in 1470-71 scorched-earth policies or large-scale disrupted trade and annoyed foreign devastations, and no armies lingered for merchants, as their complaints and judicial long in hostile territory or lived off the land. inquiries revealed. Surely they also disrupted The world around war 67 trade within England and especially cloth expected to be paid, but campaigns were far manufacture, but we know scarcely too brief to enrich anybody. Indeed it is anything of that. The Wars of the Roses rarely apparent whether expectations of appear to have done little economic damage payment were actually fulfilled, although we to the realm - the 'Great Slump' began know of pay and expenses to some tenants before the wars started and ended before from the West Midlands paid by the Duke of their final phase. Buckingham in 1450 and 1453, before the Most combatants, whether individually wars proper commenced. Governments retained or arrayed en bloc, were expected hired ships and mariners for seaward to provide their own horses and/or defence, and recruited and fed armies equipment. There was little if any against Northumbrian rebels in 1461-64. standardisation and the quality of Invaders paid any foreign mercenaries, in protection and weaponry was probably both Warwick's case in 1471 and in Henry Tudor's variable and poor. Town contingents were in 1485, out of loans that they had clad not in armour, but in padded leather promised to repay. Warwick's mariners in jerkins supplied by the corporation, which 1459-61 and 1470-71 reimbursed also paid them. Participants generally themselves from the profits of piracy. Victorious invaders expected to be properly rewarded: perhaps by being restored to their own property; maybe through grants of forfeitures; occasionally by ransoming their captives; certainly from pillage. There are no sources of information for the collection of weapons and armour, the looting of baggage, and the stripping of corpses, perhaps by bystanders as much as combatants, and not all of it at the time - over five centuries the plough has turned up much that had been trodden in long before metal detecting began. It seems unlikely that the slain or vanquished or their dependants were ever paid, for the defeated had nobody to whom to turn for payment and had good reason to conceal their identities - they wished to avoid the penalties of treason. Some were executed later, principally the ringleaders, as after Tewkesbury in 1471; others suffered forfeiture, being attainted or (like those at Barnet, 1471) indicted, again mainly those with worthwhile property. Some bought themselves out of forfeiture, such as Sir William Plumpton in 1461, or compounded with the recipient of their lands, as miscellaneous East Anglians did with Richard Duke of Gloucester in 1471; and others were fined, as at Ludford in 1459, the

The Tower of London somewhat later: showing maritime traffic on the Thames. (AKG. Berlin) 68 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 communities of most Kentish hundreds in treasure, which they pledged for loans - the 1471 and all the West Country in 1497. ducal coronet of Edward IV's brother Mid-fifteenth-century Englishmen were Clarence, first pledged in 1470, was still on strongly opposed to direct taxation and loan at his execution in 1478. Fleets, parliaments voted it only for campaigns garrisons and royal armies were paid their against France. Several times, in 1489 and first instalment in advance, the rest in 1497, such taxes provoked serious regional arrears - perhaps far in arrears; those insurrections. The principal campaigns were recruited for civil wars were paid, if at all, too sudden and short for taxes to be voted later. Where munitions and foodstuffs were and raised in time to affect the results - supplied, they were commonly requisitioned even the king was expected to 'live of his against future payment. How far the own', off his regular income from the principal armies lived off the land is hard to customs and his estates, which barely tell, although that was certainly the sufficed for his everyday needs. Henry VI reputation at the time of Queen Margaret's was hopelessly impecunious, but Edward IV, northerners in 1461. towards the end of his life, accumulated Veterans of the Hundred Years' War had enough money to finance two years of been long serving, their average age was Scottish war and to complete the siege of obviously higb, many were killed in the Berwick, hitherto beyond his means, final actions, while others may have retired although, despite appearances, this and died during the 1450s. However, a completely exhausted his reserves. At first number were involved in the first stage of flush with cash, Richard III was soon the Wars of the Roses (and we seldom know reduced to disreputable revenue-raising the identities of the rank and file), there expedients. It was only Henry VII in his last must have been less in the second stage, and years who accumulated sufficient reserves to they had surely died out by 1483. There subsidise his continental allies. were some professional soldiers in mid- The wars were generally fought on credit. fifteenth-century England: the garrison of Kings borrowed money from their subjects, Calais, up to 1,000 strong, and some border both private individuals and livery castles; the archers despatched in droves to companies, sometimes with an element of afforce the armies of Burgundy and Brittany; compulsion. In 1460-61 Henry VI's Yorkist and those who joined in the Nevilles' regime borrowed £11,000 from the city lengthy reduction of the Lancastrian north. corporation, over £1,500 from at least three The rest were occasional soldiers, recruited London livery companies, and more than for short-term purposes or for campaigns £7,000 from ministers and officials, besides that lasted only for a few weeks. That the such sums that individual Yorkists (notably Towton fugitives ranged from youth to old Warwick) were able to raise. Several times in age, possessed physiques both imposing and 1461-64 Edward IV wrote to the London undersized, and showed signs of hard alderman Sir Thomas Cook (and doubtless manual labour suggests that they others) informing him of the desperate constituted a cross-section of conscripted threat posed by his northern rebels and males rather than the products of selection urging him to raise loans to finance for military service. If it is reasonable to resistance; on other occasions suppose their military activities disrupted commissioners were supplied with lists of normal family and economic life, it is the well-to-do with suggestions how much almost impossible to find any evidence for they should be asked to lend. Such loans it. Rents and farms were paid, accounts were to be paid back later, perhaps from rendered and audits completed, apparently future grants of parliamentary or unimpaired. One factor may have been that ecclesiastical taxes. Noble leaders similarly agriculturists were generally under­ had access to a little cash, jewels and other employed, campaigns occurred at slack The world around war 69 times, and recruiters like Lord Howard relationship of the parent kingdoms. appear to have sampled available manpower Ricardian rebels apparently lurked in Furness rather than calling up everyone or Cumbria until 1487 or later. Much more indiscriminately. It is easier to show that seriously, Lancastrian resistance continued contemporaries feared the approach of after Towton on both sides of the Pennines armies, especially Queen Margaret's and although resistance in Cumbria ceased northerners in 1461, anticipating in advance later in 1461, the coastal castles of Alnwick, or alleging in arrears, pillage, rapine, and Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh and Warkworth sacrilege, than to find concrete evidence for several times fell to the Lancastrians, it. John Rous did not find the sojourn of supported by Scotsmen and Frenchmen Edward IV's army in 1471 at nearby overland and across the sea. They probably Warwick worthy of note in either his enjoyed significant popular sympathy since histories of the earldom or the kingdom. they included Sir Ralph Percy, the leading There is no evidence that famine or any adult Percy, and Sir Ralph Grey of other disasters resulted from the wars. Chillingham, and although they are unlikely There were exceptions. Cannon were used to have done any deliberate damage, they in the street-fighting at St Albans in 1455; had to support themselves somehow. Yorkist whilst Ludlow (1459) and Tewkesbury countermcasures proved irresistible, several (1471) may have been pillaged by the victors, York itself was occupied in 1489. The most northerly borders were a land of Tewkesbury Abbey, where many defeated Lancastrians took sanctuary, from which some were lured to war, where English and Scottish clans raided execution, and where Prince Edward of Lancaster and across the border whatever the official others were buried. (Heritage Image Partnership) 70 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 times reducing the rebels to order, but were from his ships to the waterside, when he sparing; Warwick himself opposed too large bombarded the riverside of the City until an effort that could not be supplied or forced back by counter-fire, whereupon he munitioned. Sieges were short because castle set light to London bridge, destroying 60 stores were insufficient for long ones, houses, without forcing an entry that way. although several times, it appears, garrisons Two detachments crossed the river, attacked were starved out. King Edward was angered and burnt the eastern gates of Aldgate and in 1464 because he was obliged to use Bishopsgate, 'where they shot guns and artillery to devastating effect against castles arrows into the city and did much harm and that he wanted to recover intact. hurt'. At one point, so The Arrival reports, The City of London was always an fires were burning in three places. No important objective, with its inhabitants admittance was secured, however, the having a big say in its fate, whether the assailants being driven off with heavy losses prudent corporation or the mob, who by counter-fire and sallies. Damage and overrode official decisions. Insurgents from civilian casualties evidently occurred both Warwick to Richard III courted them both, within the City and in its southern and with both parties admitting the Yorkist eastern suburbs; plotters even planned to rebels in 1459 and again in 1460, when fire the City in 1483. Henry VI's Lancastrian lords retired to the We know almost none of them by name, Tower where they were joined by nor indeed the rank and file that fought the sympathisers who forced their way through battles. If the heralds counted the dead, as the Yorkist cordons. Quite what form the they were meant to do, we generally lack blockade took is uncertain, however the the figures - neither they nor the Lancastrians used artillery which caused authorities were interested in individuals damage and deaths within the City and who lacked property. Parliamentary acts of enraged the mob, who failed to honour the attainder seldom included the small fry; terms on which the Tower was surrendered even such lesser victims as Gawen and lynched Lord Scales. Substantial Lampleugh and Dr Ralph Mackerel in 1461 financial backing was offered to the Yorkist were gentry or clerics of substance; so too regime. Faced by Margaret's victorious army were those identified by a Cornish in February 1461 and unwilling to let her in, commission in 1483. Only after Barnet the corporation temporised, but the mob (1471) did a commission of inquiry make hijacked a convoy of supplies destined for indictments; the individuals named, who her; by contrast Edward IV was admitted included yeomen and labourers as well as without difficulty. There was no serious earls and gentry, came predominantly from damage either in 1469, when Warwick Hertfordshire and Essex - a minority of men passed through London on the Edgecote who were known to a local jury, rather than campaign, or in 1470, when diversionary the northerners and midlanders, who must rioting coinciding with his invasion was have numbered many thousands. If ever confined to Southwark; or in 1471, when recorded, the dead disappeared silently Warwick had counted on the City being from their local records, although we do held against Edward IV, although have, for 1471 and 1497, substantial lists of Archbishop Neville was obliged to admit those fined. Whereas many combatants him peacefully. The corporation backed King wisely secured pardons, such pardons, Edward, but the populace were divided and regrettably, are an imperfect record of were not unsympathetic to the shipmen and treason for they include men guilty of other Kentishmen of the Bastard of Fauconberg crimes or no crime at all. For most of the when they invested the City after vanquished who escaped with their lives, a Tewkesbury. Based on the south side of the modest financial penalty, a fine or the river, the Bastard relocated his ordnance purchase of a pardon was the sum of their The world around war 71

punishment; others escaped detection Bisham Priory, mausoleum of the earls of Salisbury, altogether. Even peers and county gentry where Warwick the Kingmaker and his parents were were not fully recorded. buried. (The British Library) It is the nobility and gentry about whom we know most and who were probably the after 1485 some high-born men refused to most politically committed. In 1459, during accept defeat and continued their the 1460s, in 1471-74, in 1484-85, and resistance, often in exile abroad - hence the 72 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 invasions of 1460, 1470, 1471, 1483 and from 1461 to 1485, except during the 1485. During the 1460s the Lancastrian Readeption - from 1471 in Brittany as he royal family moved from country to was a prince of the blood royal of France. country, wherever they were received, until With few exceptions, the leaders of the king was captured in 1465 and Margaret Buckingham's Rebellion in 1483 took refuge settled in Bar, where a group of Lancastrians in Brittany and returned with Henry Tudor lived modestly as her father's pensioners. in 1485. Kings of England used diplomacy The Duke of Exeter was reduced to begging in the Low Countries and John Butler, Edward IV on a Wheel of Fortune from a roll recording titular Earl of Ormond, fled to Portugal. the extrordinary upsets of 1459-61, which were to be Jasper Tudor Earl of Pembroke lived in exile repeated in 1469-71. (The British Library) The world around war 73 to deprive exiles of refuges and to have safeguard them and any offspring in the them handed over, although they were event of his premature death). Twenty-one always able to leave first. widowed peeresses, women of birth, Death left widows, orphans and other connections and property, remarried other bereaved relatives. It was the houses of York men of property; gentlewomen did so too. at Fotheringhay College and Neville at Dowers from earlier generations were Bisham Priory who staged the greatest unaffected; for example, those of the elder memorial services - the reinterments of dowager-countess of Northumberland, Richard Duke of York in 1476 and of dating back to 1414 and 1455. Any Richard Earl of Salisbury in 1463 and their inheritances descending from other sons - which paraded bereavement in the ancestors, to widows as heiresses or to sons most elaborate, ceremonial and costly as heirs, were also untouched. The fourth manner. Penetrating the personal emotion, earl of Northumberland was assured of his in these and all the other cases, is almost mother's Poynings barony, and even Henry impossible, though emotional effects there Tudor, though deprived of his father's must have been. The aristocracy were men earldom of Richmond, could count of property, whose deaths needed recording eventually on inheriting from his mother if their heirs were to inherit and whose Margaret Beaufort. Whatever the law, public possessions were attractive to the Crown, opinion regarded inheritance as a sacred making them most likely to suffer right, not lightly to be laid aside. The forfeiture. Acts of attainder corrupted the important had powerful connections and blood of those attainted, depriving them heirs, like Henry Tudor, could be made even and their heirs of their inheritances and more attractive if restored to their rights, as their widows of their dowers, and seized all prospective fathers-in-law demanded. their moveable goods into the king's hands. Lathers seeking suitable husbands for their Wills were not executed so that the whole daughters often had potential sons-in-law family's estate, homes, income, chattels and restored to their patrimonies, while prospects were taken away or destroyed. recipients of royal bounty preferred They lost the means to maintain their sometimes to settle for certain lifestyle and standing, to finance the compensation than risk losing all in education and prime the careers of younger competition for royal favour, so that most sons, or marry off their portion-less attainders were eventually reversed. The daughters who became ineligible marital disaster of forfeiture was most often matches. A decade of exile left unmarried temporary, although the suffering in the last three male Beauforts, nominally between - perhaps 24 years long, as with the dukes of Somerset and marquises of Dorset. Courtenay Earls of Devon - was no less Katherine Neville, widow of Oliver Dudley painful for the victims. Moreover who was slain at Edgecote in 1469, was recognition and fulfilment of legal thrown on the bounty of her mother entitlements was not always easily achieved. Elizabeth Lady Latimer (d. 1480). Frideswide Public opinion was managed during the Hungerford, for whom a portion of £200 Wars of the Roses, relying not on mass was originally allocated, had to enter a communication as today or in the days of nunnery instead, family property was most print, but on word of mouth and commonly granted to others. communications duplicated no faster than a Yet this is to paint too black a picture. man could write. Mass distribution of a The mass forfeitures of 1459 and 1484 were message depended on a horde of scribes reversed the following year. If widows lost writing at once, or long pre-preparation, and their dowers, a third of their husband's much propaganda survives, generally in lands, they kept their jointures (the lands single copies, the remainder being lost. jointly settled on a bride and bridegroom to Much more, on other topics at other times, 74 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

may be deduced but does not survive being 1470 and 1471, apparently uniquely, genuinely ephemeral, relevant only to the Edward IV commissioned official accounts moment of composition, which soon of his successes and distributed them, both passed. Mere possession of such propaganda for domestic and foreign consumption, of defeated rebels could be dangerous. illustrated versions being commissioned for Victors celebrated their victories by his continental allies. Earlier a Yorkist roll formal processions, services of thanksgiving, had depicted the stages from 1459 to 1461 and through parliamentary confirmations of the Yorkist revolution. The official of their points of view, which impressed on channels of the state - royal proclamations observers the rightness and triumph of their read at county courts and markets and cause and which were reported back to local thanksgiving services in churches - were to communities. Yorkist victories were reinforce the status quo and to denounce commonly celebrated in verse, while in offenders. Richard III used such means to The world around war 75

Old St Paul's, the Tower and the City from across the Thames. Although postmedieval. this is essentially the view that confronted the Bastard of Fauconberg in 1471 (AKG, Berlin)

Inevitably, however, the government was conservative and defensive, the initiative resting with its attackers, to whom it reacted but slowly. The crisis of 1450 was marked by formal manifestos against the government, both local and national in scope, by scurrilous verse, prophecies and rumours, that connected credible charges, wild accusations and associations, and identified recipients by nicknames and coats of arms which, we must suppose, were generally recognised. The cause for reform, first voiced in 1450, was repeatedly revived in rebel manifestoes, both in prose and verse, which were read aloud, posted on market crosses and church doors, and in 1470 read from the pulpits of Lincolnshire. Seldom can we tell whether a surviving poem or manifesto, most commonly a copy, was unique or one of many, or how effective in imparting its message it was. That ostensibly skilful propagandist Warwick the Kingmaker penned manifestos propounding carefully targeted and inflammatory messages - when the people turned out in force, historians can only suppose the message had hit home. The future Richard III similarly combined his popular assertions of loyalty and call for reform with underhand character assassination, his mother, brother, nephews, nieces and in-laws being tainted with discredit his rival Henry Tudor, son of bastardy, sexual immorality and sorcery. Edmund Tudor, son of Owen Tudor, bastard Rumours, innuendo and disinformation can on both sides. Outlawries, attainders and be traced back to him Richard's foes, in forfeitures, formal executions, quarterings, turn, charged him with tyranny, infanticide and the distribution and posting of body and incest, against which he had no parts were used to destroy opponents, effective defence. Governments certainly remove them from the scene, and to warn believed in the efficacy of such methods. others of the penalties of insurgency. Acts Spreaders of rumours were denounced; local of attainder and judicial indictments are authorities were instructed by Richard III to partisan documents that presented the tear down rebel propaganda unread; prosecution's point of view, the machinery Collingbourne, author of an infamous of order and oppression being in the couplet, even paid for his composition with government's hands. his life. 76 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

The wars excited much public comment. into politics as they protested against the The call for reform was a recurrent theme, government of the day - against almost from 1450 to 1497, often influential, and every government, at fault or not, whom sometimes decisive in bringing the people thev blamed for their misfortunes and for its The world around war 77 failures. They sought punishment of those conflicts because they were legitimately responsible, vengeance on the king's evil engaged elsewhere, the absences of others councillors, and at times, in 1450 and in cannot be so explained - they did not, after 1469, carried out the sentences themselves. all, want to be killed or suffer forfeiture. They did not protest against the wars as Many served in France in 1475 - as on such - coups d'etats and rebellions were the previous and subsequent occasions - only means to secure reform - and those opposed in return for royal guarantees for their to such demands could turn out for the dependants. As mortality mounted and status quo. In 1469, it appears, Warwick's more families were ruined, so they became regime was brought down by passive more circumspect. Avoid politics because it resistance - a refusal to fight against is dangerous, Lord Mountjoy urged his son Lancastrian rebels - and it was presumably in 1485. Less peers fought at Bosworth than to overcome such obstruction that at least on any previous campaign - no more than twice Richard III was obliged publicly to a quarter of the peerage. If peers could defend his actions. Sometimes people avoid involvement, how much easier it was refused, delayed taxes or declined to make for the gentry. In 1459 and 1470 retainers the loans that governments demanded. would not fight or turn out for rebels Politics was dangerous. Following the against the king, because it was treasonable. murder of royal ministers in 1450, the Lords Henry Vernon in 1471 was not alone in were anxious to avoid taking on letting down his lords and hazarding their responsibility in 1453-54, when the king good lordship and fees. Yet it was difficult was mad. They were fearful of Parliament, to take this line for there was an overriding which might hold them to account, of the obligation of allegiance to the king, and king should he recover and disapprove of peers were national figures - they and the their actions, and of the people, who might gentry were leaders of their communities, take direct action - Lord Cromwell, royal officials, and obliged to take the lead; remembering an early attempt on his life, not to do so was bound to damage their wanted a safe conduct to and from the local standing. Kings did not employ those royal council. They all furnished themselves they did not trust, and having cut off their with excuses - maladies, other duties, youth royal bounty, promoted instead and or age - to absent themselves from key depended on their rivals. Occasionally such decisions. Whilst some missed major penalties can be observed in action.

Earl Richard Beauchamp (d.1439), his two countesses, and his children. Note the coats of arms that distinguished them, their lineage, and adherents from others. (The British Library) Portrait of civilians Female victims

Aristocratic ladies are the best documented. she gave birth to Edward V in Westminster Although none actually suffered violent Abbey, and in 1483-84. Anne Countess of deaths in the wars themselves, Isabel Warwick took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey in Duchess of Clarence, who lost her first baby 1471 on hearing of her husband's death at at sea off Calais, is unlikely to have been the Barnet and stayed there for two years. only one to miscarry. Ladies were quite Widows of traitors normally lost their frequently bereaved as most of the leaders of dowers, but were allowed their own the Wars of the Roses suffered violent inheritances, if any, especially if their deaths. The three Neville sisters, Cecily, husbands' deaths entitled them to their Anne, and Eleanor were war widows; others jointures. Bereft of her husband's estates, suffered more than once. Katherine Neville Margaret Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk lived lost her first husband William Lord out her last few years on her jointure at her Harrington at the second battle of St Albans family home of Stoke Neyland (Suff.). in 1461 and her second, William Lord Occasionally ladies were even more Hastings, to execution in 1483. Elizabeth favourably treated - Katherine Lady Hastings Hopton's second husband John Earl of in 1483 secured her dower as well and Worcester was executed in 1470 and her Henry VII agreed not to penalise Anne third, Sir William Stanley, in 1495. The elder Viscountess Lovell for her husband's Eleanor Countess of Northumberland (d. treasons. Edward IV's favourite sister, Anne 1474) lost her husband (1455), brother and Duchess of Exeter, who was estranged from two brothers-in-law, and four sons in 1460, her husband Duke Henry, secured custody of 1461 and 1464; her sons were the husband his whole estate, other forfeitures, and and brothers-in-law of the younger Countess settled them on her second husband; Eleanor (d. 1484). Cecily Duchess of York obviously she was a unique case. Worst outlived all her sons - Edmund, George, and placed of all were those ladies whose Richard died violently, together with her menfolk had not actually been killed, but husband, brother, two brothers-in-law, four who were carrying on resistance to the grandsons, a son-in-law, and numerous current regime. Husbands, sons, grandsons, nephews and cousins. The husbands of 44 brothers and brothers-in-law could all cause peeresses and an unknown number of this kind of blight, with the ladies finding gentry were slain. We cannot know about themselves in limbo, unable to secure the most of the younger sons who perished. jointures that took effect on their husbands' Only three ladies were attainted of treason deaths. They were regarded as a potential in person: Alice Countess of Salisbury in fifth column, suspected of offering financial 1459, Henry VI's consort Queen Margaret of and other aid to the recalcitrant husbands, Anjou in 1461, and in 1484 Henry Tudor's sons and grandsons. Three courses of action mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of were commonly taken by the government Richmond and Derby. The latter was most against such women. They and their generously treated of all, since Richard III left property - dower, jointure, inheritance and her at liberty and transferred her property to chattels - were taken into custody, they were her husband, Thomas Lord Stanley. Others doled out only limited sums of money for took sanctuary - Edward IV's queen, their upkeep, and were consigned to Elizabeth, did so twice, in 1470-71, when monasteries or other reliable households. Portrait of civilians 79

Thus in 1462 the king's chief butler, John Margaret Lucy, widow of Sir William Lucy of Lord Wenlock was appointed keeper and Richard's Castle, slain at Northampton, governor of both Eleanor and Anne, wives could not obtain her dower. Forced to of the two attainted, but surviving, petition the king, he demanded (and Lancastrian traitors, Lord Moleyns and Sir apparently secured) sexual favours; Edmund Hampden, and their children and Elizabeth, uniquely, emerged his queen. estates. In Eleanor's case, so the patent runs, Eleanor may have been promised the same - Wenlock was 'to appoint and remove all Edward IV's precontract - but it failed to servants, and to levy all rents and issues, materialise. Fear for second husbands, the and expend them on the sustenance of the Lancastrians Sir Oliver Manningham and Sir said Eleanor and her children and six Gervase Clifton, who were again exposed to servants in her company and two servants treason charges, was used to induce the war in the company of her children and other widows Eleanor Lady Hungerford and reasonable expenses and to account to the Marjorie Lady Willoughby to surrender their king for the surplus'. Eight servants were own inheritances which were not actually very few for a baroness, yet poor Anne liable to forfeiture to protect their husbands. Hampden was allowed only four. Wenlock Warwick the Kingmaker's widow Anne was also appointed governor of Eleanor Beauchamp was actually the rightful heir of Countess of Wiltshire, with power to most of their estates. Following his death at appoint and remove her servants and Barnet, she petitioned the king and officers, even though her husband was dead; Parliament repeatedly for her rights, to no his brothers, however, fought on. Similarly avail, since Edward intended it for his in 1485 Elizabeth Countess of Surrey was brothers, husbands of her daughters; an act subjected to Lord Fitzwalter, who discharged in 1474 divided the estate as though she was her servants for disrespect to the new king; naturally dead. Both daughters and sons-in- she was at least allowed to remain in her law had died by 1485, when the countess family home. Even the queen mother, piteously petitioned Parliament again, this Edward IV's queen, Elizabeth, was confined time the king advancing her some lands for to the nunnery of Bermondsey Abbey, life, in return for her disinheritance of her deprived of her dower, and sparingly grandchildren. Her rights were not in doubt. pensioned by Henry VII on the pretext of Yet they perhaps were lucky to have plotting with his foes. Custody was granted something to bargain with. Margaret, wife of in the 1460s over 'the old lady Roos' - the the attainted and irreconcilable Earl of warrant did not even dignify her with her Oxford, forfeited her dower, was not entitled forename to distinguish Marjorie from her during his lifetime to her jointure, and was daughter-in-law Eleanor and granddaughter- no heiress. Reduced to charity, she in-law Philippa, all also ladies Roos. She was supposedly worked as a seamstress, until in a mere commodity, to be confined and 1482, after eleven years, she was granted a perhaps treated harshly. royal annuity of £100. Such ladies could be pressurised in many A particularly vivid example is that of other ways. Anne Neville, widow of Henry Elizabeth Howard, Dowager-Countess of VI's son Prince Edward, was concealed by Oxford, who suffered twice. When her her brother-in-law George Duke of Clarence, husband Earl John and eldest son Aubrey who wanted to prevent her remarrying, and were executed in 1462, she was arrested, allegedly even employed her in his kitchens. confined and dispossessed, albeit Ladies Elizabeth Grey and Eleanor Butler, temporarily. In consideration of her 'humble, widows respectively of Sir John Grey and Sir good and faithful disposition', she was Thomas Boteler, slain at the second battle of released and restored to her jointure, St Albans and at Northampton respectively, inheritance and even her dower. Her could not at first secure their jointures; Lady daughter-in-law recovered her jointure and 80 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

her second son John de Vere was restored as cold which then was of frost and snow, earl. However he and her younger sons took thought that she could not endure to be the wrong side in 1469-71 and also suffered conveyed thither without great jeopardy of forfeiture. Elizabeth's dower from an earlier her life, and also sore fearing how she should earl, jointure and inheritance should have be there entreated.' She gave way, she been safe this time. Since Earl John explained to a trustee, only 'for great fear continued resistance, she was consigned first and for the salvation of my life for if I make to Stratford nunnery, actually a favourite not the said estates and releases I am stopping-off point, and then to Richard threatened to be had in the north country Duke of Gloucester, to whom King Edward where I am sure I should not live long and had given 'her keeping and rule'. for the lengthening of my life this I do'. The story opens with his arrival at Frivolous though her fears may appear to Stratford Abbey, the seizure of the keys to northerners, she did indeed die soon after, her coffers by his chamberlain, and her perhaps the same year. Gloucester secured removal to his lodging at Stepney, where he her estates, to which he had no other right demanded that she give up to him her and which he used to endow his colleges or inheritance, to which he had no legal right. sold. Following his defeat and death, and the At first she refused, but the pressure was victory among others at Bosworth of Oxford, increased on herself and her trustees; several the latter overturned all these transactions observers saw her tears and lamentations. with the help of surviving ducal retainers Though in her sixties, she was made to walk and the countess' trustees; it is to their to his house at Walbrook in the City and testimony that we are indebted. there gave way. Gloucester's key ploy was to Margaret Lady Hungerford (d. 1478) in threaten her that 'he would send her to contrast was a formidable dowager who Vliddleham (Yorks.) there to be kept. saved at least some of her inheritance and Wherefore the said lady, considering her provided for her own soul in spite of almost great age, the great journey and the great overwhelming difficulties. The Hungerford

Pedigree 7: Victims of Civil War: The Hungerford Women

Walter Lord Hungerford William Lord Botreaux d. 1449 d . 1462

Robert Lord Hungerford = Margaret (Botreaux) Lady Hungerford d. 1459 d. 1478

Robert Lord (I) = Eleanor Moleyns = (2) Sir Oliver Manningham Hungerford and Moleyns d.c. 1476 attainted Lancastrian ex. 1464

Sir Thomas = Anne Percy Sir Walter Frideswide nun of Syon ex. 1469 d. 1516

Mary = Edward Lord Hastings Portrait of civilians 81 inheritance had already been mortgaged to beneficiary - or rather her husband Edward repay the ransom of her son, Robert Lord Lord Hastings and his family were. Moleyns, before he took the Lancastrian side Frideswide Hungerford, Margaret's in and after 1461. He was executed in 1464 granddaughter and Mary's aunt, lost her and his son Thomas in 1469. Three times marriage portion, never married, and was Margaret was arrested, once by the sheriff of consigned to a convent. It is likely that Wiltshire, and twice consigned to custody: many other women lost their expectations first in 1463 to Amesbury Abbey (Wilts.), due to the violent deaths of their fathers where she lost £l,000-worth of chattels in a and brothers. fire and had to contribute £200 towards the Margaret's 'writing annexed to her will' is rebuilding of the guesthouse where she had a highly partisan and contentious not wished to be; and secondly, in 1470, first autobiographical account of her sufferings to the much younger (and uncongenial) that was designed to persuade future Elizabeth Duchess of Norfolk, and then (for a generations that what she had done she did payment of £200) to Syon Abbey (Middx.), not 'by folly, nor by cause of any excess or of which she was an enthusiastic supporter. indiscreet liberality, but only by necessity She had to fight off Edward IV himself, such and misadventure that hath happened in powerful Yorkist peers as Lord Dynham this season of trouble'. She did not want (price £100 a year), the king's brother 'mine heirs to have any occasion to grudge, Gloucester and his chamberlain Hastings, for that I leave not to them so great an and also her (younger) mother-in-law inheritance as I might'. Her fear was that Margaret, now remarried to the master of the her heirs would overturn her sales of land, horse. For nearly twenty years she repeatedly made in good faith, and her religious petitioned Parliament, the king and council foundations, to the eternal damage of her and played off her creditors, the king's soul. The determined, devious and grantees and her own family, who had sustained machinations of this different and contradictory interests. Some septuagenarian have to be recovered from outlying properties did indeed have to be other sources. Where her daughter-in-law sold off, others had reluctantly to be settled Eleanor, Moleyns' actual wife, wriggled out on her infant granddaughter, Mary Hastings, of her obligations, Margaret repeatedly but some were saved for her second son, sacrificed her current comfort for her future Walter Hungerford, and parts were used to soul and salvaged a substantial estate for endow her own splendid chantry in the Hungerford male line. Her example Salisbury Cathedral and her father-in-law's reminds us how often fifteenth-century hospital at Heytesbury (Wilts.). Mary, who women, though nominally subordinate to would surely not have inherited had her their menfolk, proved capable survivors, father not been prematurely killed, was the managers and even politicians. How the wars ended Decisive victories

Wars only occur because contending parties may appear to us: if not kings of right (de cannot agree and fundamental differences jure), they were clearly kings in fact (de facto), cannot be settled peacefully. Plenty of efforts God's representatives on earth, and hence were made during the Wars of the Roses to entitled to the allegiance of their subjects. prevent conflict - by threatening dire Claiming the Crown raised the stakes and consequences, by detecting and suppressing ruled out the withdrawal, submission and plots, and by imprisoning and executing compromise that had been possible before plotters. Attempts were made to avert conflict taking this fateful step. Four times York as also by discussions, concessions, mediation duke submitted to King Henry VI. and forgiveness for former offences, notably Contenders might claim to be willing to late in the 1450s and 1460s, but war compromise, to settle for the dukedoms to nevertheless followed because the opponents which they were undoubtedly entitled, as of the ruling regime wanted more than was Henry IV did in 1399 and Edward IV in or perhaps could be conceded. York in 1459 1471. Such conciliatory gestures were and Warwick in 1469 wanted to rule and popular, enlisted support from supporters both, in the years following, were after the anxious not to commit treason and disarmed Crown. It was they who rejected any opposition, but they were unusual and were compromise. The Yorkists in 1459 and not genuine. Edward IV was never willing to Warwick in 1470 dashed aside royal offers give up his crown, his offer to make do with made from a position of strength that would his duchy of York being a ploy to get him have relegated them to secondary roles. through the hazards of Yorkshire in 1471. Similarly the compromise that York achieved Moreover promises of forgiveness, restitution after Northampton - the Accord of 1460 - and favour were of doubtful sincerity - was proved unacceptable to his opponents and not the king merely biding his time for merely precipitated further conflict. None of revenge? Not always, it appears, but often the wars ended with treaties, because treaties enough - witness the executions of the require negotiated agreements that were Bastard of Fauconberg in 1471 and Clarence never forthcoming. Each stage of the wars in 1478. No wonder Warwick in 1471 refused ended in complete victory for one side, to turn his coat again. complete defeat and destruction for the other Perhaps Henry VI could have been allowed - there were no stalemates. to die naturally in the Tower and his queen There could only be one king. Rival kings and son fester in exile, like other former kings could not negotiate and divide the spoils, and pretenders, but his representatives would because one must surrender his crown and have continued to plot and hope for the accept the superiority of the other. No opportunity to be useful to rival powers, like consideration was ever given to dividing the the one that actually arrived in 1470. The kingdom of England. Once a king, always a ousted Lancastrians in the 1460s, however, are king, contemporaries believed. A king might the exception. Diplomatic efforts might force lose his kingdom, but could not lose his exiles to change refuges, but only in 1506 did crown, resign or abdicate. Unlike today, he they actually deliver a pretender into the remained a king, not an ex-king. All the kings discussed here came to believe their English cavalry and archers attack in combination. legitimacy, however dubious their claims (Topham Picturepoint) How the wars ended 83 84 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

hands of the ruling king. Dynastic rivalries making politics and government work better, could normally be resolved only through by weeding out what was perceived as shedding blood, with the claimant needing to corruption and abuse, and not about radical raise an army to overturn the incumbent upheavals. At first the reformers deplored monarch, who, in turn, needed to destroy his their humiliation in the Hundred Years' War, rival. Sieges, occupation of territory, and blamed the government, and wished to constitutional opposition did not serve these reverse their defeat, but both Edward IV and purposes. Both sides therefore had an interest Henry VII had to postpone for years their in battles, preferably surprises that took the invasions of France which, predictably, other unawares, but also formal engagements, achieved nothing against Europe's greatest in which the other party was destroyed, on power. The England of the Wars of the Roses the field or afterwards. This was actually what was economically and militarily weaker than the Wars of the Roses delivered: decisive that of Henry V; France, no longer divided, victories and therefore decisive defeats. If was much stronger. Warwick appears to have Richard III was the only king to fall on the recognised this, preferring to ally with a field, Henry VI, his son, and Edward V died strong France against Burgundy rather than violently, and so indeed did most of the vice-versa, a potentially unpopular policy principal commanders: two dukes of York, that he chose wisely not to foreground and two of Buckingham, three of Somerset, one of which no king could openly acknowledge Clarence, and many other earls, viscounts and until the mid-sixteenth century. Fundamental barons. The Wars of the Roses were especially differences on foreign policy were certainly destructive of the leadership, who were an ingredient in Warwick's rebellions of deliberately singled out in battle and executed 1469-71, and crucially secured him French afterwards. There were no negotiated treaties support for Henry VI's Readeption in 1470, and could be none because the winner took but also, fatally, secured Burgundian hacking all and the loser lost all. Only lesser men for Edward IV's riposte. Moral reform directed could escape notice, avoid punishment or against the Wydevilles was proclaimed by secure acceptable terms. Richard III, without obvious results, and was No radical changes resulted from any of achieved, so Tudor propagandists claimed, by these wars although each one included a Richard's own destruction. dynastic revolution. The Lancastrian dynasty Traditionally Bosworth has been seen as was toppled in 1461 and again in 1471, the the last hattle of the Wars of the Roses, where Yorkists in 1470 and again in 1483; only the the incumbent king, the wicked Richard III, Tudor dynasty precariously survived. A new- was confronted by the blameless Henry Tudor dynasty entailed a new king, a change in the and met his end, losing his life and ending personnel of government, and an initial his dynasty. It was high drama, the struggle for internal and international culmination of the Wars of the Roses, in recognition, but little more. The principles which the first Tudor was crowned on the for which the wars were supposedly fought field of battle with his vanquished made little practical difference once victory predecessor's crown, retrieved - in had been attained, with politics, government, Shakespeare's play - from the thorn hush the economy and society remaining from which it dangled. Richard left no heirs, essentially unchanged. Admittedly from 1450 dynastic or political, no son and nobody to onwards York and Warwick called for reform, continue whatever cause he stood for. but the reforms they sought had largely been Reconciliation followed, as Henry VII, the first achieved by 1459, let alone 1469. That the Tudor king, heir of Lancaster wed Elizabeth of people were still discontented was largely York, uniting the red rose and the white. That because of the economic depression which Bosworth was the end was already the no government had caused and none could message that was passed on and amplified, at control. Such reforms, moreover, were about maximum volume by Shakespeare, and How the wars ended 85 became one of the historical commonplaces from guarding the wrong coasts, it seems for five centuries of the English. Yet much of unlikely that Henry attracted many recruits or this is Tudor propaganda; indeed we possess any popular support, relying instead on a no authentic eyewitness account of the battle small core of hardened French and Scottish and historians differ substantially even on veterans. The battle was hard fought between where it took place. It was not a trial of parts of the two armies and was decided, strength on the massive scale or savagery of apparently, by Stanley's late intervention. Had Towton or Barnet and it seems likely that Henry perished, as Richard intended, who there were less contestants than in any of the could have carried forward his cause? Had other key battles. If Richard was unusually unsuccessful in mobilising loyal Englishmen, Lady Margaret Beaufort (d 1509. mother of Henry VII.) although some certainly were on their way (Topham Picturepoint) 86 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Richard survived, would the battle have been accessions and changes of dynasty in 1461, decisive? Would Richard not have fought on 1470, 1471, 1484 and 1485, and to attaint another day? Whatever might have been, the their predecessors and their adherents. Tudor victory was less decisive than Tudor Commoners might be fined and lesser propagandists declared. Less than two years aristocrats allowed to compound for their later the battle of Stoke was another small- lands. The forfeited estates of the principal scale conflict on which the fate of the losers were distributed initially amongst the kingdom hung and subsequent conspirators, partisans of the victors, thus creating a vested Perkin Warbeck and Edmund de la Pole, interest in their continued rule. Usurpers destabilised the new regime. That Bosworth presented themselves as rightful, legitimate marked the last defeat and replacement of a monarchs, bringers of peace, tranquillity and current king, as the Tudors declared, was only order. A Lancastrian myth anticipated the confirmed in retrospect after subsequent Yorkist myth that preceded the myth of insurrections failed, earlier kings, in 1461, Richard III in his Titulus Regius, which were 1470 and 1471, having also claimed to have all superseded by the Tudor myth. brought the wars to an end. Civil war is divisive. Victories and Victory was God's gift. The first action of usurpations were achieved by active every victor, after the first battle of St Albans, partisans over equally committed opponents, Northampton and the rest, was to hold a most people, whatever their opinions, service of thanksgiving featuring the 'Te standing aside. Edward IV, famously, was Deum'. Though doubtless sincere, such elected king by a tiny, unrepresentative actions secured the approval of the Church faction; to remain the figurehead of such a and sought to deter further resistance - God's faction, still more one becoming verdict should not be disobeyed. The result progressively narrower, was fatal - Warwick was widely published - officially proclaimed, in 1469 and Richard III being the most popularised in verse and song, and striking examples. All usurpers wished, occasionally transmitted in official histories to however, for more general acceptance, to foreign powers. In 1455, 1460, 1469 and secure support from the uncommitted and 1483, when coups and battles did not initially former foes, and allowed surviving enemies change the monarch, insurgents were careful or more commonly their heirs to recover to present themselves in the most public- their estates in return for proven loyalty and manner as loyal subjects ridding their king service. Edward IV and Henry VII went of evil councillors. The victors summoned through all these stages, but the Readeption Parliament to confirm their protectorates in government of 1470-71 and Richard III in 1455, 1460, 1469 and 1483, to confirm their 1483-85 were not allowed the time. Conclusion and consequences Return to normality

The Wars of the Roses had no perceptible Later on Edward IV and Henry VII spared effect on the population or labour force. If the commons, who had been led astray by the population of England and Wales at this their leaders, so they thought, but a point was time was no more than two million, the made of eliminating the leadership - proportion of combatants even in 1461 was particularly at St Albans in 1460, where a a mere fraction of one per cent, although we Yorkist chronicler reveals that 'when the said have very few reliable indications of army lords were dead, the battle was ceased'. strengths. For Towton in 1461, perhaps the Winning commanders had important captives largest and most closely contested battle, it executed after Wakefield (1460), the second was estimated, probably reliably, that 28,000 battle of St Albans and Towton (1461), people were slain, with others being Hexham and Bamburgh (1464), Edgecote drowned in the River Cock and cut down in (1469), Empingham (1470) and Tewkesbury flight. The battle was the culmination of a (1471); Salisbury was lynched after Wakefield, thorough mobilisation over several months as were Devon and Pembroke after Edgecote; of both sides from all over the kingdom; yet other supposed conspirators were executed heaps of bodies supposedly impeded soldiers in 1462, 1468-69, 1471, 1478, 1483, 1486 and as they fought. Casualties were likely to have on other occasions. been around 50 per cent overall - an The standards by which the wars were astonishing proportion - rather less judged were those of the international code of presumably for the Yorkists and rather more chivalry and those of the English law of for the Lancastrians, most of whose leaders treason. The chivalric code allowed those who were slain. Barnet in 1471, perhaps the next resisted to be put to the sword, massacres after largest battle and the next most hard fought, battles therefore being permitted. Defeat was drew on only a proportion of the forces of honourable. Aristocratic captives in the the Readeption, which were nevertheless Hundred Years' War were commonly spared more numerous than those of Edward IV. All and put to ransom. Although ransoms other conflicts seem likely to have attracted occasionally occurred during the Wars of the fewer combatants, recruited not nationwide, Roses, those vanquished were commonly but from particular areas, and often in haste. regarded as traitors and deserving of death; Once coherence was lost, armies were some of those who killed Richard Duke of massacred. Moreover casualties were not York, not yet a king, were even regarded in confined to the battlefield for defeated this light. Henry VII notoriously dated his armies took flight, those at Empingham reign from the day before Bosworth, so that he (Losecote Field) in 1470 notoriously could attaint Richard III's supporters. It was on throwing off their jackets so they could run this basis that aristocratic captives were more quickly. They also probably discarded summarily tried by the court of chivalry, such their helmets, the most likely explanation as the Earl of Oxford, condemned to death by for the head injuries of all the fugitives of the Earl of Worcester in 1462, Worcester 1461 interred in the mass grave at Towton himself by Oxford's son in 1470, and the Hall. Fugitives from Northampton in 1460, victims of Tewkesbury by Richard Duke of Towton and Tewkesbury were drowned in Gloucester in 1471. Some of the latter had the rivers Nene, Cock and Wharffe, Avon been fetched out of sanctuary, perhaps with and Severn. promises of security that were broken; the 88 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487

Staffords were also removed from sanctuary at contingents a dozen or two strong made up of Culham (Berks.) on the anachronistic grounds those who could best be spared. that it did not cover treason and were There could no legal remedy against kings executed in 1486. Whether slain on the field or against others too powerful to be brought of Tewkesbury or murdered immediately after to trial. The sons of Somerset and at King Edward's command after an exchange Northumberland, slain at the first battle of St of insults, Prince Edward of Lancaster could Albans, wanted revenge, but were persuaded to not have been allowed to live. Following his settle for less. Pillage and the other offences capture with Bamburgh Castle in 1464, the against civilians of contemporary soldiery were perjured traitor Sir Ralph Grey, who deserved not easily attributed to the offenders. death under the laws both of chivalry and Casualties of war and in flight, executions for treason, was degraded from knighthood - his plotting and after battle were legal and arms were reversed and his spurs hacked from legitimate by the standards of the time. his heels by a master cook, to maximise the Twenty-first century notions of war crimes did dishonour - before he was executed. not yet exist, but there were actions that were Conspirators were more commonly tried and generally regarded as unacceptable, high on condemned by commissions of oyer and the list being Richard Ill's elimination of terminer, which at least sometimes acquitted Hastings. The nearest parallel to our modern defendants or convicted them on lesser understanding of a war criminal was John charges. On at least two occasions acts of Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, the highly cultured attainder were followed by the condemnation early Renaissance humanist, who supposedly of the accused by a steward specially added impaling from the 'law of Padua' to the appointed for the occasion - Warwick in 1461 hanging, drawing and quartering to which and Buckingham in 1478 - when the king's traitors were normally exposed. own brother was sentenced. Not always were The Wars of the Roses were a side-show to such formalities observed after battles, nor by military developments in Western Europe. The the angry commons, and several times kings military formations, weapons and tactics that simply eliminated enemies. In 1483 there was Henry V had deployed to such effect were now no trial for Lord Hastings and only a obsolete. There was no place even for the semblance of one for Earl Rivers. territorial conquests, step-by-step siege warfare, No satisfactory estimates of total casualties and attrition of the Hundred Years' War. over 30 years can be attempted. Nobody took a defensive stand, garrisoning Thousands of casualties, particularly those and munitioning towns in lieu of battle, and from the same area, ought surely to have had nobody took a systematic approach to the significant economic effects, as the wars occupation of territory. There was no English occurred at a time of much reduced and equivalent to such continental developments perhaps declining population in which as the French standing army or its component buoyant wages indicate a labour shortage. units, the French lance or Spanish tercio; When focused in particular areas, such as English infantrymen were not re-equipped Yorkshire which suffered disproportionately with Swiss pikes or handguns. Cannon were from mortality at Towton, casualties from deployed abroad to such shattering effect that warfare ought to have impacted noticeably on old-fashioned castles were rendered obsolete the local economy, yet they cannot be shown and the bastion was devised to counter siege to have done so. No surviving manorial artillery. Yet almost all these developments accounts or court rolls show the vacant passed the English by, although new infantry tenancies, deaths or heriots (death duties) that weapons were employed by handgunners of one would expect to find. Productivity was the Burgundian Seigneur de la Barde in 1461, low, so economies in labour enforced by war the French veterans of Philibert de Chandee in mortality could be sustained without severe 1485 and the Dutch professionals of Martin disruption. Towns supplied only small Swart in 1487. Even the armies that Edward IV Conclusion and consequences 89 and Henry VII launched against France still small contingents of continental professionals combined archers and men-at-arms recruited carried disproportionate weight both at in companies of irregular size by indentures, Bosworth and Stoke. If Edward IV and with individual captains, in the old way. Not Warwick were able to carry the experience of that archers were valueless - that they were 1459-61 to 1469-71, the king repeating his still appreciated on the continent is shown by successes and the earl his failures, there seems Breton and Burgundian requests for them to have been little if any development when threatened by the French. It was between them or continuity between these probably only on the Scottish border that conflicts and those of the 1480s. The Wars of castles were maintained and rebuilt, the Roses were a military backwater irrelevant Gloucester's work at Carlisle allowing for to the mainstream of military advance. defensive ordnance, but genuinely modern The Wars demonstrated England's weakness fortifications, such as the string of self- against foreign attack for although the sea and contained castles along the south coast from contrary winds were useful shields, the Deal to St Mawr had to wait until the reign of Channel was easily and quickly crossed with Henry VIII. little preparation and expense. Naval defences The English were most conscious of the were of limited value, and no invaders were potential of gunpowder, employing cannon ever intercepted, so it was possible to land both to attack and defend the Tower in 1460, almost anywhere, without resort to ports or the City in 1471 and in battle at Northampton regard to coastal castles, most of which were in (1460), Barnet and Tewkesbury (1471). decay, ungarrisoned and unmunitioned. Once Warwick had his own cannon and his own ashore, invading armies could march freely gunner from the early 1460s and Gloucester in wherever they chose, unimpeded by the early 1480s; Edward IV enhanced his fortifications or walled towns and with little ordnance train for his invasion of France in account for physical barriers such as rivers and 1475. The defensive tactics of the Hundred hills, and often with domestic support. The Years' War, in which the French were forces that could be raised against foreign encouraged to attack mixed formations of invaders were unlikely to be equal in numbers archers and men-at-arms, were adapted in the or equipment, and governments could be Wars of the Roses by the addition of cannon, toppled militarily with extraordinary ease. The without emulating the successes of the English Wars of the Roses revealed how weak England at Agincourt or the French at Chatillon. was to external and internal threats. Cannon encouraged static defensive thinking, The first strategic lesson therefore, which to which Warwick was especially inclined, the Tudors took to heart, was that invasions proved unusable in the wet conditions at must be prevented at all costs. Whilst the Northampton (1460), and could not be readily navy, fortifications, the militia and adapted to threats from different directions in armaments could be and were to be 1461 or to unfavourable ground in 1471. improved, the key was prevention by Presumably it was the lighter and more mobile appropriate diplomatic means - fortunately cannon that were used alongside bowmen at England's principal enemies up till 1588 the start of battles. At Tewkesbury such always focused their military attention barrages forced the losing sides to attack from elsewhere. Secondly, internal and external pre-prepared positions and abandon the foes must be divided, in particular by advantages of defence. Indeed virtually all the denying exiles refuge abroad and ideally by battles of the Wars of the Roses were won by securing their extradition; this was nothing the side attacking, not by the defenders, even new and was practised by both Henry VI in when the latter had chosen the ground and 1459-60 and Edward IV thereafter, but entrenched themselves. Whether equivalent Henry VII made it work. Thirdly, English results could have been achieved against the military commanders at Calais, in Ireland, best continental armies, however, is unlikely; and on the northern marches must be 90 Essential Histories • The Wars of the Roses 1455-1487 prevented from turning royal resources completely failed to prevent both Louis XI's against the government. And fourthly, war against Burgundy after Charles the Bold's domestic dissent must be prevented from death in 1477 that resulted in the French escalating, by a mixture of conciliation, conquest of Artois and Picardy and Charles deterrent and propaganda, so that VIII's acquisition by marriage of Brittany, even Englishmen learnt to regard resistance and though these annexations placed the whole of rebellion as wrong. Of the four, the last three the Channel coastline facing England in objectives were actually achieved. French hands. Diplomacy, especially the Politically the Wars of the Roses were civil treaties of Picquigny (1475) and Etaples (1492), disagreements within England rather than was more effective in neutralising the English international conflicts between states. Whilst than military intervention. In his latter years England can be perceived as one of the venues Henry VII preferred (and was able at last to in the struggle between France and Burgundy, afford) to subsidise foreign allies rather than to few Europeans participated and the wars had fight himself. no decisive effect on the main contest. The Wars of the Roses had no permanent Admittedly the Burgundians helped the impact on England's foreign relations Yorkist war effort in a small way in 1461; abroad. Defeat in the Hundred Years' War Frenchmen and Scots made major signalled the changing standing between contributions to the unsuccessful Lancastrian France and England, France resuming its resistance of the 1460s; the French in 1470, place as the leading European power - its Burgundians in 1471 and French again in proper place, when measured in terms of 1485 helped overthrow English governments; resources - and England reverting to the and the French in 1483 and the Burgundians second rank, where it remained for two in 1487 backed invasions that failed. Such centuries until the 1650s. Successive English activities need to be measured against their monarchs, from Edward IV and the first two strategic objectives. From a continental angle, Tudors to the first two Stuarts, carried little the intentions were twofold. Firstly, to prevent weight when intervening on the continent English intervention on the other side by and achieved scarcely anything when they fomenting instability at home. This objective did; they were genuinely marginal and their was repeatedly achieved, even the smallest invasions could safely be ignored. raids serving this purpose, like those of Jasper The Wars of the Roses also had no Tudor in Wales in the 1460s and Oxford in significant impact on the distribution of power 1472-74. Secondly, they were designed to within England, nor were the opposite parties secure English intervention against the rival constant or consistent. Except at certain state. This objective involved replacing the points, it is not possible to discern clear existing government with one more geographical zones or social classes associated sympathetic and securing the latter's armed with either side, each attracting cross-sections intervention on the continent. It was achieved of supporters from all the social orders that most obviously in 1471, when Warwick varied with the different regimes. Richard launched an assault on Burgundy as agreed Duke of York may have triumphed in 1460 the previous summer with King Louis XI; because of popular support, just as Henry VI unfortunately his participation was terminated did in 1470, but the commons did not prevail by the resultant Burgundian support for over the aristocracy or any other social class. Edward IV that ended the Readeption. Twice The north that backed Queen Margaret in Edward IV had planned invasions of France, in 1460-61 and continued resistance in the the 1460s and early 1470s; only the latter 1460s did not include the Richmondshire happened and was prematurely curtailed. So levies of the Nevilles of Middleham and was the Etaples campaign of 1492 of Henry subsequently Richard Duke of Gloucester. VII, who indeed campaigned against the Most of the major families that suffered French, who had made him king. The English forfeiture were in due course restored. Henry Conclusion and consequences 91

VII did not stand for any clear political creed respectable, whilst dynastic differences made except hostility to Richard III and it is not the choice of king, to whom overriding clear what his opponents stood for; nor did he allegiances were due, ultimately almost a seek to destroy the great nohility. If he failed matter of opinion. Henry VII benefited from to replace the greatest families that had died the end of the Great Slump, which restored out or suffered forfeiture, which may indeed the financial and military initiative to the have changed the balance of landholding and Crown at the same time as the greatest power both nationally and in the longer term noble houses were in abeyance. Economic in several regions, this was more because his well-being may also have removed the younger sons failed to found any lasting noble political discontent of the commons, who house. What an overmighty subject Henry were no longer responsive to reforming Duke of York might have been had he not platforms. Perhaps the reforming acceded as King Henry VIII! propaganda was misdirected - there was still Each of the Wars ended with a clearcut plenty of mileage in complaints against victory that destroyed both the leadership of unjust taxation, which brought out tens of the losing side and deprived the survivors of thousands of Yorkshiremen in 1489 and the resources to continue. By these criteria, the Cornishmen in 1497, but which was never battles of Towton in 1461, Barnet and transmuted into a national movement. After Tewkesbury in 1471, and even Bosworth in 1494 the focus of the rival great powers was 1485 looked decisive. Recalcitrant Lancastrians Italy and neither France nor Burgundy, the in the North, Harlech and Jersey in 1461-68, Dowager-Duchess Margaret apart, embroiled the Earl of Oxford at St Osyth's (Essex) and themselves in English politics. A final, more Mount St Michael (Corn.) in 1472-74, and intangible factor is that insurrection and erstwhile Ricardians in lurness and treason ceased to be respectable. Perhaps Richmondshire, were persisting irrationally deterred by the penalties and much reduced with forlorn causes. Inevitably their resistance chances of success, the nobility stopped was stubbed out and many of them were slain. resorting to force. At some point the The ruling regimes that surmounted such concepts of order and non-resistance, so obstacles looked progressively more secure, so important in restraining insubordination that peace looked permanent and almost all and insurrection from the mid-sixteenth parties operated as though it was. Battles were century on, prevailed over individuals' sense decisive, however, only for as long as the of grievance. defeated party secured no new accretion of It used to be argued that the Wars of the strength, English or foreign, or for as long as Roses had a finite end, the battle of Bosworth the victorious regime maintained its unity. The in 1485, and that later conspiracies were Yorkist victors of 1461 and 1471 both divided different. That is what the Tudors and their against themselves a decade later and each propagandists wanted their contemporaries then attracted foreign backing that enabled and hence us to think, but it is not tenable the former victors to be displaced. Outside today. Actually the conspiracies petered out. support was forthcoming for dynastic rivals to Plots became progressively less dangerous, Henry VII; what they never secured, however, attracted diminishing support and were more was substantial adherence within England, effectively countered, until new divisions, especially amongst the great nobility. arising from the Reformation, supplanted What made it so easy to displace kings, them on the national and international dynasties and governments during the Wars agenda. If Richard de la Pole died at Pavia in of the Roses was the financial and military 1525, the White Rose of York had ceased to weakness of the Crown, the full pose a genuine threat a decade or more before. participation of the commons in violent Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I politics, and the intervention of foreign had to contend with other kinds of powers. These made insurrection almost insurrections and rivals. Further reading

Printed Primary Sources so-called "Short Version of the Arrivall"', in Nottingham Medieval Studies 36 (1992) Davies, J.S. (cd.), An English Chronicle of the Worcester, J., 'Annales Rerum Anglicarum', in Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and J. Stevenson (ed.), Letters and Papers Henry VI (Camden Society, 64, 1856) illustrative of the Wars of the English in France, Dockray, K. (ed.), Three Chronicles of the Reign 2 vols in 3, Rolls series (Ijondon, 1864) of Edward IV (Stroud, 1988) Fiorato, V., Boylston, A. and Kussel, C, Blood Red Roses. The Archaeology of a Mass Grave Secondary sources from the Battle of Towton AD 1461 (Oxford, 2000) Armstrong, C.A.J., 'Politics and the Battle of Gairdner, J. (ed.), Historical Collections of a St Albans, 1455', England, France and Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, Burgundy in the Fifteenth Century (London, new series 17 (Camden Society, 1876) 1983) Hammond, P.W. and Sutton, A.F. (eds.), Arthurson, I., The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy Richard III: The Road to Bosworth Field 1491-99 (Stroud, 1994) (London, 1985) Bennett, M.J., The Battle of Bosworth (Stroud, Waurin, J. de, Recueil des Croniques et Anciennes 1985) Istoires de I'Angleterre, Hardy, E.L.C.P. and W. , Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke (eds), Rolls series 5 (London, 1891) (Gloucester, 1987) Hay, D. (ed.), The Anglica Historica of Polydore Boardman, A., The Battle of Towton (Stroud, Vergil, Camden 3rd series 74 (RHS, 1950) 1996) Kekewich, M.L., Richmond, C.F., Sutton, A.F., Carpenter, C, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and Lisser-Fuchs, L. and Watts, J.L. (eds), The the Constitution in England, c. 1437-1509 Politics of Fifteenth Century England: John (Cambridge, 1997) Vale's Book, Richard III and Yorkist History Condon, M.M., 'Bosworth Field: A Footnote Trust (Stroud, 1995) on the Controversy', in The Ricardian, 96 Kingsford, C.L. (ed.), Chronicles of London (1987) (London,1905) Dockray, K.R., 'Yorkshire Rebellions of 1469', Matheson, L. (ed.), Death and Dissent: The in The Ricardian, 83 (1983) Dethe of the Kynge of Scotis and Warkworth's , The Battle of Wakefield and the Wars Chronicle (Woodbridge, 1999) of the Roses', in The Ricardian, 117 (1992) Myers, A.R. (ed.), English Historical Documents, Foss, P., The Field of Redemore: The Battle of vol 4,1327-1485 (London, 1969) Bosworth 1485 (Rosalba, 1990), Pronay, N. and Cox, J. (eds), The Crowland Gillingham, J., The Wars of the Roses Chronicle Continuations 1459-1486 (London, 1981) (London,1986) Goodman, A., The Wars of the Roses: Military Riley, H.T. (ed.), Ingulph's Chronicle of the Activity and English Society, 1452-1497 Abbey of Croyland (London, 1859) (London, 1981) Thomas, A.H. and Thornley, I.D. (eds), The Haigh, P., The Military Campaigns of the Wars Great Chronicle of London (London, 1938) of the Roses (Stroud, 1997) Visser-Fuchs, L., 'Edward IV's Memoire on Hammond, P.W., The Battles of Barnet and Paper to Charles, Duke of Burgundy: The Tewkesbury (Gloucester, 1990) Further reading 93

Harvey, I.M.W., Jack Cade's Rebellion of 1450 Jones, M.K., Bosworth 1485: The Psychology of (Oxford, 1991) a Battle (Stroud, 2002) Hicks, M.A., False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence: , 'A Kingdom for a Cause', in BBC George Duke of Clarence 1449-1478, revised History Magazine, 3(9) (2002) edition (Bangor, 1992) Pollard, A.J., The Wars of the Roses, second , Bastard Feudalism (Harlow, 1995) edition (Basingstoke, 2001) , Warwick the Kingmaker (Oxford, 1998) (ed.), The Wars of the Roses , 'Propaganda and the Battle of St (Basingstoke, 1995) Albans, 1455', in Nottingham Medieval , 'Lord Fitzhugh's Rising in 1470', in Studies, 44 (2000) Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, , 'Bastard Feudalism, Overmighty S3 (1979) Subjects, and Idols of the Multitude during Richmond, C.R, 'English Naval Power in the the Wars of the Roses', in History, 85 (2001) Fifteenth Century', in History, S3 (1967) Hodges, G., Ludford Bridge and Mortimer's , 'Fauconberg's Kentish Rising of May Cross, revised edition (Almeley, 2001) 1471', in English Historical Review, 85 (1970) Holland, P. 'The Lincolnshire Rebellion of Rosenthal, J.T., 'Other Victims: Peeresses as War March 1470', in English Historical Review, Widows 1450-1500', in History, 72 (1987) 103 (1988) Ross, C.D., The Wars of the Roses (London, Jack, R.I., 'A Quincentenary: The Battle of 1976) Northampton, July 10th, 1460', in Visser-Fuchs, L., 'Nicholas Harpsfield, Clerk Northamptonshire Past and Present, iii (1) of the Signet, Author and Murderer', in (1960) The Ricardian, 125 (1994) Index

Figures in bold refer to illustrations arrest 9, 40, 41 burial 60 Accord 8, 9, 28, 36, 82 Readeption 44 Angers, Treaty of 9 see also The Arrival of Edward IV (Harpsfield) Angus, Earl of 38 Edward V 7, 8, 9, 29, 46-47, 48, 78, 84 armies 83 Edward VI see Simnel, Lambert composition 17-18, 20-23, 50-52, 67, 68-69 Edward, Prince, Duke of Lancaster 9, 14, 28, 36, 88 weapons 52-53, 69, 70, 88-89 Elizabeth (Woodville), queen to Edward IV 78, 79 The Arrival of Edward IV (Harpsfield) 61-65, 70 Empingham, battle of 9, 33, 35, 41, 53, 87 attainder see treason Etaples, Treaty of 90 Audley, Lord 9, 25, 35 executions 29, 39, 41, 45, 46, 48, 55-56, 67, 78, 79, badges, heraldic 17, 18, 53, 76 81, 82, 87, 88 ballads 17 Exeter, Anne, Duchess 78 Bamburgh, battle of 52, 87 Exeter, Henry, Duke of 36, 44, 45, 72 Barnet, battle of 7, 9, 17, 21, 29, 33, 35, 45, 52, 53, 57, 61, 62, 87, 89 Fastolf, Sir John 20 Beauchamp, Anne see Warwick, Anne Beauchamp, Fauconberg, Bastard of 16, 20, 45, 52, 62-64, 70, 82 Countess of financing the wars 68 Beauchamp, Richard, Earl of 77 FitzHugh, Lord 43 Beaufort, Margaret see Richmond and Derby, Fortescue, Sir John 28,45-46 Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of France 7, 28, 32, 37-38, 84, 89, 90 Beauforts 13, 23, 48, 65, 73 Bisham Priory 71 Gaunt, John of see Lancaster, John of Gaunt, Duke of Blore Heath, battle of 9, 18, 25, 33, 35 Gloucester, Richard, Duke oi see Richard III Bosworth, battle of 7, 9, 16, 17, 20, 23, 33, 34-35, (formerly Duke of Gloucester) 48, 49, 84-85, 89 Grey, Elizabeth, Lady 79 Breze, Pierre de 20, 38 Grey, Lord 36 Buckingham, Henry, Duke of 8, 18, 36, 67, 88 Grey, Richard 29 Buckingham's Rebellion 7, 8, 9, 46-48, 56-57, 72 Grey, Sir Ralph 69, 88 Burgh, Sir Thomas 41 Burgundy 28, 32, 90 Hampden, Anne, Lady 79 Butler, Eleanor, Lady 79 Harlech Castle 40, 41 Harpsfield, Nicholas 61-65 Cade, Jack 10, 12 Harrington, William, Lord 78 Calais garrison 18, 19, 20, 23, 27, 28, 52, 68 Hastings, Edward, Lord 81, 88 campaigns Hastings, Katherine, Lady 78 1459 31,35-36 Hastings, Mary 81 1460-61 34, 36-37 Hastings, William, Lord 29, 45, 78 1461-64 39 Hedgeley Moor, battle of 9, 38 1461-68 37-40 Henry IV 9, 12, 82 1469 40-41, 42 Henry V 84 1470 41-44, 43, 47, 52 Henry VI 7, 8, 10, 11, 11-12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 1471 44-46, 51, 52 24-25, 24-25, 27, 28, 30, 35-37, 57, 59, 61, 65, 68, 1483 46-48, 54 82, 84, 89, 90 1485 48-49,55 arrest 45 1487 49-50 burial 60 casualties 53-55, 57, 70, 87, 88 Readeption 7, 9, 42, 86 Chandee, Philibert de 49 Henry VII (Henry Tudor) 7, 8, 9, 14, 20, 47, 48, 49, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy 32, 44, 61, 64, 90 50, 57, 67, 68, 72, 73, 7S, 78, 79, 84, 86, 87, 89, Clarence, George, Duke of 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 40-42, 90-91 44, 45, 49, 58, 62, 68, 79, 82 rivals 60 Clarence, Isabel Neville, Duchess of 40-41, 78 Henry VIII 8, 60 Clarence, Lionel, Duke of 12, 28 Herbert, William, Lord see Pembroke, William Herbert, coups d'etat 9, 12, 29, 30, 35, 40, 46 Courtenays 23 Earl of Herberts 28 Dacre, Randall, Lord 57 Hexham, battle of 9, 38, 55, 87 Dartford, coup d'etat 9, 12, 35 Hopton, Elizabeth 78 de la Pole, Edmund 86 Howard, Lord 69 Devon, Earl of 40, 41, 45, 87 Hundred Years' War 7, 10, 14, 20, 28, 52, 68, 88 Dorset, Marquis of 47 Hungerford, Eleanor, lady 79 Dudley, Oliver, Lord 25, 35, 73 Hungerford, Frideswide 73, 81 Hungerford, Margaret, l.ady 80-81 Edgecote, battle of 9, 29, 33, 35, 41, 52, 53, 87 Hungerford, Walter 81 Edward III 12, 13, 26, 28 Hungerfords 80 Edward IV (formerly Earl of March; Duke of York) Huntingdon, Earl of 49 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37-38, 40, 43-45, 46, 52, 56, 57, 58, 68, 70, inheritance 57-58, 73, 78-81 72, 74, 81, 82, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90 injuries 52, 54, 87 Index 95

Lampleugh, Gawen 70 19, 20, 21, 23, 29, 33, 45, 46, 47, 48-49, 58, 67, 74-75, Lancaster, Edward, Duke of see Edward, 77, 78, 80, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91 Prince, Duke of Lancaster burial 57 Lancaster, John of Gaunt, Duke of 12, 28 rivals 48 Lancasters 13, 26, 48, 65 Richmond and Derby, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Lincoln, John de la Pole, Earl of 9, 49, 50 Countess of 48, 78, 85 Lincolnshire Rebellion 9, 29 Richmond, Yorkshire 19, 20, 21, 23, 43, 90 London 70, 74-75 Rivers, Lord 27, 29, 36, 37, 41, 88 Bridge 16 Rous, John 69 Tower of 16, 36, 52, 66-67, 70, 89 St Paul's Cathedral 56, 74-75 Salisbury, Alice, Countess of 78 Losecote Field (battle of Empingham) 9, 41, 87 Salisbury, Richard, Earl of 9, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26-27, 35, Louis XI 28, 32, 42, 61, 63, 90 36, 57, 73, 87 Loveday 9, 24, 56 Sandwich 9, 36 Lucy, Margaret, l.ady 79 Scotland 32, 37-38, 90 Ludford, battle 9, 18, 27, 33, 36, 55 Scrope, Lords 49 Shakespeare, William 8, 12, 48, 84 Mackerel, Sir Ralph 70 Simnel, Lambert 9, 21, 49-50 March, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of 12 Somerset, Edmund, Duke of 11, 12, 21, 35 March, Edward, Earl of see Edward IV Somerset, Henry, Duke of 27, 36, 45 (formerly Earl of March, Duke of York) Southampton Plot 12 Margaret, Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy 32, 49 St Albans 37 Margaret of Angou, Queen 8, 9, 14, 15, 23, 27, 28, first battle of 9, 12, 13, 14, 23, 33, 35, 52, 53, 55-56, 57 36-37, 42, 45, 70, 72, 78, 90 second battle of 9, 28, 33, 35, 52, 53, 55, 87 Margaret of York 64 St John, Lord 45 Memoire (Harpsfield) 61 St Leger, Sir Thomas 48 Moleyn, Robert, Lord 79 Stafford knot 18 Moleyns, Eleanor, Lady 79, 81 Staffords 48 Montagu, John, Lord 38, 44, 45 Stanley, Sir William 33, 49, 78 Mortimer, Sir John 12 Stanley, Thomas, Lord 48, 78 Mortimers 12, 13, 26 Stanleys 16, 23, 49 Mortimer's Cross, battle of 9, 23, 37, 38 Stoke, battle of 7, 9, 14, 18, 21, 33, 49, 53, 89 Morton, Cardinal 46 Stony Stratford, coup d'etat 29 Strange, Lord 49 Neville, Anne 9, 78, 79 Suffolk, William, Duke of 10 Neville, Archbishop 29, 41 Surrey, Elizabeth, Countess of 79 Neville, Cecily 78 Swart, Martin 20-21, 49, 50 Neville, Eleanor 78 Neville, Isabel see Clarence, Isabel Neville, Duchess of taxation 68 Neville, Katherine 73, 78 Tewkesbury 34 Neville, Richard (the elder), Earl of Salisbury 12 see also Abbey 69 Warwick, Richard Neville (the younger), the Kingmaker, battle of 7, 9, 21, 29, 33, 45, 52, 53, 55, 61, 69, 87, 89 Earl of Towton, battle of 7, 9, 17, 28, 33, 35, 37, 55, 57, 87 Neville, Sir Thomas 57 treason 56-57, 67-68, 70-71, 73, 75, 77, 78-79, 87-88 Nevilles 13, 23, 40, 65, 90 Trollope, Sir Andrew 35, 36 nobility, exiled 71-73 Tudor, Henry see Henry VII (Henry Tudor) Norfolk, Duke of 33, 37 Tudor, Jasper see Pembroke, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Norfolk, Elizabeth, Duchess of 81 Tudors 26, 91 Norfolk, Margaret, Dowager-Duchess of 78 Northampton, battle of 9, 28, 30, 33, 35, 89 Vaughans 48 Northumberland, Earls of see Percies, Earls of Vernon, Henry 18, 77 Northumberland victory celebrations 74, 86 Northumberland, Eleanor (the elder), Countess of 78 Northumberland, Eleanor (the younger), Countess of 78 Wakefield, battle of 9, 28, 33, 35, 36, 55, 87 Warbeck, Perkin 7, 9, 19, 86 Ogard, Sir Andrew 20 Warwick, Anne Beauchamp, Countess of 78, 79 Oldhall, Sir William 20 Warwick, Richard Neville (the younger), the Kingmaker, Ormond, John Butler, Earl of 72 Earl of 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 27, 28-29, Oxford, Elizabeth Howard, Dowager-Countessof 79-80 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40-42, 44, 45, 52, 56, S7-60, 62, Oxford, John, Earl of 14, 21, 44, 45, 49, 50, 79, 87, 90 70, 75, 77, 82, 84, 88, 89, 90 Oxford, Margaret, Countess of 79 piracy 14, 20, 66-67 Welles, Leo, Lord 41, 57 'Parliament of Devils' 27 Welles, Sir Robert 41 Pembroke, Jasper Tudor, Earl of 8, 14, 21, 23, 29, 36, Wenlock, John, Ix>rd 45, 79 40, 45, 47, 49, 72, 90 Willoughby, Marjorie, Lady 79 Pembroke, William Herbert, Earl of 40, 41, 87 Wiltshire, Eleanor, Countess of 79 Percies, Earls of Northumberland 13, 20, 21, 23, 38, 49, Worcester, John, Earl of 56, 78, 87 57, 73 Wydevilles 8, 14, 28, 29, 47 Percy, Sir Ralph 69 Picquigny expedition 21 York, Cecily, Duchess of 78 Picqulgny, Treaty of 90 York, Edward, Duke of see Edward IV (formerly piracy 14, 20, 66-67 Earl of March; Duke of York) Plumpton, Sir William 56, 67 York, Elizabeth of 84 politics 18-19, 32, 76-77, 90-91 York, Richard, Duke of 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-13, 15, 19, 21, propaganda 48, 57, 73-75, 85, 91 23, 24, 27, 28, 35, 36, 49, 73, 82, 90 badge of 17 Redesdale, Robin of 9, 23, 29, 40 Second Protectorate 35 Richard II 9, 12 Third Protectorate 28, 36 Richard III (formerly Duke of Gloucester) 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, Yorks 13, 26, 48, 60, 65, 73 The Wars of the Roses featured sixteen invasions, four successful; six times kings lost their thrones. This book explores why those invasions occurred and kept occurring. Destruction and devastation were minimal, barely affecting the daily routine of the civilian population, yet the Wars were lethal for their noble leaders and, as first hand accounts reveal, blighted the lives of their women and children. That the Wars ended so abruptly was not so much because Henry VII won at Bosworth and ruled effectively, the author concludes, but rather because a feel-good factor removed popular discontent and continental rivals turned elsewhere. front and back cover image^ Henry VI and Edward IV at the battle of Nrthampton. (The British Library)

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