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W E N WA RS of the ROSES TTHHEE DDYYNNAASSTTIICC CCOONNFFLLIICCTT TTHHAATT DDIIVVIIDDEEDD EENNGGLLAANNDD RICHARD III SAINT OR SINNER? Inside the court of the maligned king ln a o t i it g i d i D E HN OURTDITIO PPLLOOTTSS && PPOOWWEERR YYOORRKK VVSS LLAANNCCAASSTTEERR TTHHEE PPRRIINNCCEESS IINN TTHHEE TTOOWWEERR FE WARS ROoSf the ES As English troops set sail for home shores after their devastating defeat during the Hundred Years’ War in 1453, few could gladly contemplate the prospect of conflict once more. Yet before the decade was out, England was engaged in a bloody civil war that reshaped the nation’s ruling elite. Incapacitated by mental illness, King Henry VI had retreated from the royal court, his power divided among his most trusted allies. In time he recovered but his advisors had experienced a taste of true power and wanted more. In May 1455, Richard, Duke of York, marched on St Albans. The first clash of the Wars of the Roses had begun. Over the following pages, discover the key battles that shaped the course of the conflict, meet the people who sought power whatever the cost, and find out how the family feud between York and Lancaster gave rise to a new dynasty altogether… WARS ROoSf the ES Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA Editorial Editor Philippa Grafton Compiled by Katharine Marsh & Adam Markiewicz Senior Art Editor Andy Downes Head of Art & Design Greg Whitaker Editorial Director Jon White Cover images Joe Cummings, Alamy Photography All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected Advertising Media packs are available on request Commercial Director Clare Dove International Head of Print Licensing Rachel Shaw [email protected] www.futurecontenthub.com Circulation Head of Newstrade Tim Mathers Production Head of Production Mark Constance Production Project Manager Matthew Eglinton Advertising Production Manager Joanne Crosby Digital Editions Controller Jason Hudson Production Managers Keely Miller, Nola Cokely, Vivienne Calvert, Fran Twentyman Printed in the UK Distributed by Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU www.marketforce.co.uk Tel: 0203 787 9001 Wars of the Roses Fourth Edition (HWB4426) © 2022 Future Publishing Limited We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this bookazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. All contents © 2022 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. 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Future plc is a public Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne company quoted on the Non-executive chairman Richard Huntingford London Stock Exchange Chief financial officer Penny Ladkin-Brand (symbol: FUTR) www.futureplc.com Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244 Part of the bookazine series CONTENTS 08 A gathering storm 72 The Yorkist court How can we account for one of the most Splendid and lascivious, the royal court famous conflicts in English history? was enough to repel some of the king’s closest confidants 76 Retreat and revenge LANCASTRIAN RULE Expelled from England, the Lancastrian forces plotted and schemed their way back 22 Key players 1455-60 80 Death of a turncoat Meet the men and women who shaped In his quest to regain the throne, Edward IV the Wars of the Roses went head to head with the Earl of Warwick 116 24 Battle and bloodshed 88 A clash of crowns 1455-60 How the Battle of Tewkesbury sounded the death knell for the Lancastrians Uncover the decisive battles waged during the Lancastrian reign 94 Crushing the enemies 26 Mad King Henry With the Yorkist victory cemented, Edward IV 40 turned his mind to destroying his foes In an already troubled realm, Henry VI’s descent into illness fanned the flames 100 Murder in the Tower of discord and provoked conflicts that would bring England ever closer to the When two young princes disappeared more brink of civil war than 500 years ago, it sparked one of the most controversial and debated murder 34 Margaret of mysteries in history Anjou: Warlady 106 Richard III: Saint How the daughter of an impoverished or tyrant? duke of France became one of the most controversial queens in English history Was the last of the Plantagenet dynasty the villain history makes him out to be? The 38 Battle of Wakefield truth is much more complex Richard of York’s death in battle did not, 116 Dawn of the Tudors as might have been expected, end the war How an unlikely claimant silenced the 40 Warwick the Kingmaker battle drums at Bosworth to become king of England During an era crowded with dynamic personalities, Richard Neville stood out as one of England’s most powerful figures YORKIST RULE TUDOR RULE 48 Key players 1461-82 124 Key players 1485-87 Meet the men and women who shaped the Wars of the Roses Meet the men and women who shaped the Wars of the Roses 50 Battles and bloodshed 126 Battles and bloodshed 1461-82 1485-87 Uncover the decisive battles waged during the Yorkist reign Uncover the decisive battles waged during the Tudor reign 52 Edward IV’s victory 128 Purge of the Plantagenets at Towton Amid treachery, treason and scheming plots, How the Lancastrians were crushed by the the Tudors fought tooth and nail to keep passionate young king’s brute force hold of their crown 62 The White Queen’s 138 War of words black magic How Shakespeare manipulated and twisted Was witchcraft behind the fairy-tale marriage history to paint the Tudors as the heroes of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville? and the Plantagenets as the villains 6 94 34 106 38 08 72 100 7 ORIGINS A GATHERING STORM THE ORIGINS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES How can we account for one of the most famous conflicts in English history? Written by Jon Wright A ccording to one 15th-century chronicler, people died of their wounds… Such was the state of England was on the brink of disaster the kingdom.” by the middle of the 1450s. The worst There was considerable exaggeration in the chronicler’s of the “whirlwind and tempest was still ominous words, but the series of conflicts that descended impending” but already “you might plainly upon England during the second half of the 15th century perceive public and intestine broils fermenting among transformed the nation’s future. Unsurprisingly, historians the princes and nobles of the realm.” Nor was the “spirit have long squabbled – and squabble still – over how such of contention” limited to society’s highest echelons. The momentous events came to pass. Consensus has always “unhappy plague of division effected an entrance” in proven to be elusive. every “chapter, college, or convent” so that “brother could Some scholars have focused on longer-term hardly with any degree of security admit brother into his explanations and a hefty burden of responsibility has confidence, or friend a friend.” often been placed on the shoulders of Edward III. In the years to come, the chronicler went on to lament, Inaugurating the Hundred Years’ War with France came “The slaughter of men was immense; for besides the at a hefty financial cost and a cash-strapped monarch dukes, earls, barons, and distinguished warriors who were was, so the theory goes, obliged to make far too many cruelly slain, multitudes almost innumerable of common concessions to his nobility. Most damagingly, Edward 8 A GATHERING STORM The coronation of Henry VI as king of France in 1431 9 ORIGINS is said to have allowed the expansion of what worked tolerably well most of the time during historians have referred to as “bastard feudalism.” both war and peace, and that stability was entirely An older paradigm, where allegiance was secured possible. Nobles usually shared a monarch’s through the granting of land tenure, gave way to a desire for a measure of political equilibrium and, contractual system in which people were bonded as historian KB McFarlane famously put it, “only to their lords by financial means. While this was an undermighty ruler had anything to fear from efficient for raising armies, it carried inherent risks. overmighty subjects.” Nobles had access to armed bands of retainers Kingship had not been fatally wounded and, who could wreak havoc during local disputes, indeed, many institutions such as Parliament allegiances (now personal rather than hereditary) and the Common Law continued to function could be bought and sold, and public order was well through much of the 15th century. As constantly under threat. McFarlane’s observation suggests, however, The net result, it has been argued, was everything depended on the character and ability a structural weakening of the monarchy, of the ruling monarch, much as it always had. which became increasingly vulnerable to the Events leading up to the Wars of the Roses would machinations of “over-mighty” subjects. Small certainly bear this out. wonder, then, that the Wars of the Roses would At this point, 1399 comes into focus. Edward III feature figures as influential as Richard, Duke may not have undermined the structural integrity of York, or Warwick the Kingmaker – men who of the English monarchy but he certainly had an now had the ability, as never before, to shape the unusually large number of children, whose own nation’s destiny. progeny created a dizzyingly contested dynastic This interpretation has come under siege. landscape. In 1399, Henry Bolingbroke (Edward’s Rather than imagining an England increasingly grandson via John of Gaunt) usurped Richard menaced by degenerate nobles with access to II (Edward’s grandson via Edward, the Black armed gangs of thugs, we should concede that Prince) and became Henry IV. For those in the late “bastard feudalism”, if we even accept the term, Medieval and early-modern periods, this dramatic King Richard II of England Joan of Arc before King Charles VII during the Hundred Years’ War 10