Transilvania University of Braov

Faculty of Foreign Languages Literature

Department of English

Causes and effects of

The Wars of the Roses

Supervisor:
Senior Lecturer A.D. Oana-Andreea Prnu

Student:
Trocaru Maria-Iosefina-Adriana
 Sentence outline

This thesis is an examination of the causes and effects that the Wars of the Roses had on British
society during the 15th century. This brings to the forefront the great conflicts between the Royal
Houses, but also their supporters, to obtain the power and to ascend the throne. Furthermore, the
battles wrestled between the two roses also had significant results which affected, more or less
well, the fate of English society.

The first chapter of this paper approaches the most famous battle fought on English soil: Battle
of Towton. First of all the discussion concentrates on the military strategies and how did the
battle unfold. Secondly, this part of the thesis deals with the consequences and casualties. There
are also many opinions about this bloody battle, as the history do not provides a truly reliable
source but subjective narratives.

The second chapter debates the causes of the civil war itself. First of all, there are references
about how the Black Death, the Crusades and the Hundred Years War (with France) created the
favorable environment for the outbreak. Also, the violence, corruption and bastard associations
contributed to the worsening of the climate. Another explanation for the Wars of the Roses
pointed to Henry of Bolingbroke's usurpation of the throne in 1399. Furthermore, this thesis
presents Professor R.L. Storeys viewpoint about the causes of this civil war: it was the failure of
Henry VI's faction-ridden government and judicial bodies.

In conclusion, my research work about this fratricidal war has the purpose to emphasize the
dreadful consequences of such a struggle between two royal houses: the Houses of Lancaster,
and York. Also, it is stressed the fact that the necessary power that was required for the inside
battles weakened England and took much more Englishmen lives that the Hundred Years War
had done. Then, this was a useless storm in English history which should never happen again.

2
 Abstract
This work paper presents the subsequent events that triggered the wars but also the consequences of it on the social
and political life of the lords and gentry during the Wars of the Roses (a civil war between two royal houses: Houses
of Lancaster and House of York). Moreover, there are many interesting aspects that reveal how corrupt nobility
were trying to make a bid for power. The dynastic struggle is clarified by explaining the relations between two royal
houses and the reasons they are in a continuous competition. Also here is described the Battle of Towton which had
a huge importance as it marks the victory of Richard of York and unlocked the way of his eventual coronation as
King of England accessible. Also it is known for the uncountable number of men who fought and died during the
battle.

3
 Key words

1. Wars of the Roses

2. Towton

3. Houses of Lancaster

4. House of York

5. Henry VII of England

6. The 15th century

4
 Content

1. Sentence outline2

2. Abstract 3

3. Key words........ 4

4. Introduction..6

5. The Battle of Towton

The Fighting..8

Consequences and Casualties........9

6. The causes of The Wars of the Roses..11

7. Conclusion...15

8. Appendix.....17

9. Bibliography19

10. References...20

5
 Introduction

The fifteenth century has the reputation of a period of extensive violence and criminal activities,
a time of endemic and increasingly anarchy. Despite the fact that society as a whole may not
have been any more or less violent, the country was, and for a variety of reasons the society was
plagued by civil warfare (even though limited and sporadic) for over thirty years. One of the
anonymous continuators of the Croyland Chronicle, depicting the early years of the Wars, wrote
that: in the words of the Gospel, 'Brother was divided against brother and father against
father;' And not only among princes and people had such a spirit of contention arisen, but
even in every society, whether chapter, college, or convent, had this unhappy plague of division
effected an entrance; The consequence was, that, the combatants attacked each other
whenever they happened to meet.

The fifteen century was labeled by the civil war known as The Wars of the Roses. The ampleness
of these fights between rival parties troops and other presumed forces, proved to be proportional
to the power of two simple nobility parties, deprived of populations adherence, population who
had hardly bear the endless pressure caused by wars with France, the Crusades and the Hundred
Years War: In the meantime, however the slaughter of men was immense; for besides the dukes,
earls, barons, and distinguished who were cruelly slain, multitudes almost innumerable of the
common people died for their wounds. It can be said that the Crusades gave birth to the Hundred
Years War, and the latter to the War of the Roses. In the English civil wars the kings and the
nobles who were confronted each other during the period 1455-1485, came from Plantagenet
family. It can be said that the medieval French warrior spirit provoked, maintained and
commanded the essence of this war.

This entire conflict did not suddenly-emerged from scratch, it was born before 1450 and it acted
like the smoldering fire, or as a disease, waiting for the right moment to blaze up. In fact, there
are several causes of the outbreak of The Wars of the Roses but the most important is the

6
ambition for glory and power which determined the altercation between the two royal families:
Lancaster and York.

7
 Battle of Towton- consequences and
casualties
The Fighting

On 29 March 1461 the Yorkists army crossed the Ferrybridge: to secure the crossing over the
River Aire at Ferrybridge. Edward led the yorkists from the left flank, Warwick was in the
center, and Fauconberg in the right side. Another yorkist contingent from the eastern counties,
led by the Duke of Norfolk was late and was still on the way to the battlefield: The Duke of
Norfolk, who would be late arriving at Towton itself, was even further away and could at this
point offer no assistance. Although Lancastians occupied a strong position with good field
shooting for archers and Yorkists forced to climb up a hill to attack, they were not prepared for
bad weather. With the wind behind them, the Yorkist missiles travelled farther than usual,
plunging deep into the masses of soldiers on the hill slope. The response from the Lancastrian
archers was ineffective as the heavy wind blew snow in their faces. They found it difficult to
judge the range and pick out their targets and their arrows fell short of the Yorkist ranks. After
the Lancastrians had ceased shooting their arrows, Fauconberg ordered his archers to step
forward again to shoot. When they had exhausted their ammunition, the Yorkists collect arrows
off the ground in front of themarrows shot by their foesand continued shooting.

Coming under attack without any effective response of its own, the Lancastrian army moved
from its position to engage the Yorkists in close combat. Seeing the advancing mass of men, the
Yorkist archers shot a few more volleys before retreating behind their ranks of men-at-arms,
leaving thousands of arrows in the ground to hinder the Lancastrian attack.

The fighting continued for three hours, according to research by English Heritage. It was
indecisive until the arrival of Norfolk's men. Marching up the Old London Road, Norfolk's
contingent was hidden from view until they crested the ridge and attacked the Lancastrian left

8
flank. The Lancastrians continued to give fight but the advantage had shifted to the Yorkists. By
the end of the day, the Lancastrian line had broken up, as small groups of men began fleeing for
their lives. Polydore Vergil, chronicler for Henry VII of England, claimed that combat lasted for
a total of 10 hours.

Consequences and Casualties

Despite the length of more than 30 years, the Wars of the Roses meant only a few months of
actual fighting and less than 20 significant battles. The most awful of these was in March 1461,
when the Yorkist and Lancastrians forces met near the village of Towton. This battle was
considered the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. This battle marked the
victory of Richard of York and unlocked the way of his eventual coronation as King of England
accessible: After assuming the Crown and then defeating the Lancastians at Towton, this fair
white rose and herb to make to make a garden which expressed his own enjoyment of the bright
surface of life and also showed the realm that the House of York understood the proper style of
kingship.

As we have no sure consciousness of the numbers of soldiers when the battle began, we also
have no knowledge how many died on each side. The numbers are for sure exaggerated by the
chroniclers. For instance, Christopher Gravett in his writing entitled Towton 1461- The
Englands bloodiest battle refers to the losses after the battle about 28,000 casualties at the
battle of Towton. Also, Polydore Vergil gives the lowly figure of casualties, some 20, 000 men.
Edward Hall mentions a figure of about 36, 776. Its precision attracts suspicions, as it is most
doubtful that the Yorkists made a precise count of the Lancastrian dead, and for sure not even of
their own. But it was for sure a vicious, hard-fought, hand-to-hand battle of unprecedented
ferocity. The number of victims must have been very big. Christopher Gravett admitted that there
was a useless loss and that energy should have been directed toward real enemies: such
energies would have been much more usefully employed in fighting for Christianity instead, in
other words in the crusades against Turks in the East.

9
There were losses inside the gentry. Therefore, Lancastrian supporters, Neville and Lords
Clifford had been killed before the battle., Lord Dacre of Gillesland, Ralph Bigot, Lord Welles,
Lord de Mauley, Ralph, Leo, Sir Henry Stafford, the younger son of the Duke of Buckingham,
Sir John Heyton, Sir Andrew Trollope and Sir Richard Percy were killed, while Henry Percy,
Earl of Northumberland died of his wounds the next day. Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon, the
son of the Earl who had originally backed Edward's father and had then abandoned him, was
taken prisoner and beheaded in York some days after the battle of Towton. James Butler, Earl of
Wiltshire, endure an almost identical fate when he was captured a few weeks later. The Yorkist
loss was substantial but there are only a few deaths mentioned: the deaths of John Radcliffe,
Lord Fitz-Walter, and Sir Richard Jenney, Warwick's illegitimate brother, both of whom were
killed on the day before the battle.

10
 The causes of the Wars of the
Roses

The causes of the civil war entitled The Wars of the Roses must be looked for in the in the
period before 1455(the outbreak). Since the beginning of the 15th century Englands condition
was a harsh one because the country was badly affected by the Black Death (which arrived in
England in 1348 and killed as much as a third to half the population), the Crusades and the
Hundred Years War (which was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453- because the
defeat in the Hundred Years' War, English landowners complained about the financial losses
resulting from the loss of their continental holdings and this is considered a cause of the Wars of
the Roses). So, in England the pace can be pictured as a thin thread which can be destroyed
anytime.

One traditional explanation for the Wars of the Roses pointed to Henry of Bolingbroke's
usurpation of the throne in 1399: By the deposition and murderer of Richard II, the son of the
Duke of Lancester thrust himself on the throne as Henry IV (1399-1413). When Henry IV took
the throne, he disregarded the title of Edmund, Earl of March, whose claim was revived by
Richard, Duke of York, against Henry's grandson, Henry VI. William Shakespeare offers one
poetic approval of this view:

"My Lord of Hereford [Henry IV] here, whom you call king, /Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's
king[Richard II]: /And if you crown him, let me prophesy: /The blood of English shall manure the
ground, /And future ages groan for this foul act; /Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
/And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars /Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
/Disorder, horror, fear and mutiny /Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd /The field of
Golgotha and dead men's skulls. /O, if you raise this house against this house, /It will the
woefullest division prove /That ever fell upon this cursed earth." (Shakespeare, Richard II, 4.1)

11
The desire of controlling the crown was another account of the warfare. Because England's
government was so centralized and the crown so influential the gentry were so worried about
who controlled it. The king had the authority over vast amounts of patronage (it handed out land,
titles, offices, and profitable marriages to heiresses who were royal wards). Influence over royal
government was essential to gain a share of these catches: Sir John Scudamore, one of Henry
VIs former supporters, later claimed that some new governments adherents placed their own
interests before the kings solemn promise of pardons, implying a greedy desire for grants from
forfeited estates. The reason why Richard, Duke of York grudged his shutdown from
government was that it denoted dues incurred by his family on the crown's behalf during the
Hundred Years War were doubtful to be paid. None wished the throne commanded by his
opponents. The power of the Neville family in the North of England was intimidated first by
Margaret of Anjou's faction and then by the Woodville faction; Neville (Warwick) retaliated
initially by supporting the Yorkist pretender, and then shifted to support Henry VI. The Nevilles
had need of royal support to ensure their control over the Percies. Neville took action in 1469-
1470 because of the favors Edward IV was showing to the Percy family.

Another main cause of The War of the Roses outbreak was the dynastic struggle: the desire of

the two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, the Houses of Lancaster ( ), and

York ( ) to ascend the throne: The century had begun with an upheaval in the royal
succession and the spilling of royal blood. But all this misunderstandings really began in 1445
when Richard, Duke of York, the premier duke, the richest nobleman, and a prince of the
blood, was replaced as Lieutenant of France by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset the most
effective of Henrys favourite. This action was for sure on Somerset's advice. So, Richard was
unofficially exiled by Henry VI who created York Lieutenant of Ireland, in order to send him far
away. York detests Somerset because of his favoritism with the king and because he had been
given the office he had previously held even though Somerset was not a skillful soldier. After the
Duke of Somerset loss against France he became distinctly unpopular in London and that
encouraged York to risk all and attempt to wrest control from the king by force of arms and
arrest the Duke of Somerset, thus removing him from his position as the king's most senior
advisor. The support obtained by Richard after his march on London was a goad which

12
determined him to continue hostilities. When, in 1453, Henry suffered his first bout of complete
mental collapse, a Council of Regency was set up and the leading position was given to the Duke
of York, who still remained popular with the people, as Lord Protector. York soon asserted his
power with ever-greater boldness in order to ascend the throne. He imprisoned Somerset and
backed his allies Neville, the Earl of Salisbury, and the Earl of Warwick, Salisbury's son, in their
feud with powerful supporters of Henry such as the Earl of Northumberland. Henrys recover in
1450 threatened Richards plans but the Duke of York was exiled by Henrys wife, Margaret of
Anjou: During the later 1450s, with Henry slipping in and out of madness and his Queen,
Margaret of Anjou, moving about the realm as she began her duel to the death with the Duke of
York, the royal household as an institution of kingship virtually chased to exist. As the king was
an ineffective leader, the powerful and aggressive Margaret of Anjou emerged as the de facto
leader of the Lancastrians. Margaret created an alliance against Richard and conspired with other
nobles to reduce his influence. The increasingly tension led to the outbreak of armed hostilities in
1455.

In The End of the House of Lancaster, Professor R.L. Storey presented a theory for the outbreak
of the Wars of the Roses which has become one of the most popular, and most controversial, of
all such theories. Storey's rationalization does need a little clarification with regard to local
violence. He was not proposing that the Wars were the product of a situation where a number of
private disputes in the localities, involving a warlike and restless landed class, became extremely
violent and merged to produce one large conflict, with the English throne as its eventual prize.
Rather, as he describes, it was the failure of Henry VI's faction-ridden government and judicial
bodies to resolve in a reasonable way the large number of local disputes which had always been
a piece of life in the English shires.

In those circumstances, the parties which were dissatisfied looked to their own tools for
restitution, and to their social superiors for assistance, rather than trusting the King's rightness.
This often took the shape of arbitration, based on bastard feudal relationships, but it also often
required the use of force, especially among the landed elite. Therefore, Storey purpose is to
emphasize that gentrys violent behavior caused the formation of alliances which later came into
conflict for power. Storey exemplify his viewpoint by talking about two of the most high-profile

13
disputes of Henry VI's reign, in the North, those between the Nevilles and the Percies, and in the
South-West, between the Earl of Devon and Lord Bonville. Thus, such disputes became
increasingly numerous and violent, thus drawing in large numbers of people, and creating an
extremely volatile situation: The times were touchy and could be anxious; eruptions of violence
tested mens nerves, sometimes twisted their lives.

14
 Conclusion

Beyond the destructive horrors that he bears with him, beyond death, savagery, blood, cruelty,
the devastation and all kinds of misfortune, war is a state, a condition of human societys
existence. The war was never caused by people, groups of people or anonymous crowds. In the
existence of humanity the many did not act, did not fight, did not devastated and did not create a
new society without a leader, or a commander. The Wars of the Roses fits in this grim context as
all the warfare was caused by the leaders' desire to take power into their hands. But it must be
said that these thirty years of warfare were even more destructive to England than the Hundred
Years War had been in the previous century. The explanation of this is that the battles in the
Hundred Years War happened in France, which signifies that most of the military destructions
affected the French peasantry instead the English. But in the Wars of the Roses, most of the
fighting took place in England, and so the losing of life and possessions was much bigger for
English people.

For thirty years intrigues, murders, wars and private fighting succeeded without relaxing on
English land. Ten thousand of deaths and serial assassinations marked out this long fratricidal
war, a war maintained by the history under the cynically name of The war of the Roses. This
nickname of the civil war was a late invention. In Renaissance literature, writers correlate the
House of York with a white rose and the House of Lancaster with a red rose. As an example,
Shakespeare depicted in Henry VI, Part One, Act II, scene iv, lines 25-135 the lords as they were
symbolically choosing the side they wanted to fight for by picking off either white or red roses
from a garden. For instance, we can read the following in lines 124-128:Warwick: And here I
prophesy: this brawl today,/Grown to this faction in the Temple garden,/Shall send, between the
Red Rose and the White,/A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

To conclude, the previous wars with France, the desire of controlling the crown, betrayals,
murders, violence, the dynastic struggle and the bastard alliances created the favorable climate of

15
a civil war: Decade by decade the fabric of government, the bonds of civil harmony
unraveled, a war which affected almost the entire England, a war where innocent people died
for the rulers sake.

16
 Appendix

Battle of Towton by Richard Caton Woodville, Jr.

Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York Edward VI, by William Scrots

17
 Margaret of Anjou and her court, from a costume book by Henry Shaw

The scene in the Temple Garden from Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Part 1, where supporters
of the rival factions pick either red or white roses, by Henry Payne
18
 Bibliography

1. Blois, Peter, Ingulphs Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland with the Continuators by Peter of
Blois and anonymous writers, Published 1854 by H. G. Bohn in London

2. Gravett, Christopher, Towton 1461- English bloodiest battle, Osprey Publishing, 2003

3. Hicks, Michael: The Wars of the Roses, Osprey Publishing, 2003

4. Kendall, Paul Murray, The Yorkist Age-Daily Life during the Wars of the Roses, Penguin
Books, 2001

5. Lander, J.R., The Wars of the Roses, Sutton Publishing, 2000

19
 References

Blois, Peter, Ingulphs Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland with the Continuators by
Peter of Blois and anonymous writers, Published 1854 by H. G. Bohn in London, Page
419, Line
Blois, Peter, Ingulphs Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland with the Continuators by
Peter of Blois and anonymous writers, Published 1854 by H. G. Bohn in London, Page
419
Gravett, Christopher, Towton 1461- English bloodiest battle, Osprey Publishing, 2003,
Page 29
Gravett, Christopher, Towton 1461- English bloodiest battle, Osprey Publishing, 2003,
Page 28
Gravett, Christopher, Towton 1461- English bloodiest battle, Osprey Publishing, 2003,
Page 7
Gravett, Christopher, Towton 1461- English bloodiest battle, Osprey Publishing, 2003,
Page 7
Hicks, Michael: The Wars of the Roses, Osprey Publishing, 2003,-the wars of the
roses 1455-1485 pg 11
Hicks, Michael: The Wars of the Roses, Osprey Publishing, 2003, Page 11.
Hicks, Michael: The Wars of the Roses, Osprey Publishing, 2003, Page 106
Kendall, Paul Murray, The Yorkist Age-Daily Life during the Wars of the Roses,
Penguin Books, 2001, Page 163
Kendall, Paul Murray, The Yorkist Age-Daily Life during the Wars of the Roses,
Penguin Books, 2001, Page 465
Kendall, Paul Murray, The Yorkist Age-Daily Life during the Wars of the Roses,
Penguin Books, 2001, Page 465
Kendall, Paul Murray, The Yorkist Age-Daily Life during the Wars of the Roses,
Penguin Books, 2001, Page 162

20
 Kendall, Paul Murray, The Yorkist Age-Daily Life during the Wars of the Roses,
Penguin Books, 2001, Page 503

21