The War f

the R ses
1455- 1485

Prof. Jesús Centen Camarg

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