An earl who put two rival kings on the throne in turn and died at Barnet in 1471
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 'the Kingmaker'.
History · Medieval
The Wars of the Roses
1455–1487
Lancaster against York
A thirty-year series of English dynastic civil wars between the rival branches of the Plantagenet house, Lancaster and York, over the throne of the intermittently mad Henry VI and his successors. They ended with the death of Richard III at Bosworth in 1485 and the marriage of the victorious Henry Tudor to Elizabeth of York.
How to spot them
- ▸Clue patterns: two badges of red and white, a kingmaker earl, the bloodiest battle on English soil
- ▸Traditionally dated from St Albans in 1455 to Bosworth in 1485, or Stoke Field in 1487
- ▸The last English king to die in battle fell at its close
- ▸The name was popularised by a nineteenth-century novelist
What happened
A battle fought in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday 1461, the bloodiest ever on English soil
Towton, 29 March 1461, which secured the throne for Edward IV.
Two boys lodged in a royal fortress in 1483 and never seen again
Edward V and Richard, Duke of York — the Princes in the Tower.
The last English king to die in battle, killed in 1485 near a Leicestershire village
Richard III, at Bosworth Field.
A king's skeleton found under a council car park in Leicester in 2012
Identified by DNA and reburied in Leicester Cathedral in 2015.
A badge combining both colours, devised to advertise a dynastic marriage
The Tudor rose, after Henry VII married Elizabeth of York in 1486.
Named by a nineteenth-century Scottish novelist, not by the people who fought them
Sir Walter Scott, in Anne of Geierstein (1829), popularised the phrase.
A pretender crowned in Dublin as 'Edward VI', beaten in 1487 and put to work in the royal kitchens
Lambert Simnel, defeated at Stoke Field.
Quick-fire facts
- •The wars are conventionally dated from the First Battle of St Albans on 22 May 1455 to Bosworth in 1485, or to Stoke Field in 1487.
- •They were fought between the houses of Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose), both branches of the Plantagenets.
- •Henry VI's bouts of mental incapacity and the ambitions of Richard, Duke of York, triggered the conflict; his queen Margaret of Anjou led the Lancastrian cause.
- •Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, was nicknamed 'the Kingmaker'; he was killed at Barnet in 1471.
- •Towton, fought in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday 1461, is usually called the bloodiest battle on English soil.
- •Edward IV's brother Richard seized the throne as Richard III in 1483; his nephews, the Princes in the Tower, disappeared.
- •Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485, the last English king to die in battle.
- •Henry Tudor became Henry VII and married Elizabeth of York in 1486, symbolised by the Tudor rose.
- •Richard III's remains were found beneath a Leicester car park in 2012 and reburied in Leicester Cathedral in 2015.
- •The phrase 'Wars of the Roses' was popularised by Sir Walter Scott in Anne of Geierstein (1829).
Drill it — 11 cards
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Sources
- Dan Jones — The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
- Michael Hicks — The Wars of the Roses
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Wars of the Roses