Origin of the Wars of the Roses.
The Wars of the Roses have been ascribed to many different causes by
different historians. To some their origin is mainly constitutional.
Henry VI., it is argued, had broken the tacit compact which the house of
Lancaster had made with the nation; instead of committing the
administration of the realm to ministers chosen for him by, or at least
approved by, his parliament, he persisted in retaining in office persons
like Suffolk and Somerset, who had forfeited the confidence of the
people by their many failures in war and diplomacy, and were suspected
of something worse than incapacity. They might not be so personally
odious as the favourites of Edward II. or of Henry III., but they were
even more dangerous to the state, because they were not foreign
adventurers but great English peers. In spite of the warnings given by
the assault on Suffolk in 1450, by Jack Cade's insurrection, and by the
first armed demonstrations of Richard of York in 1450 and 1452, the king
persisted in keeping his friends in office, and they had to be removed
by the familiar and forcible methods that had been applied in earlier
ages by the lords ordainers or the lords appellant. Undoubtedly there is
much truth in this view of the situation; if Henry VI., or perhaps we
should rather say, if his queen Margaret of Anjou, had been content to
accept ministries in which the friends of Richard of York were fairly
represented, it is probable that he might have died a king, and have
transmitted his crown to his natural heir. But this explanation of the
Wars of the Roses is not complete; it accounts for their outbreak, but
not for their long continuance.
Claims of the duke of York to the crown.
Birth of Edward, prince of Wales.
Queen Margaret.
Condition of the country.
According to another school the real key to the problem is simply the
question of the succession to the crown. If the wedlock of Henry VI. and
Margaret of Anjou had been fruitful during the first few years after
their marriage, no one would have raised the question of a change of
dynasty. But when they remained childless for seven years, and strong
suspicion arose that there was a project on foot to declare the
Beauforts heirs to the throne, the claim of Richard of York, as the
representative of the houses of Clarence and March, was raised by those
who viewed the possible accession of the incapable and unpopular
Somerset with terror and dislike. When once the claims of York had been
displayed and stated by his imprudent partisan, Thomas Yonge, in the
parliament of 1451, there was no possibility of hiding the fact that in
the strict legitimate line of succession he had a better claim than the
reigning king. He disavowed any pretensions to the crown for nine years;
it was only in 1460 that he set forth his title with his own mouth. But
his friends and followers were not so discreet; hence when a son was at
last born to Henry and Margaret, in 1453, the succession question was
already in the air and could no longer be ignored. If the claim of York
was superior to that of Lancaster in the eyes of a considerable part of
the nation, it was no longer possible to consider the problem solved by
the birth of a direct heir to the actual occupant of the throne. Though
Duke Richard behaved in the most correct fashion, acknowledged the
infant Edward as prince of Wales, and made no attempt to assert dynastic
claims during his two regencies in 1454 and 1455-1456, yet the queen and
her partisans already looked upon him as a pretender to the throne. It
is this fact which accounts for the growing bitterness of the Yorkist
and Lancastrian parties during the last years of Henry VI. Margaret
believed herself to be defending the rights of her son against a
would-be usurper. Duke Richard, on the other hand, considered himself as
wrongfully oppressed, and excluded from his legitimate position as a
prince of the blood and a chief councillor of the crown. Nor can there
be any doubt that the queen took every opportunity of showing her
suspicion of him, and deliberately kept him and his friends from sharing
in the administration of the realm. This might have been more tolerable
if the Lancastrian party had shown any governing power; but both while
Somerset was their leader, down to his death in the first battle of St
Albans, and while in 1456-1459 Exeter, Wiltshire, Shrewsbury and
Beaumont were the queen's trusted agents, the condition of England was
deplorable. As a contemporary chronicler wrote, "the realm was out of
all good governance--as it has been many days before: the king was
simple, and led by covetous councillors, and owed more than he was
worth. His debts increased daily, but payment was there none, for all
the manors and possessions that pertained to the crown he had given
away, so that he had almost nought to live on. For these misgovernances
the hearts of the people were turned from them that had the land in
rule, and their blessing was turned to cursing. The officers of the
realm, and especially the earl of Wiltshire the treasurer, for to enrich
himself plundered poor people and disinherited rightful heirs, and did
many wrongs. The queen was defamed, that he that was called the prince
was not the king's son, but a bastard gotten in adultery." When it is
added that the Lancastrian party avoided holding a parliament for three
years, because they dared not face it, and that the French were allowed
to sack Fowey, Sandwich and other places because there was no English
fleet in existence, it is not wonderful that many men thought that the
cup of the iniquities of the house of Lancaster was full. In the
military classes it was felt that the honour of the realm was lost; in
mercantile circles it was thought that the continuance for a few years
more of such government would make an end of English trade. Some excuse
must be found for getting rid of the queen and her friends, and the
doubtful legitimacy of the Lancastrian claim to the crown afforded such
an excuse. Hence came the curious paradox, that the party which started
as the advocates of the rights of parliament against the incapable
ministers appointed by the crown, ended by challenging the right of
parliament, exercised in 1399, to depose a legitimate king and
substitute for him another member of the royal house. For Richard of
York in 1460 and Edward IV. in 1461 put in their claim to the throne,
not as the elect of the nation, but as the possessors of a divine
hereditary right to the succession, there having been no true king of
England since the death of Richard II. Hence Edward assumed the royal
title in March 1461, was crowned in June, but called no parliament till
November. When it met, it acknowledged him as king, but made no pretence
of creating or electing him to be sovereign.
Motives of the contending parties.
But putting aside the constitutional aspects of the Wars of the Roses,
it is necessary to point out that they had another aspect. From one
point of view they were little more than a great faction fight between
two alliances of over-powerful barons. Though the Lancastrians made much
play with the watchword of loyalty to the crown, and though the Yorkists
never forgot to speak of the need for strong and wise governance, and
the welfare of the realm, yet personal and family enmities had in many
cases more effect in determining their action than a zeal for King
Henry's rights or for the prosperity of England. It is true that some
classes were undoubtedly influenced in their choice of sides mainly by
the general causes spoken of above; the citizens of London and the other
great towns (for example) inclined to the Yorkist faction simply because
they saw that under the Lancastrian rule the foreign trade of England
was being ruined, and insufficient security was given for life and
property. But the leading men among the baronage were undoubtedly swayed
by ambition and resentment, by family ties and family feuds, far more
than by enlightened statesmanship or zeal for the king or the
commonweal. It would be going too far to seek the origin of the Yorkist
party--as some have done--in the old enmity of the houses of March,
Norfolk and Salisbury against Henry IV. But it is not so fantastic to
ascribe its birth to the personal hatred that existed between Richard of
York and Edmund of Somerset, to the old family grudge (going back to
1405) between the Percies and the Nevilles, to the marriage alliance
that bound the houses of York and Neville together, and to other less
well-remembered quarrels or blood-ties among the lesser baronage. As an
example of how such motives worked, it may suffice to quote the case of
those old enemies, the Bonvilles and Courtenays, in the west country.
While Lord Bonville supported the queen, the house of Courtenay were
staunch Yorkists, and the earl of Devon joined in the armed
demonstration of Duke Richard in 1452. But when the earl changed his
politics and fought on the Lancastrian side at St Albans in 1455, the
baron at once became a strenuous adherent of the duke, adhered firmly to
the white rose and died by the axe for its cause.
The baronial party. The Nevilles.
Richard of York, in short, was not merely the head of a constitutional
opposition to misgovernment by the queen's friends, nor was he merely a
legitimist claimant to the crown, he was also the head of a powerful
baronial league, of which the most prominent members were his kinsmen,
the Nevilles, Mowbrays and Bourchiers. The Nevilles alone, enriched with
the ancient estates of the Beauchamps and Montagus, and with five of
their name in the House of Lords, were a sufficient nucleus for a
faction. They were headed by the two most capable politicians and
soldiers then alive in England, the two Richards, father and son, who
held the earldoms of Salisbury and Warwick, and were respectively
brother-in-law and nephew to York. It must be remembered that a baron of
1450 was not strong merely by reason of the spears and bows of his
household and his tenantry, like a baron of the 13th century. The
pernicious practice of "livery and maintenance" was now at its zenith;
all over England in times of stress the knighthood and gentry were wont
to pledge themselves, by sealed bonds of indenture, to follow the
magnate whom they thought best able to protect them. They mounted his
badge, and joined his banner when strife broke out, in return for his
championship of their private interests and his promise to "maintain"
them against all their enemies. A soldier and statesman of the ability
and ambition of Richard of Warwick counted hundreds of such adherents,
scattered over twenty shires. The system had spread so far that the
majority of the smaller tenants-in-chief, and even many of the lesser
barons, were the sworn followers of an insignificant number of the
greater lords. An alliance of half-a-dozen of these over-powerful
subjects was a serious danger to the crown. For the king could no longer
count on raising a national army against them; he could only call out
the adherents of the lords of his own party. The factions were fairly
balanced, for if the majority of the baronage were, on the whole,
Lancastrian, the greatest houses stood by the cause of York.
Attitude of Richard of York.
Suppression of York's rebellion. Executions and confiscations.
The earl of Warwick defeats the Lancastrians at Northampton.
Richard of York declared heir to the throne.
Despite all this, there was still, when the wars began, a very strong
feeling in favour of compromise and moderation. For this there can be no
doubt that Richard of York was mainly responsible. When he was twice
placed in power, during the two protectorates which followed Henry's two
long fits of insanity in 1454 and 1455-1456, he carefully avoided any
oppression of his enemies, though he naturally took care to put his own
friends in office. Most of all did he show his sincere wish for peace by
twice laying down the protectorate when the king was restored to sanity.
He was undoubtedly goaded into his last rebellion of 1459 by the queen's
undisguised preparations for attacking him. Yet because he struck first,
without waiting for a definite _casus belli_, public opinion declared so
much against him that half his followers refused to rally to his banner.
The revulsion only came when the queen, victorious after the rout of
Ludford, applied to the vanquished Yorkists those penalties of
confiscation and attainder which Duke Richard had always refused to
employ in his day of power. After the harsh doings at the parliament of
Coventry (1459), and the commencement of political executions by the
sending of Roger Neville and his fellows to the scaffold, the trend of
public opinion veered round, and Margaret and her friends were rightly
held responsible for the embittered nature of the strife. Hence came the
marvellous success of the Yorkist counterstroke in June 1460, when the
exiled Warwick, landing in Kent with a mere handful of men, was suddenly
joined by the whole of the south of England and the citizens of London,
and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Lancastrians at Northampton
before he had been fifteen days on shore (July 10, 1460). The growing
rancour of the struggle was marked by the fact that the Yorkists, after
Northampton, showed themselves by no means so merciful and scrupulous as
in their earlier days. Retaliatory executions began, though on a small
scale, and when York reached London he at last began to talk of his
rights to the crown, and to propose the deposition of Henry VI. Yet
moderation was still so far prevalent in the ranks of his adherents that
they refused to follow him to such lengths. Warwick and the other
leading men of the party dictated a compromise, by which Henry was to
reign for the term of his natural life, but Duke Richard was to be
recognized as his heir and to succeed him on the throne. They had
obviously borrowed the expedient from the terms of the treaty of Troyes.
But the act of parliament which embodied it did not formally disinherit
the reigning king's son, as the treaty of Troyes had done, but merely
ignored his existence.
Battle of Wakefield. Richard slain.
Battle of St Albans.
It would have been well for England if this agreement had held, and the
crown had passed peaceably to the house of York, after the comparatively
short and bloodless struggle which had just ended. But Duke Richard had
forgotten to reckon with the fierce and unscrupulous energy of Queen
Margaret, when she was at bay in defence of her son's rights. Marching
with a trifling force to expel her from the north, he was surprised and
slain at Wakefield (Dec. 30, 1460). But it was not his death that was
the main misfortune, but the fact that in the battle the Lancastrians
gave no quarter to small or great, and that after it they put to death
York's brother-in-law Salisbury and other prisoners. The heads of the
duke and the earl were set up over the gates of York. This ferocity was
repeated when Margaret and her northern host beat Warwick at the second
battle of St Albans (Feb. 17, 1461), where they had the good fortune to
recover possession of the person of King Henry. Lord Bonville and the
other captives of rank were beheaded next morning.
Edward, earl of March, proclaimed as Edward IV.
After this it was but natural that the struggle became a mere record of
massacres and executions. The Yorkists proclaimed Edward, Duke Richard's
heir, king of England; they took no further heed of the claims of King
Henry, declared their leader the true successor of Richard II., and
stigmatized the whole period of the Lancastrian rule as a mere
usurpation. They adopted a strict legitimist theory of the descent of
the crown, and denied the right of parliament to deal with the
succession. This was the first step in the direction of absolute
monarchy which England had seen since the short months of King Richard's
tyranny in 1397-1399. It was but the first of many encroachments of the
new dynasty upon the liberties that had been enjoyed by the nation under
the house of Lancaster.
Changed character of the war.
Battle of Towton.
Ruthless reprisals of the Yorkists.
Personal rule of Edward IV.
The revenge taken by the new king and his cousin Richard of Warwick for
the slaughter at Wakefield and St Albans was prompt and dreadful. They
were now well supported by the whole of southern England; for not only
had the queen's ferocity shocked the nation, but the reckless plundering
of her northern moss-troopers in the home counties had roused the
peasantry and townsfolk to an interest in the struggle which they had
never before displayed. Up to this moment the civil war had been
conducted like a great faction fight; the barons and their liveried
retainers had been wont to seek some convenient heath or hill and there
to fight out their quarrel with the minimum of damage to the
countryside. The deliberate harrying of the Midlands by Margaret's
northern levies was a new departure, and one bitterly resented. The
house of Lancaster could never for the future count on an adherent south
of Trent or east of Chiltern. The Yorkist army that marched in pursuit
of the raiders, and won the bloody field of Towton under Warwick's
guidance, gave no quarter. Not only was the slaughter in that battle and
the pursuit more cruel than anything that had been seen since the day of
Evesham, but the executions that followed were ruthless. Ere Edward
turned south he had beheaded two earls--Devon and Wiltshire--and
forty-two knights, and had hanged many prisoners of lesser estate. The
Yorkist parliament of November 1461 carried on the work by attainting
133 persons, ranging from Henry VI. and Queen Margaret down through the
peerage and the knighthood to the clerks and household retainers of the
late king. All the estates of the Lancastrian lords, living or dead,
were confiscated, and their blood was declared corrupted. This brought
into the king's hands such a mass of plunder as no one had handled since
William the Conqueror. Edward IV. could not only reward his adherents
with it, so as to create a whole new court noblesse, but had enough over
to fill his exchequer for many years, and to enable him to dispense with
parliamentary grants of money for an unexampled period. Between 1461 and
1465 he only asked for L37,000 from the nation--and won no small
popularity thereby. For, in their joy at being quit of taxation, men
forgot that they were losing the lever by which their fathers had been
wont to move the crown to constitutional concessions.
Civil war in the north and west.
Battle of Hexham. Imprisonment of Henry VI.
After Towton peace prevailed south of the Tyne and east of the Severn,
for it was only in Northumberland and in Wales that the survivors of the
Lancastrian faction succeeded in keeping the war alive. King Edward, as
indolent and pleasure-loving in times of ease as he was active and
ruthless in times of stress and battle, set himself to enjoy life,
handing over the suppression of the rebels to his ambitious and untiring
cousin Richard of Warwick. The annals of the few contemporary
chroniclers are so entirely devoted to the bickerings in the extreme
north and west, that it is necessary to insist on the fact that from
1461 onwards the civil war was purely local, and nine-tenths of the
realm enjoyed what passed for peace in the 15th century. The campaigns
of 1462-63-64, though full of incident and bloodshed, were not of
first-rate political importance. The cause of Lancaster had been lost at
Towton, and all that Queen Margaret succeeded in accomplishing was to
keep Northumberland in revolt, mainly by means of French and Scottish
succours. Her last English partisans, attainted men who had lost their
lands and lived with the shadow of the axe ever before them, fought
bitterly enough. But the obstinate and hard-handed Warwick beat them
down again and again, and the old Lancastrian party was almost
exterminated when the last of its chiefs went to the block in the series
of wholesale executions that followed the battle of Hexham (May 15,
1464). A year later Henry VI. himself fell into the hands of his
enemies, as he lurked in Lancashire, and with his consignment to the
Tower the dynastic question seemed finally solved in favour of the house
of York.
Richard Neville, earl of Warwick.
The first ten years of the reign of Edward IV. fall into two parts, the
dividing point being the avowal of the king's marriage to Elizabeth
Woodville in November 1464. During the first of these periods Edward
reigned but Warwick governed; he was not only the fighting man, but the
statesman and diplomatist of the Yorkist party, and enjoyed a complete
ascendancy over his young master, who long preferred thriftless ease to
the toils of personal monarchy. Warwick represented the better side of
the victorious cause; he was no mere factious king-maker, and his later
nickname of "the last of the barons" by no means expresses his character
or his position. He was strong, not so much by reason of his vast
estates and his numerous retainers, as by reason of the confidence which
the greater part of the nation placed in him. He never forgot that the
Yorkist party had started as the advocates of sound and strong
administration, and the mandatories of the popular will against the
queen's incapable and corrupt ministers. "He ever had the goodwill of
the people because he knew how to give them fair words, and always spoke
not of himself but of the augmentation and good governance of the
kingdom, for which he would spend his life; and thus he had the goodwill
of England, so that in all the land he was the lord who was held in most
esteem and faith and credence." As long as he remained supreme,
parliaments were regularly held, and the house of York appeared to be
keeping its bargain with the nation. His policy was sound; peace with
France, the rehabilitation of the dwindling foreign trade of England,
and the maintenance of law and justice by strong-handed governance were
his main aims.
But Warwick was one of those ministers who love to do everything for
themselves, and chafe at masters and colleagues who presume to check or
to criticise their actions. He was surrounded and supported, moreover,
by a group of brothers and cousins, to whom he gave most of his
confidence, and most of the preferment that came to his hands. England
has always chafed against a family oligarchy, however well it may do its
work. The Yorkist magnates who did not belong to the clan of the
Nevilles were not unnaturally jealous of that house, and Edward IV.
himself gradually came to realize the ignominious position of a king who
is managed and overruled by a strong-willed and arbitrary minister.
Edward IV. marries Elizabeth Woodville.
Breach between Warwick and the king.
His first sign of revolt was his secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville,
a lady of decidedly Lancastrian connexions, for her father and her first
husband were both members of the defeated faction. Warwick was at the
moment suing for the hand of Louis XI.'s sister-in-law in his master's
name, and had to back out of his negotiations in a sudden and somewhat
ridiculous fashion. His pride was hurt, but for two years more there was
no open breach between him and his master, though their estrangement
grew more and more marked when Edward continued to heap titles and
estates on his wife's numerous relatives, and to conclude for them
marriage alliances with all the great Yorkist families who were not of
the Neville connexion. In this way he built up for himself a personal
following within the Yorkist party; but the relative strength of this
faction and of that which still looked upon Warwick as the true
representative of the cause had yet to be tried. The king had in his
favour the prestige of the royal name, and a popularity won by his
easy-going affability and his liberal gifts. The earl had his
established reputation for disinterested devotion to the welfare of the
realm, and his brilliant record as a soldier and statesman. In districts
as far apart as Kent and Yorkshire, his word counted for a good deal
more than that of his sovereign.
Warwick organizes a rebellion.