Short History Of... - The Wars of the Roses, Part 1 of 3

Episode Date: September 4, 2022

Almost 600 years ago, two rival branches of the ruling house of Plantagenet dragged England into unprecedented bloodshed in what became known as the Wars of the Roses. But what were the causes of the conflict? Who were its key players, the powerful men and women who wreaked such havoc on the country? And how did one couple unite the warring factions and bring an end to the carnage? This is part one of a special three-part Short History of the Wars of the Roses. Written by Danny Marshall. With thanks to Michael Hicks, historian and author of The Wars of the Roses; and Lauren Johnson, historian and author of The Shadow King – The Life and Death of Henry VI, and an upcoming book on Tudor matriarch Margaret Beaufort. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+, now available on Apple Podcasts. All shows are also available for free. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, press the ‘+’ icon to follow the show for free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the 22nd of May, 1455. The bustling market town of St. Albans sits 20 miles north of London. But although tomorrow is market day, the locals have either fled or locked themselves inside. The Duke of Buckingham, a tall, imposing figure with a great bushy moustache and beard, tucks his flowing hair into his tunic as a boy tightens the leather straps of his polished armour. He looks around the market square, where his soldiers are lazily leaning on their staffs, half-heartedly readying their own armour. Behind them, propped against the wall of an inn, is the blue and red royal standard of King Henry VI, emblazoned with three lions and Fleur-de-Lys. As Constable of England, today Buckingham is in command of the King's army and the defence of St. Albans.

He dismisses the boy, picks up his helmet, and strides along the main street to inspect the town's defences. strides along the main street to inspect the town's defences. His ally, Lord Clifford, is ordering the finishing touches to the hastily built barricades of wood and furniture at the gated entrances at either end of the main street. Clifford's men-at-arms stand ready in their heavy armour alongside rows of soldiers in thickly padded tunics, gripping their poleaxes nervously. Peering through the gaps in the barricade, Buckingham can see the smoke and banners of the camp in the fields outside town. Throughout the morning, envoys from the camp have been bringing notes of negotiation. Buckingham's opposite number, Richard of York, is demanding no less than the surrender of the king's forces and for the royal advisor, the Duke of Somerset, to stand trial.

Somerset himself is behind the lines at an inn in the town, and knows only too well that a show trial would mean his head. York is stubborn and prefers conflict to negotiation, but Buckingham has been negotiating in earnest, confident battle can be avoided. Suddenly there's a cry. Buckingham spins to see something cut through the air, thudding into a timber beside him. He only just has time to register that it's an arrow before more begin to rain into the barricade. Lord Clifford shouts commands as soldiers rush forward, caught off guard by the surprise attack. Between the gaps in the defense, sunlight glints off the armor of York's rapidly approaching army. Buckingham races

back to the market square to ready his men. The crash of steel reverberates through the street as York men attack the barricades with long billhooks, pulling at the wood in an effort to break through. Buckingham shouts at the various commanders and knights, still half-dressed in their armor, but his voice is cut off by the town bell ringing in the tower. The warning is too late, and the chiming is soon joined by the battle cry of troops into the street. Arrows slice into undefended men, cutting them down in the square before they realize they're now under attack from both ends of the town. The Earl of Warwick,

York's close ally, has led an attacking force of archers through the ditches on the outskirts before appearing inside the town, behind Buckingham's defences. The surprise attack decimates the defenders. They abandon their positions, sprinting through the narrow alleys to get away. Buckingham shouts commands, but it's no use. Soon the battle becomes a rout. He takes one last look at the royal standard leaning against the wall before running for sanctuary into the abbey. In open defiance of the king and his authority, the Duke of York has started a brutal, bloody civil war that will rage across England for years.

The Battle of St. Albans is almost over, but the Wars of the Roses have just begun. across England for years. The Battle of St. Albans is almost over, but the Wars of the Roses have just begun. The Wars of the Roses spanned over three decades in a bloody civil war for the English throne nearly 600 years ago. Two rival branches of the ruling House of Plantagenet, the House of York and the House of Lancaster dragged England into unprecedented bloodshed in battles at castles and fields

throughout the country. From open warfare to cloak and dagger betrayal and murder, the wars have provided inspiration across the ages to poets, playwrights, and even modern novelists and creators of TV shows like Game of Thrones. But what were the causes of the conflict? Who were its key players, the powerful men and women who wreaked such havoc on the country? And how did one couple unite the warring factions and bring an end to the carnage? I'm John Hopkins, and this is Episode One of a three-part short history of the Wars of the Roses have their roots further back in history.

The seeds of discontent were sown two generations before the Duke of York's first battle against King Henry VI at St. Albans. Medieval society operates within a system known as feudalism. This means all land is held for the king by a chain of landowners and noblemen, with peasants allowed to live on the land in exchange for labor or service in their master's army. Lauren Johnson is a historian and author of The Shadow King, The Life and Death of Henry VI, and an upcoming book on the Tudor matriarch Margaret Beaufort. Feudalism is basically a bond of service between a master, who's usually a lord, and his retainers or his tenants, the people who live on his lands, who might pay him rent, who look after his sheep, all that sort of thing. So it is definitely not a kind of traditional, as we would see it, army. In fact, I don't think there's a national army of any description until, you know, hundreds of years in the future. At this

point in time, you have people who, when they are called up by their lord to do him some sort of service, they are expected to literally put down the agricultural implement that they're using or attach a big pointy thing to it in order to take that off with them to fight in a battle. In the late 1300s, almost a century before the start of the Civil War, King Edward III creates duchies for his sons, including one for the Duke of Lancaster. These duchies devolve administration to provincial areas and create a new powerful class of nobility with their own incomes. By this time, the military justification for feudalism has disappeared, but a lord still needs their own troops.

I think a big thing to emphasize is it's a mutual bond. So although it is that people who work the land owe their lord some sort of service, which can be military, it goes the other way as well. So a lord owes a duty to their retainers, their tenants, etc. They owe the duty of protecting them. And the other thing I'd mention is that when I say lord, that can be a woman. So it can be a lady who might be a widow, who might be an heiress in her own right it can also be an abbess or another religious figure we might think of a warrior lord and a load of soldiers who are farmers but actually it's it's the whole of society actually it's pretty much taken up with this these duchies grow wealthy soon they're influential enough to

raise powerful armies capable of defending themselves and their interests, even from the will of the monarch. In July 1377, King Edward's ten-year-old grandson is crowned King Richard II. His reign is tumultuous, lurching between revolts and crises, so he seeks to increase his own income to counter the growing power of the nobles. This creates a medieval arms race, with nobles and their supporters allying against each other's power. Much of this power is in modern-day France, where the Crown of England also holds vast

territories. The English claim to the French throne causes a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years' War. Unpopular taxes and wars trigger a revolt, and when Richard II loses most of his territory in France, it's the final straw for many disaffected nobles. In 1399, while campaigning in Ireland, Richard II is deposed by his cousin Henry, the Duke of Lancaster. As he becomes Henry IV, he is the first king of the House of Lancaster, but his reign is just as troubled as his predecessors. Internal strife, plotting,

and outright rebellion mean he never fully manages to wrestle power back from the nobility. The current Duke of York has a similar claim to the throne, and the support of much of the ruling class. King Henry is all too aware that he can lose his crown just as swiftly as he gained it. Though the stage seems set for civil war, it is dodged, for now, by Henry's son, Henry V. The second Lancastrian king is a born fighter. He cements his power by winning stunning victories against the French. These culminate in the famous victory at Agincourt, which sees him close to conquering all of France. Henry V dies in 1422, leaving a son and a secure legacy in the House of Lancaster. Or so it seems. The nine-month-old baby, crowned King Henry VI,

is not cut from the same cloth as his warrior father. cloth as his warrior father. Michael Hicks is a historian and author of The Wars of the Roses. He is the heir, he is the son of Henry, but of course he comes as a baby. And this is extremely unfortunate, given that there's a war in France and you need a king's leadership. Without a father to mentor him, Henry has no first-hand experience of how a king should reign. All he knows are advisors who guide his every decision. But this timid child grows into a passive young man, more interested in religion and learning than warfare.

It would have been good if Henry VI had become involved in France and making leadership, though of course he was still only a teenager. But he was not inclined to do that. And indeed, one has to say, the collapse in English resources, the collapse in finances, might have made it very difficult for him to actually make any difference. The young king is easily controlled by nobles eager to wield the power behind the throne. These advisors consider Henry naive, but they're also anxious to avoid a repeat of the last child king, Richard II, who was a tyrant. Whenever he might have shown a bit of, you know, a bit of that leaning,

if he had ever had that in his character, I think the council of much older men who were raising him would have been like, nope, get rid of that. In 1445, the 23-year-old King Henry marries a 14-year-old French princess named Margaret of Anjou. Women have been absolutely kind of the ones holding the show together. Her mother and her grandmother have both acted as regents for her father, who's been off on campaign or taken prisoner by the enemy. Her mother even led an army at one point into

Italy, and her grandmother was one of the key advisors of King Charles VII of France. So really powerful women that Margaret grows up observing doing their jobs. And Margaret clearly is selected by Henry's advisors, both for her talents and beauty, but also probably for her dynastic importance as a niece of King Charles VII. The marriage is intended to bring about a lasting peace between France and England. It seems to be a good match. The timid King Henry has a strong woman by his side, who can also act as mediator with the King of France. They spend a lot of time together, both interested in the arts and education, but the marriage does not bring about peace and fighting resumes.

Inside the castle, though, there are other concerns. Her biggest problem in the early years of marriage is something that was seen at the time as being a woman's problem, which is that she doesn't have a child. There's two purposes for a queen in this time. The first one is by marriage they can cause a peace and they're also supposed to provide for the succession by having lots of children. That's not happening.

And it seems, I think, that this might be Henry's problem initially more than Margaret's. I think that he is so famously virginal and chaste in his early years that he's probably never had sex before and he doesn't really know what to do. There's a very weird account of how things are supposed to go in marital relations from this era, which describes how usually the queen will come to the king's bedchamber, all of their servants will go out and they'll be left alone to have their marital relations. And there's this weird illusion in this sort of thing that's probably written in the 1460s that said this is always how it's done, except in King Henry's time when, and then it names a couple of

people who stay in the room, which to me sounds like there's a couple of advisors who are quite key people around Henry who basically have to kind of stay there's a couple of advisors who are quite key people around Henry who basically have to kind of stay there and tell him what to do. That's how I'm reading this. The problem is probably exacerbated because Margaret has a habit of fasting for religious reasons. You sort of torment your own body in order to get something from God, which in her case is very clearly a son for the king. But again,

we know today that if you're not eating as a woman, that's going to start affecting your fertility. That's going to have a negative impact on your ability to get pregnant. Now, against a backdrop of unending war, unrest, and political power struggles, a new threat comes to the fore, and it will tear the country apart. Across the English Channel, in France, a man named Richard Plantagenet, the current Duke of York, leads the English army. A veteran commander and politician in his mid-forties, Richard is growing dissatisfied at the King's conduct of the wars with France. On top of dealing with what he sees as mismanagement, he's having to fund his troops himself

from his own estates in England. To add insult to injury, when the king eventually sends much needed reinforcements, he replaces York with his sworn enemy, the Duke of Somerset. The issue comes when the Duke of Somerset comes on the scene, who has his own personal problems with the Duke of York, and influences Henry and Margaret against the Duke of York.

And, I mean, there's so much backstory here. But effectively, the Duke of Somerset has been wronged by Henry's regime in previous occasions. So to try and make things right with the Duke of Somerset, they make things wrong with the Duke of York. Henry is so poor a judge of what is the best thing to do that he's consistently offending people when he's trying to just be nice to them. He just gives people what they want without really thinking about whether it's the best thing to do. And that actually is one of the worst things you can do as a medieval king. And that actually is one of the worst things you can do as a medieval king.

Richard of York is an extremely experienced and capable man, the wealthiest and most powerful nobleman in the country, second only to the king himself. Despite all of this, Henry fails to appoint him to his royal council. In 1447, he is made lieutenant of Ireland, a prestigious appointment, but also one which conveniently removes him from both England and France. The big thing with the Duke of York

is that he comes from a line that, according to medieval thinking, should actually have the throne instead of the Lancastrians. Everyone at the time is aware that the Yorkists have this alternative and possibly slightly superior claim to the Lancastrians. I think partly that is the reason that Henry VI and his council are cautious of the Duke of York. I suspect that Henry just was like, no, no, you're not the person I need around me. I think it is that the two of them did not speak the same language when it came to government and trust and loyalty things.

They just weren't well set up for each other. And so York was offended because Henry wasn't taking his advice. Henry was threatened because York was behaving in a way that wasn't how he wanted things to be. And that kind of set up a pattern of mistrust that then got worse and worse and worse. With the Duke of Somerset in charge of the English army, York's hard-won victories in France are squandered. This culminates in a humiliating surrender at Rouen without so much as a siege.

Now, the disaster that happened in 1449 to 1450, which is when the French recovered Normandy and Aquitaine and the rest of the French positions extremely quickly, people found it impossible to imagine that this might be because the French had better resources and were actually better at fighting and so on. And they thought there must be people to blame. They must be traitors. Serious unrest is now fermenting. Richard of York may be a brilliant military leader, but he is stubborn and arrogant. He positions himself as a reformer, demanding stronger government and prosecution of the so-called traitors who have been so disastrously conducting the war. His way of doing that is to, without permission, return to England, to have with him, you know, his own retainers, who could be seen as a threatening army, effectively, to kind of send out all of these bills

and pamphlets which say how great he is and what a great champion of good government he is which implicitly as far as Henry and his advisors are concerned suggest they are bad at government. As the two dukes butt heads York builds support. He is arrested but allowed to make his protests to the king. Richard, Duke of York, came and presented himself as the leader of this sort of reform. He was perfectly aware that he had a title to the throne, though it's not something one would dare to say in the 1450s. But he tries to force his will on the king and government repeatedly. They wanted to stop the crown exploiting them through taxation. They wanted law and order,

and they also wanted the king to support himself without taxation. Somerset remains firmly alongside the king, and following a period of house arrest, York is forced to swear an oath of allegiance. Events seem to take a turn for the better when Queen Margaret falls pregnant. King Henry may finally have a son and heir, which would bring much-needed stability. But then devastating news arrives from France. English forces have been driven out

and the French king is victorious. It is the final straw for King Henry. He seems to have been in absolutely perfect mental and physical health until he's in his very early 30s. And then over three years, he's struggled and struggled and struggled. And he's kind of clawed back control of government against the just beginnings of a kind of Yorkist threat to his regime. His wife becoming pregnant for the first time after eight years of marriage and after a lot of questioning of what's going on in their marriage and why isn't she pregnant yet. And at that point, he learns that Gascony in the south of France, which has just been regained, has been completely lost

and an English army there has been annihilated. And at that point in summer 1453, Henry VI suffers what at the time is described as being smitten with a frenzy and his wit and reason withdrawn. What I think is going on here is I think he suffers an extremely serious episode of depression, which these can be the symptoms of, but you can actually have an incredibly physical response to what we consider a mental illness. We would today call it a psychotic break. What happens is he is in some sort of catatonic state where he doesn't respond to anyone. We don't think he's recognizing them even. He needs help sort of being fed, being clothed, moving around.

He's just utterly inert. The ambitious Duke of York swoops in to take advantage of the vacuum. The ambitious Duke of York swoops in to take advantage of the vacuum. He implements a regency, a council that will rule in the incapacitated king's name. Once he's appointed allies to key positions of power in government, he imprisons the Duke of Somerset in the Tower of London. Queen Margaret is enraged, but at such a late stage in her pregnancy, she's powerless to do anything to stop York.

That's kind of a key moment for Margaret because it comes at, unfortunately, the worst possible time. In this era, there is a whole kind of protocol around birth, which is that the queen normally is expected to retire into her chambers for a few weeks before birth and she's supposed to stay in them for a few weeks afterwards. Now that happens at the point when Henry is several months into this mental collapse. So she is forcibly kind of removed from politics at one of the most important moments. The queen does give birth to a son named Edward. But King Henry is so deep into his mental collapse that he cannot recognize his heir. This will lead to later problems for the prince with suggestions of illegitimacy. By this stage, Queen Margaret has realized her husband is not up to the job.

If her son is to have any hope of being king one day, she will have to take a more active role herself. I think Margaret has been massively maligned and for very misogynist reasons. It's not like she arrived in England and was immediately this she-wolf figure who was marching about and denouncing the Duke of York and trying to take control of this puppet king. That's not her at all. And even with the Duke of York and trying to take control of this puppet king. That's not her at all. And even with the Duke of York, she tries, it seems, to maintain friendly relationships for quite a long time with him. Queen Margaret is sidelined by regency rule, but after 17 months, King Henry makes a surprise recovery. No one is more surprised than Richard of York. Suddenly his council is dissolved, his enemies are freed,

and he finds himself forced out of court. Fearing charges of treason will be brought against them, he begins to plot with his allies. Ultimately, York saw the only way of protecting himself and his line as being asserting his own right to the throne and getting rid of the Lancastrians. York starts to recruit forces to retake control of government. His two closest allies are Richard Neville, who is the Earl of Salisbury, and his son, the Earl of Warwick. The Earl of Warwick is fascinating because he is such a charismatic figure. He's someone who, like, he's a master of spin.

A lot of the rumours and the kind of black legend of Margaret of Anjou, I think, come from the Earl of Warwick. With his European connections, he's telling lies about her at the Burgundian court in the Low Countries. He's spreading rumours among the people of Kent and London. He is brutal.

And because he is so clever and so kind of politically astute, as well as uncompromisingly unpleasant and self-serving, I think that he's just effective. And that's what York needed. He needed someone like that to kind of take York's ambition and channel it in a very specific direction, which ultimately was the direction of firstly killing their enemies and then taking control of government for themselves. He's a person who would get things done. He would have been a great king. In May 1455, Richard of York heads a small army. Together with his allies, the Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of Warwick, they march south to the capital. As the army

approaches London, it is clear the dispute will have to be settled by force. But by the time the court realize what is happening, it's too late to raise a large army. With Queen Margaret protecting the young prince, the king and the Duke of Somerset hastily gather a force of 2,000 men and march north to meet York. of 2,000 men and march north to meet York. On the 22nd of May 1455, they arrive at the town of St. Aubens. Strategically positioned on an important road north, they immediately set about barricading the gateways to the town. The Battle of St. Aubens is about to begin, and King Henry himself is there to take a physical role in the fight for his crown.

Within six months of that recovery, for the first time in his life, he's in a battlefield. And I think that is the crucial point at which any further recovery stops because he is someone who is utterly abnormal, actually, for a lord in this era. There is an absolute expectation that kings, princes, lords are going to militarily fight. He has those skills, he has the armour, we know he got the training,

but he has never fought before because it was just too dangerous for him to do so while he didn't have an heir. When the Duke of York arrives, he is at pains to stress his loyalty to the king, claiming he only wishes to air grievances. But the army he's brought with him, 7,000 strong, suggests something else. This is a military coup, intended to regain power for York and his key allies, and to remove Somerset from the King's side. allies and to remove Somerset from the king's side. All along, they were claiming to be protesting and to be petitioning. Nobody was denying that Henry VI was entitled to be king. All the time he is saying he is a loyal subject, nobody would dare not to say that. But he is unable to accept any of the actions that Henry VI tries to remedy the situation.

Richard, Duke of York, doesn't compromise. The king assumes York will back down, as he did previously, and submit to swearing another oath of allegiance. He is very much mistaken. This is York's last roll of the dice. He knows the king's reinforcements are converging on St. Aubin's, and his advantage of numbers may not last much longer. York attacks the king's barricades head-on. They suffer casualties,

but while they hold the attention of the king's forces, the Earl of Warwick maneuvers to emerge inside the town. As soon as Warwick's archers open fire from behind enemy lines, the king's army knows they've been outflanked. They abandon their posts and flee. they've been outflanked they abandon their posts and flee when the town is overrun somerset is hacked to death in the street alongside clifford and other key nobles possibly by warwick himself the king himself is attacked in the town's marketplace and barely manages to escape through the narrow alleyways he is in the midst of a street battle, which is really, I think, an assassination attempt by the Yorkists, and particularly the Earl of Warwick,

in which his leading advisors are cut down and left out in the streets. Henry, we know, is wounded during this. He watches as his bodyguard, who are basically his close personal servants, are killed in front of him, shot down with arrows. His standard bearer drops the standard bearer and possibly runs away. Henry is wounded in probably the shoulder with an arrow.

So again, like completely mind-bogglingly alien as an idea at this time. You do not, like you don't touch the king, never mind injure him in pitched battle in a street, in a marketplace. It is mid-afternoon in St. Albans, a few hours after the last of the fighting. Laughter and shouting bounces between the timbered buildings flanking the triangular marketplace as rowdy soldiers spill from alehouses. Many of York's troops consider the town spoils of war. The dregs of King Henry's army have long since disappeared over the horizon, leaving the brightly coloured Royal Standard propped up against a wall near the Castle Inn.

Beneath it, blood congeals in the muddy gutters. Clergymen from the church and nearby abbey crouch beside fallen troops, administering aid to some and last rights to others. Town people help them move bodies out into the fields. Behind the marketplace, a group of soldiers are standing guard outside a tanner's shop. While looting anything they can carry, they have discovered something which bore reporting to their superiors. At the sound of marching feet, they each stand a little straighter. A group of men strides towards them, headed up by a tall, imposing figure. He may have removed his heavy armor, but the bright tunic emblazoned with the three gold lions clearly marks him out as Richard

Plantagenet, Duke of York. Despite the victory, his usually handsome face is lined with concern. Richard nods to his men and opens the door of the tannus. The dim interior is lit by a couple of candles, and a powerful stench hits immediately. Stinking vats line one wall, with dripping animal skins stretched above them. Richard holds a hand to his face to ward off the foul smells of the trade as he steps inside. At the back of the room, slumped alone on a wooden chair, sits the King of England. Henry's shoulder shines with blood in the flickering light. Straps hang loose from his armour where he's tried to escape its weight, and his shoulder-length dark hair is matted with sweat. The usually soft, clean-shaven face is streaked with blood, dirt and tears.

On the straw-covered flagstones next to him lies his upturned helmet, affixed with a golden crown and smeared with red. Richard rushes over and drops to one knee. He apologizes for the unintended wounding and repeats the lie of his loyalty, claiming that he merely wishes to protect his king from treasonous influences. He swears allegiance to Henry and promises to escort him back to London safely. But with York's enemies disposed of, it is a very different court that the king will find himself in. Richard, Duke of York, thought he was special.

And Henry VI actually thought he was special too. So although other nobles misbehaved, what Henry VI did was he imprisoned them for a while in castles and things. But Richard, Duke of York, he didn't actually do anything to. So Richard, Duke of York, was able to come back and have another shot. And to me, actually, he's the evil genius here in that he just keeps trying. King Henry VI forgives those who had opposed him at the Battle of St. Albans. He makes Richard of York his principal advisor and appoints him

Constable of England. York's key ally and the man behind victory at St. Albans, the Earl of Warwick, is made Captain of Calais and Commander of English forces in France. is made captain of Calais and commander of English forces in France. In reality, King Henry has little choice. He is defeated militarily, utterly terrified, and fears for not only his own life, but that of his wife and young son. I think for someone like Henry, who is a very sensitive individual, a very pacific, peace-loving individual, this is horrifying and traumatic. He's dragged into a tanner's shop. So this is a place that's going to be reeking of urine and feces and other things that probably he has never encountered before in his life because they've always been cleaned up around him.

for in his life because they've always been cleaned up around him. He's bleeding, he's wounded, he doesn't know what's happening. Then he's taken from that tanner shop to the abbey through the streets where all of these people have been killed, seeing things again he's never seen before. It traumatises him. And I think that that is the point from which any recovery is just not going to happen. It's so psychologically damaging that he's just not going to come back from it. psychologically damaging that he's just not going to come back from it. But if Henry has given up, his wife has not. Queen Margaret is determined to hold onto the throne for her son at any cost. She uses her connections in France to have French troops attack the Earl of Warwick at Calais,

but they're defeated. In England, she gathers support for her cause, rallying nobles against the Duke of York. The Lancastrian court becomes a very toxic place for the Yorkists, and Henry is incapable of controlling that toxicity, which we see in one incident when the Earl of Worry comes to Westminster. While he's there, one of his servants stands on the foot of one of the king's men. The king's man shouts at him. They shout back.

Weapons are drawn. And then eventually you have Lancastrian servants running out of the kitchens with mortars and pestles and things that they use to spit roast pigs, brandishing them at the Earl of Warwick, who with his men is forced to run away to the river. And the fact that that can happen within a royal palace just goes to show how out of control things are getting. I think it's very clear as well in the Love Day of 1458 that Henry VI sets up where he tries to unite all these people by... I mean, there is also an agreement that they sign alongside it, but that they process through the streets of London holding hands. The fact that you literally have one side here and the other side here, and it could not be clearer who hates each other. So it just completely cements these two opposing forces. And the fact

that Margaret of Anjou, by that point, is not as queens normally are, apart from all this, she's not the peacemaker as queens in the Middle Ages are supposed to be. The fact she is holding the Duke of York's hand shows to everyone looking, well, these two hate each other as well by this point. Things come to a head in 1549 when the king summons the Duke of York, the Earl of Warwick, and his father, the Earl of Salisbury, to an inquiry into their actions. The trio have no intention of attending.

inquiry into their actions. The trio have no intention of attending. They rally their forces and rendezvous at Richard of York's stronghold at Ludlow Castle, to the west of Birmingham. Queen Margaret gathers a large army and sets off to prevent them joining together. Salisbury's army is ambushed first, outside Market Drayton in Shropshire. Margaret's army is ambushed first, outside Market Drayton in Shropshire. Unfortunately for the Queen, some 500 or so of her troops switch sides, attacking her own army. After several hours of vicious fighting, Salisbury secures victory for York. According to local tradition, Queen Margaret watches the battle from a nearby church tower. When it becomes clear the battle is lost, she flees on a horse whose shoes have been reversed by a local blacksmith

to confuse any pursuers. Unfortunately, that's probably not true. It's one of many legends about Margaret that have kind of sprung up. She's like 10 miles away. She's nowhere near Market Drayton, where the Battle of Bloor Heath happens nearby and nor is Henry actually incidentally he is elsewhere it's a time when the Lancastrian forces are quite scattered because they're trying to prevent the Yorkists who have arrived from all different corners the Earl of Warwick is not as fortunate as his father his troops from Calais defect to Queen Margaret's larger force, and in the face of insurmountable opposition, the Duke of York flees to Ireland.

The Earl of Warwick and Earl of Salisbury escape to France. In their absence, the men are declared traitors and sentenced to death. Their lands and properties are forfeit, their heirs disinherited. Their lands and properties are forfeit, their heirs disinherited. But now, the Yorkists have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The next year, in the summer of 1460, Warwick is back at the head of a Yorkist army in yet another bid for power. At his side is Edward of York, Richard's eldest son. Charismatic and handsome, at six foot four, Edward stands head and shoulders above most men of the period. He grows up watching his father be a military leader, being a lord. He watches his mother be

a pretty capable duchess. He's tall, he's handsome, he's according to the standards of the time completely beautiful, you know, golden hair and blue eyes, pale skin, broad-shouldered. He's got all of the best qualities of the Duke of York and not as many of the bad qualities. The Yorkists gather troops in London, where their support is strongest. Now, with an army exceeding 8,000 men, at Edward's command they head north of the capital to Northampton, where Queen Margaret has formed a defensive position to await them. In the grounds of the abbey, with their backs to the river and a water-filled ditch in front of them, the royal forces mount sharpened stakes and ready their cannon. But fate is not on their side.

A sudden downpour renders their cannon useless. And thanks to secret talks between Edward of York and one of Margaret's commanders, a whole section of Margaret's army defects and begins attacking her own people. Many Lancastrian troops drown in the river as they flee the battlefield. King Henry is again taken prisoner. Edward and Warwick pile up the bodies of Lancastrian nobles for their families to collect. The Duke of York returns from Ireland. The Duke of York returns from Ireland. He appears before Parliament and, in a wildly provocative move, he places his hand on the throne as a gesture of intent.

This shocks even Warwick. But while Parliament refuses to support Richard, eventually a solution is found which allows Henry to be released and to continue as king. is found, which allows Henry to be released and to continue as king. A compromise was agreed, what we call the accord, whereas Henry VI would rule and Richard Duke of York would take over later. And that was a compromise that was achieved with Richard Duke of York's supporters. The problem was, of course, that most people who were not their supporters were not at Parliament and were not parties to this agreement. And so a compromise that was expected to be a settlement, in fact, ratcheted up the disagreements and fermented further civil war.

Again, the king is in no position to disagree. He may be free, but it's on Richard's terms. He is still effectively a prisoner. He's bullied into it, as far as I'm concerned. It's completely clear that he's intimidated and alone and mentally probably not doing too well. So again, it's a bit questionable. The Accord disinherits Henry's son, and the incensed Queen Margaret takes the prince to their relatives in Wales, the Tudors.

She then goes about gathering more military backing for the Lancastrian cause, securing the support of Scottish and French troops. But with the king's signature on the accord, Richard of York believes Queen Margaret is acting illegally. As he marches his army north to counter the threat, he is confident that his side have the benefit of more experienced commanders and high morale. Richard thought he had the king's authority

and in the past when he would be Lord Protector and noblemen were fighting, he went across and suppressed them very easily. So he was going to go to the north, and they would run away, and he would restore order. York's vanguard clashes with Lancastrian reinforcements heading north to join their main army. Soundly defeated, York makes a hasty retreat and heads for Sandal Castle, near Wakefield in Yorkshire, with Lancastrians in hot pursuit and the bulk of Queen Margaret's army ahead of him. The new Lancastrian army is led by the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland, and Lord Clifford of Skipton, all sons of the nobles hacked to death at the Battle of St. Albans.

This is no longer simply a civil war for control of the throne, but a series of increasingly bitter blood feuds. You go from people who are like basically veterans of the Hundred Years' War, who have this idea about how war should be and, you know, some lingering sense of chivalry. And then because of what Warwick encourages at the Battle of St Albans, some of them are wiped out and you are left with the sons and brothers of those men who I think quite understandably have a vendetta against the people who killed their relatives. I think there is a really personal motive to the Wars of the Roses and that is why

it gets so violent and out of control. Now, with Richard of York holed up in a castle and surrounded, Queen Margaret and the Lancastrians intend to wipe out his challenge to the throne once and for all. It is the 30th of December, 1460. Early morning mist creeps across the river alongside Sandal Castle. On the battlements, Richard of York scans the fields beyond. He can make out wood smoke rising into the still winter air as Queen Margaret's troops cook breakfast and ready their equipment. At Richard's side are his 17-year-old son, Edmund,

and his trusted friend, the Earl of Salisbury. The latter has advised Richard to remain within the thick walls of Sandal Castle and to await the arrival of the reinforcements led by their sons, who are a few days' march away. But waiting has never been York's strong suit. He has been watching Queen Margaret's army camped on the field outside the castle and reckons their number to be similar to his own. It's time to ready his men. The gates of the castle creak open. Clad in armor astride his horse and surrounded by his loyal supporters, Richard of York leads a column of of troops their banners hang limply in the

cold air as they watch the lancastrian army camped in the fields rushing to ready their weapons and meet this surprise advance york flips down his faceplate and hefts his lance his charge comes immediately the lancastrians are only just moving forwards when the air is suddenly thick with arrows. The barrage is soon followed by the clash of steel as the mobs of soldiers meet. York and Salisbury are in the thick of the action, fighting first with lances, then slashing with swords as the armies tear into each other. Richard's more experienced force gains the upper hand. He can sense victory is near, and with the queen nearby and the king still under lock and key in London, a decisive win would cement his power.

But then shouts erupt behind him. A backwards glance tells him he is badly miscalculated. Lord Clifford, whose father was butchered by York's troops in St. Auburn's five years ago, has led his army up from where they have been camped, hidden from sight of the castle. More troops pour down from the surrounding hills and out from the woods, attacking York's army from the rear. York is cut off from his castle and completely surrounded by an overwhelming force. Slowly, his army dwindles, squeezed ever inwards by the Lancastrian death grip. There's no way out for York, but he would rather die on his feet than

live on his knees. Refusing to surrender, he fights on, swamped by Lancastrian troops. And soon, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York and claimant to the throne of England, is dead. The End of the War Queen Margaret's victorious troops pursue York's youngest son, Edmund, as he escapes to Wakefield Bridge. But he'll get no further. Full of the rage of battle and the brutal feuds fueling the circle of revenge, it is Lord Clifford himself who slays the teenage prince in cold blood. himself who slays the teenage prince in cold blood. But if Queen Margaret thinks that's the end of the war, she's sorely mistaken.

In the second of this special three-part short history of the Wars of the Roses, Edward of York will pursue his father's claim to the throne. But can he bring peace to the shattered country? A lot of the people who were on the defeated side are simply executed. They have stepped up the mortality, the killing. And I think the Yorkists had found it's absolutely deplorable, really, that the best way to defeat your enemies is to kill them. And they did.