The Wars of the Roses
Nobody fighting in them called them the Wars of the Roses. The name caught on centuries later, and Shakespeare's invented rose-picking scene sealed the neat story.
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Quick Facts
- What happened
- A dynastic struggle between rival branches of the Plantagenet family, Lancaster and York, for the English crown
- Traditional dates
- 1455 (First Battle of St Albans) to 1487 (Battle of Stoke Field)
- Bloodiest battle
- Towton, 29 March 1461, fought in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday
- Kings involved
- Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III and Henry VII
- Decisive moment
- Bosworth Field, 22 August 1485, where Richard III was killed
- Where the name comes from
- Popularised by Sir Walter Scott in 1829 and later by Victorian historians
- How it ended
- Henry Tudor married Elizabeth of York in 1486 and merged the two rival claims
- Lasting symbol
- The Tudor rose, red and white combined
The one-sentence version, and the messy truth
Two branches of the royal family, the House of Lancaster and the House of York, fought on and off between 1455 and 1487 over who should wear the crown, and the winner was a Welsh-raised outsider called Henry Tudor. That tidy line hides a lot of chaos. It began with a weak king. Henry VI inherited the throne as a baby in 1422, and in 1453 he suffered a mental collapse that left him unresponsive for over a year. England needed someone to govern, and Richard, Duke of York, one of the richest men in the land and with his own royal blood, stepped in. The queen, Margaret of Anjou, fiercely protecting her husband and her young son, saw him as a threat. The first real clash came at St Albans on 22 May 1455, a short, sharp fight in the town's streets. From there the feud hardened into something much harder to stop.
Snow, slaughter and a kingmaker at Towton
Richard of York was killed at Wakefield in December 1460, but his son was soon crowned Edward IV. On 29 March 1461, at Towton in Yorkshire, the armies met in blinding snow. Many contemporary accounts describe it as the bloodiest day in English history, with figures of tens of thousands dead, though the exact count is impossible to pin down. The man who helped put Edward on the throne was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, nicknamed the Kingmaker. Then the two men fell out. Warwick switched sides, allied with his old enemy Margaret of Anjou, and in 1470 briefly put Henry VI back on the throne. It did not last. Edward returned from exile, beat and killed Warwick at Barnet on 14 April 1471, then crushed the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury on 4 May. Henry VI died in the Tower of London that same month. It looked as though York had won for good.
The princes, the king and the car park
Edward IV died unexpectedly in April 1483, leaving a 12-year-old heir, Edward V. His uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, took charge, and the boy and his younger brother were lodged in the Tower. Both were seen there during the summer of 1483, then disappeared from public view. Richard was crowned Richard III that summer, and what happened to the Princes in the Tower remains one of England's great unsolved mysteries. The Yorkist cause fractured. Into the gap stepped Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian claimant by a thin and complicated line, who landed in Wales in 1485. At Bosworth Field on 22 August, Richard led a charge towards Henry himself and was cut down. He was the last English king to die in battle. His body was buried in Leicester, and its location was later forgotten. In 2012 archaeologists found his skeleton beneath a council car park. The curved spine and battle wounds made headlines worldwide, and he was reburied in Leicester Cathedral in 2015.
Myths: roses, flower fights and endless war
Myth one: everyone wore roses from the start. In reality, the white rose was a Yorkist badge, but the red rose was little used by Lancastrians at the time. Soldiers were more likely to follow lords' own symbols, such as Warwick's bear and ragged staff. Henry VII created the red-and-white Tudor rose after his marriage to Elizabeth of York in 1486. Myth two: Shakespeare's Temple Garden scene, where nobles pick red and white roses to declare sides, is pure drama. It was written for Henry VI, Part 1 over a century after the events. Myth three: England burned for thirty years. Actually the fighting came in short bursts, with long stretches of ordinary life between campaigns. Most villagers and merchants saw little of it. And Henry VII's victory at Bosworth did not end things neatly: pretenders such as Lambert Simnel caused trouble, and the last battle, at Stoke Field near Newark, took place in 1487. Even Richard III's famous hump is partly invented. His skeleton showed scoliosis, but nothing like the Tudor-era villain portrayed in later plays.
Why it still matters and where to see it
The wars broke the power of many great noble families and cleared the way for the Tudors, who centralised royal authority and led England into the Reformation. The story of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and everything after grows from this soil. You can still walk the ground. Bosworth Battlefield in Leicestershire has a heritage centre and trails. Towton's battlefield in North Yorkshire has a marked trail and a memorial cross nearby. Tewkesbury Abbey sheltered fleeing Lancastrians after the 1471 battle. Much of its medieval church survives, though the Lady Chapel and most monastic buildings were demolished after the Dissolution in 1540. The Tower of London holds echoes of Henry VI and the lost princes, and Middleham Castle in Wensleydale was Richard III's northern home. Sandal Castle near Wakefield overlooks where Richard of York fell. In Leicester, Richard III's tomb and the visitor centre on the site of his grave tell the story of the last Plantagenet king.
Notable people
- Henry VI
- Margaret of Anjou
- Richard, Duke of York
- Edward IV
- Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick
- Elizabeth Woodville
- Richard III
- Henry VII
- Elizabeth of York
- Lambert Simnel
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