Was He A Usurper? King Edward IV of England.Part VII.

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3rd Duke of York, Cecily Neville, Duke of Lancaster, House of York, John of Gaunt, King Edward IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Henry VI of England and Lord of Ireland, Margaret of Anjou, Richard Plantagenet, Wars of the Roses

Birth and ancestry

The future King Edward IV was born on April 28, 1442 at Rouen in Normandy, eldest surviving son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville. Until his father’s death, he was known as the Earl of March. In previous entries I’ve outlined Edward’s descent several ways from King Edward III. However, his mother was also a direct descendant of King Edward III.

Cecily Neville was the youngest of the 22 children of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, in this case born to his second wife Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland. Her paternal grandparents were John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, and Maud Percy, daughter of Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy.

Her maternal grandparents were John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault.

She was the aunt of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, one of the leading peers and military commanders of his generation, a grand-aunt of Queen Consort Anne Neville, who married her son Richard III, and a great-great-grand-aunt of Queen Consort Catherine Parr, sixth wife of her great-grandson, King Henry VIII.

Cecily Neville increased her son Edward’s already strong claim to the throne. This claim was strengthened in 1447, when Richard Plantagenet 3rd Duke York became heir to the childless King Henry VI on the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.

Allegations of illegitimacy were discounted at the time as politically inspired, and by later historians. Edward and his siblings George, Duke of Clarence, and Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, were physically very similar, all three being tall and blonde, in contrast to the Duke of York, who was short and dark. His youngest brother, who later became King Richard III, closely resembled their father.

Early life

Edward grew up amidst a background of economic decline at home, and military defeat abroad, exacerbated by a weak and corrupt central government.

Both he and his younger brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were born in Rouen, where their father, the Richard, 3rd Duke of York, served as governor of English lands in France until 1445, when he was replaced by Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset. Edward and Edmund were probably brought up at Ludlow Castle, in the Welsh Marches, where the Duke of York was the dominant landowner.

English politics became dominated by the struggle between the Yorkists and supporters of the House of Lancaster, or Lancastrians, notably the Duke of Somerset, William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and King Henry VI’s wife, Margaret of Anjou.

However, the birth of King Henry VI’s son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, in October 1453 created a viable Lancastrian figurehead, and the 1450s was dominated by political conflict between the two factions.

By the age of 17, Edward, the Earl of March was a political and military leader in his own right; after their defeat at the Battle of Ludford Bridge in 1459, his father and brother Edmund fled to Ireland, while the Earls of March, Salisbury and Warwick made their way to Calais. Edward’s name appears alongside those of his father, Warwick and Salisbury in widely circulated manifestoes declaring their quarrel was only with Henry’s evil counsellors.

In 1460, Edward crossed the English Channel with Warwick and Salisbury, and marched into London. At Northampton in July, he commanded one of three divisions in a Yorkist victory that led to the capture of Henry VI.

The Duke of York crossed from Ireland to England; on entering the Palace of Westminster, he declared himself king, a claim greeted by the assembled lords in silence. The Act of Accord agreed a compromise, whereby Henry VI remained king, but York and his descendants were designated his successors.

The implications of removing the legally accepted heir to the throne created substantial opposition to the Yorkist administration; in late 1460, Edward was given his first independent command and sent to deal with a Lancastrian insurgency in Wales.

Warwick remained in London, while York, Salisbury, and Edmund marched north to suppress another in Yorkshire; all three were killed following defeat at Wakefield on December 30 leaving Edward as the new head of the Yorkist party.

On February 2,1461, Edward won a hard-fought victory at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in Herefordshire. The battle was preceded by a meteorological phenomenon known as parhelion, or three suns, which he took as his emblem, the “Sun in splendour”.

However, this was offset by Warwick’s defeat at the Second Battle of St Albans on February 17, the Lancastrians regaining custody of Henry VI. The two met in London, where Edward was hastily crowned King Edward IV of England before marching north, where the two sides met at the Battle of Towton.

The battle was fought on March 29 in the middle of a snowstorm, it was the bloodiest battle ever to take place on English soil, and ended in a decisive Yorkist victory.

Queen Margaret fled to Scotland with her son Edward of Westminster, while the new king Edward IV returned to London for his coronation. King Henry VI remained at large for over a year, but was caught and imprisoned in the Tower of London. There was little point in killing him while his son remained alive, since this would have transferred the Lancastrian claim from a frail captive King to a Prince who was young and free.

Was He A Usurper? King Edward IV of England. Part VI.

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3rd Duke of Somerset, 3rd Duke of York, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, 9th Baron de Clifford, Battle of Saint Albans, Battle of Wakefield, Henry Beaufort, Henry Percy, House of Lancaster, House of York, John Clifford, King Henry VI of England, Margaret of Anjou, Richard Plantagenet, Wars of the Roses

On June 26, the Earl of Warwick and Salisbury landed at Sandwich. The men of Kent rose to join them. London opened its gates to the Nevilles on July 2. They marched north into the Midlands, and on July 10, they defeated the royal army at the Battle of Northampton (through treachery among the king’s troops), and captured King Henry VI whom they brought back to London.

The Duke of York remained in Ireland. He did not set foot in England until September 9 and when he did, he acted as a king. Marching under the arms of his maternal great-great-grandfather Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, he displayed a banner of the coat of arms of England as he approached London.

A Parliament was called to meet on October 7, and it repealed all the previous legislation of the Coventry parliament. On October 10, Richard, Duke of York arrived in London and took residence in the royal palace. Entering Parliament with his sword borne upright before him, he made for the empty throne and placed his hand upon it, as if to occupy it.

Richard, Duke of York may have expected the assembled peers to acclaim him as king, as they had acclaimed Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. Instead, there was silence. Thomas Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asked whether he wished to see the king. York replied, “I know of no person in this realm the which oweth not to wait on me, rather than I of him.” This high-handed reply did not impress the Lords.

The next day, Richard advanced his claim to the crown by hereditary right in proper form. However, his narrow support among his peers led to failure once again. After weeks of negotiation, the best that could be achieved was the Act of Accord, by which the Duke of York and his heirs were recognised as King Henry VI’s successors.

However, in October 1460 Parliament did grant the Duke of York extraordinary executive powers to protect the realm, and made him Lord Protector of England. He was also given the lands and income of the Prince of Wales, but was not granted the title itself or made Earl of Chester or Duke of Cornwall. With the king effectively in custody, the Duke of York and the Earl of Warwick were the de facto rulers of the country.

Final campaign and death

While this was happening, the Lancastrian loyalists were rallying and arming in the north of England. Faced with the threat of attack from the Percys, and with Margaret of Anjou trying to gain the support of the new King of Scotland, James III, York, Salisbury and York’s second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, headed north on December 2.

They arrived at York’s stronghold of Sandal Castle on December 21 to find the situation bad and getting worse. Forces loyal to King Henry VI controlled the city of York, and nearby Pontefract Castle was also in hostile hands.

The Lancastrian armies were commanded by some of York’s implacable enemies such as Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland and John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford, whose fathers had been killed at the Battle of Saint Albans, and included several northern lords who were jealous of York’s and Salisbury’s wealth and influence in the North.

On December 30, the Duke of York and his forces sortied from Sandal Castle. Their reasons for doing so are not clear; they were variously claimed to be a result of deception by the Lancastrian forces, or treachery by northern lords who York mistakenly believed to be his allies, or simple rashness on York’s part.

The larger Lancastrian force destroyed York’s army in the resulting Battle of Wakefield. Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York was killed in the battle. The precise nature of his end was variously reported; he was either unhorsed, wounded and overcome fighting to the death or captured, given a mocking crown of bulrushes and then beheaded.

Edmund of Rutland was intercepted as he tried to flee and was executed, possibly by Clifford in revenge for the death of his own father at the First Battle of St Albans. Salisbury escaped, but was captured and executed the following night.

The Duke of York was buried at Pontefract, but his severed head was put on a pike by the victorious Lancastrian armies and displayed over Micklegate Bar at York, wearing a paper crown. His remains were later moved to Church of St Mary and All Saints, Fotheringhay.

Henri IV of France and Navarre, His Wives and Mistresses. Part II.

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Margaret of Anjou, King Henri IV of France and Navarre, Huguenot, Catherine de Médici, King Henri III of France, Françoise de Montmorency-Fosseux, Lovers War, Charlotte de Sauve

Until 1576, Henri remained at court, siding with Margaret and her brother François Duke of Alençon against King Henri III of France who became king in 1574. During this time, Henri of Navarre often ignored Margaret and instead slept with his mistress, Charlotte de Sauve.

It appeared, in the words of Henri’s biographer David Buisseret, as if “the pleasure-loving and libidinous elements of his ancestry had finally gained the upper hand”. A rivalry developed between him and Alençon over the beautiful de Sauve, who was one of Catherine de’ Medici’s so-called “flying squadron”, a group of “court lovelies” whom Catherine used to lure noblemen to court and, it was rumoured, as informants.

According to Margaret’s Memoirs, de Sauve “treated both of them in such a way that they became extremely jealous of each other… to such a point that they forgot their ambitions, their duties and their plans and thought of nothing but chasing after this woman”. De Sauve may have been acting as a tool of Henri III and Catherine in their attempts to split the two men. Henri of Navarre’s good judgement was already known to desert him when it came to women.

Margaret’s behaviour was also the subject of scandal. On one occasion in 1575, Catherine de’ Medici was heard yelling at her, accusing her of taking a lover. In a separate incident, the king sent a band of assassins to murder Margaret’s lover Bussy d’Amboise, a friend of Alençon’s, who managed to escape.

As Catherine’s biographer Leonie Frieda puts it: “he then decided to leave the Court immediately citing health reasons, which happened to be nothing less than the truth”. In 1576, King Henri III accused Marguerite of improper relations with a lady-in-waiting.

Margaret claimed in her Memoirs that he would have killed her if Catherine had not stopped him. Despite their sexual infidelities, Margaret remained politically loyal to her husband during the early period of their marriage and helped him negotiate the complexities of the court. By 1575, however, their relations were no longer physical: “I could not endure the pain that I felt”, she recalled in her Memoirs, “and I stopped sleeping with the King my husband”.

In 1576, Henri of Navarre managed to slip away while hunting and made for his kingdom, where he abjured the Catholic religion on June 13. For a time, the abandoned Margaret found herself imprisoned, suspected of complicity, and was afterwards distrusted by her own family.

Charlotte de Sauve

Henri of Navarre eventually demanded that she be brought to him. In 1578, therefore, Catherine de’ Medici travelled south to Nérac and duly delivered Margaret to her husband. At first, in this new phase in their marriage, the couple managed a show of harmony, but strains were apparent.

In 1580 a religious war, later called the “Lovers’ War”, broke out between the Huguenots and King Henri III. Although inaccurate, this name for the war relates to a series of scandals at the Navarre court and to the notion that Henri of Navarre took up arms in response to jibes about his love life from the French court.

At this point, he was conducting a passionate affair with a mistress Françoise de Montmorency-Fosseux, known as “La Belle Fosseuse”, while Margaret was involved with one of his own commanders, the Vicomte de Turenne. Henri wrote to Margaret apologising for the state of affairs between them. He expressed “extreme regret that instead of bringing you contentment… I have brought the opposite”.

In 1582, Margaret returned to the French court without her husband, who was still openly besotted with La Fosseuse. Before long, she began taking lovers again, such as Harlay de Champvallon, one of her brother François’s retinue, and acting more scandalously than ever. After a rumour that she had borne Champvallon a child, Henry III ordered her back to Navarre and then had her carriage searched and detained her in an abbey for questioning.

Françoise de Montmorency-Fosseux

Henri of Navarre at first refused to take Margaret back unless Henri III made a public statement asserting her innocence of all the charges against her. Catherine de’ Medici sent Pomponne de Bellièvre south to smooth things over and arrange Margaret’s return.

In a letter, she spelled out to Margaret that a royal wife must bear her husband’s affairs without complaint, recalling proudly that her own conduct as a wife had been impeccable, despite all provocation. Margaret was reunited with Henri of Navarre on April 13, 1584, but she failed to heed her mother’s words, even though the death of her brother François in June 1584 made her husband heir presumptive to the French throne.

Henri of Navarre himself was under increased pressure to produce an heir. He was advised by his closest friend Philippe Duplessis-Mornay that it was now “time to make love to France”.

December 6, 1421: Birth of Henry VI, King of England and Lord of Ireland

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King Henry VI of England, Margaret of Anjou, 16th Earl of Warwick, King Edward IV of England, War of the Roses, Charles VI of France, Lord of Ireland, Isabeau of Bavaria

Henry VI (December 6, 1421 – May 21, 1471) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, and Catherine of Valois was the youngest daughter of King Charles VI of France and his wife Isabeau of Bavaria.

Henry succeeded to the English throne at the age of nine months upon his father’s death, and succeeded to the French throne on the death of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI, shortly afterwards.

Henry inherited the long-running Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), in which his uncle Charles VII contested his claim to the French throne. He is the only English monarch to have been also crowned King of France, in 1431. His early reign, when several people were ruling for him, saw the pinnacle of English power in France, but subsequent military, diplomatic, and economic problems had seriously endangered the English cause by the time Henry was declared fit to rule in 1437.

Henry VI found his realm in a difficult position, faced with setbacks in France and divisions among the nobility at home. Unlike his father, Henry is described as timid, shy, passive, well intentioned and averse to warfare and violence; he was also at times mentally unstable. His ineffective reign saw the gradual loss of the English lands in France.

Partially in the hope of achieving peace, in 1445 Henry married Charles VII’s niece, the ambitious and strong-willed Margaret of Anjou, the second eldest daughter of René, King of Naples, and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.

The peace policy failed, leading to the murder of one of Henry’s key advisers, William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and the war recommenced, with France taking the upper hand; by 1453, Calais was Henry’s only remaining territory on the continent.

As the situation in France worsened, there was a related increase in political instability in England. With Henry effectively unfit to rule, power was exercised by quarrelsome nobles, while factions and favourites encouraged the rise of disorder in the country.

Regional magnates and soldiers returning from France formed and maintained increasing numbers of private armed retainers, with whom they fought one another, terrorised their neighbours, paralysed the courts, and dominated the government. Queen Margaret did not remain unpartisan and took advantage of the situation to make herself an effective power behind the throne.

Amidst military disasters in France and a collapse of law and order in England, the Queen and her clique came under accusations, especially from Henry VI’s increasingly popular cousin Richard, Duke of York, of misconduct of the war in France and misrule of the country. Starting in 1453, Henry had a series of mental breakdowns, and tensions mounted between Margaret and Richard of York over control of the incapacitated King’s government and over the question of succession to the English throne.

Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England

Civil war broke out in 1455, leading to a long period of dynastic conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. Henry was deposed on 4 March 1461 by Richard’s son, who took the throne as Edward IV. Despite Margaret continuing to lead a resistance to Edward, Henry was captured by Edward’s forces in 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Henry was restored to the throne in 1470 but Edward retook power in 1471, killing Henry’s only son and heir, Edward of Westminster, in battle and imprisoning Henry once again.

Having “lost his wits, his two kingdoms and his only son”, Henry died in the Tower during the night of May 21, possibly killed on the orders of King Edward. Miracles were attributed to Henry after his death and he was informally regarded as a saint and martyr until the 16th century. He left a legacy of educational institutions, having founded Eton College, King’s College, Cambridge, and (together with Henry Chichele) All Souls College, Oxford. Shakespeare wrote a trilogy of plays about his life, depicting him as weak-willed and easily influenced by his wife, Margaret.

October 13, 1453: Birth of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales

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3rd Duke of York, Battle of Tewkesbury, Edward of Westminster, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, King Louis XI of France, Margaret of Anjou, Prince George Duke of Clarence, Prince of Wales, Richard of York, The Earl of Warwick

Edward of Westminster (October 13, 1453 – May 4, 1471), also known as Edward of Lancaster, was the only son of King Henry VI of England and Margaret of Anjou. He was killed aged seventeen at the Battle of Tewkesbury.

Early life

Edward was born at the Palace of Westminster, London, the only son of King Henry VI of England, Lord of Ireland and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. Margaret was born at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, east of France ruled by a cadet branch of the Capetian French kings, the House of Valois-Anjou. Margaret was the second daughter of René, King of Naples, and of Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.

At the time of Edward’s birth, there was strife between Henry’s supporters and those of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, who had a superior claim to the throne and challenged the authority of Henry’s officers of state. Henry was suffering from mental illness, and there were widespread rumours that the prince was the result of an affair between his mother and one of her loyal supporters.

Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset and James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, were both suspected of fathering Prince Edward; however, there is no firm evidence to support the rumours, and King Henry himself never doubted the boy’s legitimacy and publicly acknowledged paternity. Edward was invested as Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle in 1454.

War over the English throne

In 1460, King Henry was captured by the supporters of the Duke of York at the Battle of Northampton and taken to London. The Duke of York was dissuaded from claiming the throne immediately, but he induced Parliament to pass the Act of Accord, by which Henry was allowed to reign but Edward was disinherited, as York or his heirs would become king on Henry’s death.

Queen Margaret and Edward had meanwhile fled through Cheshire. By Margaret’s later account, she induced outlaws and pillagers to aid her by pledging them to recognise the seven-year-old Edward as rightful heir to the crown. They subsequently reached safety in Wales and journeyed to Scotland, where Margaret raised support, while the Duke of York’s enemies gathered in the north of England.

After the Duke of York was killed at the Battle of Wakefield, the large army which Margaret had gathered advanced south. They defeated the army of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, one of York’s most prominent supporters, at the Second Battle of St Albans.

Warwick had brought the captive King Henry VI in the train of his army, and he was found abandoned on the battlefield. Two of Warwick’s knights, William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, and Sir Thomas Kyriell, who had agreed to remain with Henry VI and see that he came to no harm, were captured. The day after the battle, Margaret asked Edward what death the two knights should suffer. Edward readily replied that their heads should be cut off.

Exile in France

Margaret hesitated to advance on London with her unruly army, and subsequently retreated. They were routed at the Battle of Towton a few weeks later. Margaret and Edward fled once again, to Scotland. For the next three years, Margaret inspired several revolts in the northernmost counties of England, but was eventually forced to sail to France, where she and Edward maintained a court in exile. (Henry VI had once again been captured and was a prisoner in the Tower of London.)

In 1467 the ambassador of the Duchy of Milan to the court of France wrote that Edward “already talks of nothing but cutting off heads or making war, as if he had everything in his hands or was the god of battle or the peaceful occupant of that throne.”

After several years in exile, Margaret took the best opportunity that presented itself and allied herself with the renegade Earl of Warwick. King Louis XI of France wanted to start a war with Burgundy, allies of the Yorkist King Edward IV. He believed if he allied himself to restoring Lancastrian rule they would help him conquer Burgundy.

As a compliment to his new allies Louis XI made young Edward godfather to his son Charles. Prince Edward was married to Anne Neville, Warwick’s younger daughter, in December 1470, though there is some doubt as to whether the marriage was ever consummated.

Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury

The Earl of Warwick returned to England and deposed Edward IV, with the help of Edward IV’s younger brother, George, Duke of Clarence. Edward IV fled into exile to Burgundy with his youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, while the Earl of Warwick restored Henry VI to the throne.

Prince Edward and Margaret lingered behind in France until April 1471. However, Edward IV had already raised an army, returned to England, and reconciled with his brother George, Duke of Clarence. On the same day Margaret and Edward landed in England (April 14), Edward IV defeated and killed the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet.

With little real hope of success, the inexperienced Prince Edward and his mother led the remnant of their forces to meet Edward IV in the Battle of Tewkesbury. They were defeated and Prince Edward of Westminster was killed.

According to contemporary sources, Edward was overtaken and slain in the battle during the rout of the Lancastrians, with some accounts attributing the deed to George, Duke of Clarence, to whom the prince appealed to for help. Paul Murray Kendall, a biographer of Richard III, accepts this version of events. Another version states that Clarence and his men found the grieving prince near a grove following the battle, and immediately beheaded him on a makeshift block, despite his pleas.

Another account of Edward’s death is given by three Tudor sources: The Grand Chronicle of London, Polydore Vergil, and Edward Hall. It was later dramatised by William Shakespeare in Henry VI, Part 3, Act V, scene v.

Their story is that Edward was captured and brought before the victorious Edward IV and his brothers and followers. The king received the prince graciously, and asked him why he had taken up arms against him. The prince replied defiantly, “I came to recover my father’s heritage.” The king then struck the prince across his face with his gauntlet hand, and his brothers killed the prince with their swords.

However, none of these accounts appear in any of the contemporaneous sources, which all report that Edward died in battle.

Edward’s body is buried at Tewkesbury Abbey. His widow, Anne Neville, married the Duke of Gloucester, who eventually succeeded as King Richard III in 1483.

September 21, 1411: Birth of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York

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3rd Duke of York, Battle of Wakefield, Edward III of England, Edward IV of England, House of Anjou, House of Plantagenet, James III of Scotland, King Henry VI of England, Margaret of Anjou, Richard III of England, Richard of York

Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (September 21, 1411 – December 30, 1460), also named Richard Plantagenet, was a leading English magnate and claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses. He was a member of the ruling House of Plantagenet.

Richard of York was born on September 21, 1411, the son of Richard, Earl of Cambridge (1385–1415), and his wife Anne Mortimer (1388–1411). Both his parents were descended from King Edward III of England (1312–1377): his father was son of Edmund, 1st Duke of York (founder of the House of York), fourth surviving son of Edward III, whereas his mother Anne Mortimer was a great-granddaughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward’s second son.

After the death in 1425 of Anne’s childless brother Edmund, Earl of March, this ancestry supplied her son Richard, of the House of York, with a claim to the English throne that was arguably superior to that of the reigning House of Lancaster, descended from John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward III.

Richard had an only sister, Isabel. Richard’s mother, Anne Mortimer, died during or shortly after his birth, and his father the Earl of Cambridge was beheaded in 1415 for his part in the Southampton Plot against the Lancastrian King Henry V.

Within a few months of his father’s death, Richard’s childless uncle, Edward, 2nd Duke of York, was slain at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and so Richard inherited Edward’s title and lands, becoming 3rd Duke of York. The lesser title but greater estates of the Mortimer family, along with their claim to the throne, also descended to him on the death of his maternal uncle Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, in 1425.

Richard of York already held a strong claim to the English throne, being the heir general of Edward III while also related to the same king in a direct male line of descent. Once he inherited the vast Mortimer estates, he also became the wealthiest and most powerful noble in England, second only to the king himself. An account shows that York’s net income from Welsh and marcher lands alone was £3,430 (about £350,000 today) in the year 1443–44.

London.

In December 1459 the Duke York, the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury suffered attainder. Their lives were forfeit, and their lands reverted to the king; their heirs would not inherit. This was the most extreme punishment a member of the nobility could suffer, and the Duke of York was now in the same situation as Henry of Bolingbroke (the future King Henry IV) in 1398.

Only a successful invasion of England would restore his fortune. Assuming the invasion was successful, the Duke of York had three options: become Protector of England again, disinherit the king’s son so that York would succeed, or claim the throne for himself.

On June 26, Warwick and Salisbury landed at Sandwich. The men of Kent rose to join them. London opened its gates to the Nevilles on July 2. They marched north into the Midlands, and on July 10, they defeated the royal army at the Battle of Northampton (through treachery among the king’s troops), and captured Henry, whom they brought back to London.

The Duke of York remained in Ireland. He did not set foot in England until September 9 and when he did, he acted as a king. Marching under the arms of his maternal great-great-grandfather Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, he displayed a banner of the coat of arms of England as he approached London.

A Parliament called to meet on October 7, repealed all the legislation of the Coventry parliament the previous year. On October 10, the Duke of York arrived in London and took residence in the royal palace. Entering Parliament with his sword borne upright before him, he made for the empty throne and placed his hand upon it, as if to occupy it.

He may have expected the assembled peers to acclaim him as king, as they had acclaimed Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. Instead, there was silence. Thomas Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asked whether he wished to see the king. York replied, “I know of no person in this realm the which oweth not to wait on me, rather than I of him.” This high-handed reply did not impress the Lords.

The next day, Richard advanced his claim to the crown by hereditary right in proper form. However, his narrow support among his peers led to failure once again. After weeks of negotiation, the best that could be achieved was the Act of Accord, by which York and his heirs were recognised as Henry’s successors.

However, in October 1460 Parliament did grant York extraordinary executive powers to protect the realm, and made him Lord Protector of England. He was also given the lands and income of the Prince of Wales, but was not granted the title itself or made Earl of Chester or Duke of Cornwall. With the king effectively in custody, York and Warwick were the de facto rulers of the country.

Final campaign and death

While this was happening, the Lancastrian loyalists were rallying and arming in the north of England. Faced with the threat of attack from the Percys, and with Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI, trying to gain the support of the new King of Scotland, James III, York, Salisbury and York’s second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, headed north on December 2.

They arrived at York’s stronghold of Sandal Castle on December 21, to find the situation bad and getting worse. Forces loyal to Henry VI controlled the city of York, and nearby Pontefract Castle was also in hostile hands. The Lancastrian armies were commanded by some of York’s implacable enemies such as Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland and John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford, whose fathers had been killed at the Battle of Saint Albans, and included several northern lords who were jealous of York’s and Salisbury’s wealth and influence in the North.

On December 30, York and his forces sortied from Sandal Castle. Their reasons for doing so are not clear; they were variously claimed to be a result of deception by the Lancastrian forces, or treachery by northern lords who York mistakenly believed to be his allies, or simple rashness on York’s part.

The larger Lancastrian force destroyed York’s army in the resulting Battle of Wakefield. The Duke of York was killed in the battle. The precise nature of his end was variously reported; he was either unhorsed, wounded and overcome fighting to the death or captured, given a mocking crown of bulrushes and then beheaded.

Edmund of Rutland was intercepted as he tried to flee and was executed, possibly by Clifford in revenge for the death of his own father at the First Battle of St Albans. Salisbury escaped, but was captured and executed the following night.

York was buried at Pontefract, but his head was put on a pike by the victorious Lancastrian armies and displayed over Micklegate Bar at York, wearing a paper crown. His remains were later moved to Church of St Mary and All Saints, Fotheringhay.

Legacy

Within a few weeks of Richard of York’s death, his eldest surviving son was acclaimed King Edward IV and finally established the House of York on the throne following a decisive victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton. After an occasionally tumultuous reign, he died in 1483 and was succeeded by his twelve-year-old son, Edward V, who was himself succeeded after 86 days by his uncle, York’s youngest son, Richard III.

Richard of York’s grandchildren included Edward V and Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth married Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty, and became the mother of Henry VIII, Margaret Tudor and Mary Tudor. All future English monarchs would come from the line of Henry VII and Elizabeth, and therefore from Richard of York himself.

December 6, 1421: Birth of Henry VI, King of England and Lord of Ireland

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King of France, Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI of England, King Charles VI of France, King Charles VII of France, Civil War, Treaty of Troyes

Henry VI (December 6, 1421 – May 21,1471) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, and Catherine of Valois was the youngest daughter of King Charles VI of France and his wife Isabeau of Bavaria.

Henry succeeded to the English throne at the age of nine months upon his father’s death, and succeeded to the French throne on the death of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI, shortly afterwards.

Henry inherited the long-running Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), in which his uncle Charles VII contested his claim to the French throne. He is the only English monarch to have been also crowned King of France, in 1431. His early reign, when several people were ruling for him, saw the pinnacle of English power in France, but subsequent military, diplomatic, and economic problems had seriously endangered the English cause by the time Henry was declared fit to rule in 1437.

Henry VI found his realm in a difficult position, faced with setbacks in France and divisions among the nobility at home. Unlike his father, Henry is described as timid, shy, passive, well intentioned and averse to warfare and violence; he was also at times mentally unstable. His ineffective reign saw the gradual loss of the English lands in France.

Partially in the hope of achieving peace, in 1445 Henry married Charles VII’s niece, the ambitious and strong-willed Margaret of Anjou, the second eldest daughter of René, King of Naples, and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.

The peace policy failed, leading to the murder of one of Henry’s key advisers, William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and the war recommenced, with France taking the upper hand; by 1453, Calais was Henry’s only remaining territory on the continent.

As the situation in France worsened, there was a related increase in political instability in England. With Henry effectively unfit to rule, power was exercised by quarrelsome nobles, while factions and favourites encouraged the rise of disorder in the country.

Regional magnates and soldiers returning from France formed and maintained increasing numbers of private armed retainers, with whom they fought one another, terrorised their neighbours, paralysed the courts, and dominated the government. Queen Margaret did not remain unpartisan and took advantage of the situation to make herself an effective power behind the throne.

Amidst military disasters in France and a collapse of law and order in England, the Queen and her clique came under accusations, especially from Henry VI’s increasingly popular cousin Richard, Duke of York, of misconduct of the war in France and misrule of the country. Starting in 1453, Henry had a series of mental breakdowns, and tensions mounted between Margaret and Richard of York over control of the incapacitated King’s government and over the question of succession to the English throne.

Civil war broke out in 1455, leading to a long period of dynastic conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. Henry was deposed on 4 March 1461 by Richard’s son, who took the throne as Edward IV. Despite Margaret continuing to lead a resistance to Edward, Henry was captured by Edward’s forces in 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Henry was restored to the throne in 1470 but Edward retook power in 1471, killing Henry’s only son and heir, Edward of Westminster, in battle and imprisoning Henry once again.

Having “lost his wits, his two kingdoms and his only son”, Henry died in the Tower during the night of May 21, possibly killed on the orders of King Edward. Miracles were attributed to Henry after his death and he was informally regarded as a saint and martyr until the 16th century. He left a legacy of educational institutions, having founded Eton College, King’s College, Cambridge, and (together with Henry Chichele) All Souls College, Oxford. Shakespeare wrote a trilogy of plays about his life, depicting him as weak-willed and easily influenced by his wife, Margaret.

October 13, 1453: Birth of Prince Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales

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Anne Neville, Battle of Tewkesbury, Earl of Warwick, Edward IV of England, Edward of Westminster, George of Clarence, King Henry VI of England and Lord of Ireland, Margaret of Anjou, Prince of Wales, Richard III of England, Richard Neville, Richard of York, Wars of the Roses

Edward of Westminster (October 13, 1453 – May 4, 1471), also known as Edward of Lancaster, and Princes of Wales.

Early life

Prince Edward was born at the Palace of Westminster, London, the only son of King Henry VI of England, Lord of Ireland and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. Margaret of Anjou was born in the Duchy of Lorraine, the second eldest daughter of René, King of Naples, and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine. Her father, René of Anjou was a member of the House of Valois-Anjou, a cadet branch of the French royal house, and the great-grandson of King Jean II of France. He was a prince of the blood, and for most of his adult life also the brother-in-law/cousin of the reigning King Charles VII of France. Other than the aforementioned titles, he was for several years also Duke of Bar and Duke of Lorraine.

At the time of Prince Edward of Westminster’s birth there was strife between Henry VI’s supporters and those of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, who had a claim to the throne and challenged the authority of Henry’s officers of state.

Henry VI was suffering from mental illness, and there were widespread rumours that the prince was the result of an affair between his mother and one of her loyal supporters. Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset and James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, were both suspected of fathering Prince Edward; however, there is no firm evidence to support the rumours, and King Henry VI himself never doubted the boy’s legitimacy and publicly acknowledged paternity. Edward was invested as Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle in 1454.

War over the English throne

In 1460, King Henry VI was captured by the supporters of the Duke of York at the Battle of Northampton and taken to London. The Duke of York was dissuaded from claiming the throne immediately, but he induced Parliament to pass the Act of Accord, by which Henry VI was allowed to reign but Edward was disinherited, as York or his heirs would become king on Henry VI’s death.

Queen Margaret and Edward had meanwhile fled through Cheshire. By Margaret’s later account, she induced outlaws and pillagers to aid her by pledging them to recognise the seven-year-old Edward as rightful heir to the crown. They subsequently reached safety in Wales and journeyed to Scotland, where Margaret raised support, while the Duke of York’s enemies gathered in the north of England.

Prince Edward of York inherited the Yorkist claim when his father, Richard, Duke of York, died at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. After defeating Lancastrian armies at Mortimer’s Cross and Towton in early 1461, he deposed King Henry VI and took the throne as King Edward IV of England.

After Prince Richard, Duke of York was killed at the Battle of Wakefield, the large army which Margaret had gathered advanced south. They defeated the army of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, one of York’s most prominent supporters, at the Second Battle of St Albans. Warwick had brought the captive King Henry VI in the train of his army, and he was found abandoned on the battlefield.

Two of Warwick’s knights, William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, and Sir Thomas Kyriell, who had agreed to remain with Henry VI and see that he came to no harm, were captured. The day after the battle, Margaret asked Edward what death the two knights should suffer. Edward readily replied that their heads should be cut off.

Exile in France

Queen Margaret hesitated to advance on London with her unruly army, and subsequently retreated. They were routed at the Battle of Towton a few weeks later. Margaret and Edward fled once again, to Scotland. For the next three years, Margaret inspired several revolts in the northernmost counties of England, but was eventually forced to sail to France, where she and Edward maintained a court in exile. (Henry VI had once again been captured and was a prisoner in the Tower of London.)

In 1467 the ambassador of the Duchy of Milan to the court of France wrote that Edward “already talks of nothing but cutting off heads or making war, as if he had everything in his hands or was the god of battle or the peaceful occupant of that throne.”

After several years in exile, Margaret took the best opportunity that presented itself and allied herself with the renegade Earl of Warwick. King Louis XI of France wanted to start a war with Burgundy, allies of the Yorkist King Edward IV. He believed if he allied himself to restoring Lancastrian rule they would help him conquer Burgundy. As a compliment to his new allies Louis made young Edward godfather to his son Charles.

In December 1470, Prince Edward was married to Anne Neville, younger daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick and Anne Beauchamp, the daughter of Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, and his second wife Isabel le Despenser. There is some doubt as to whether the marriage between Prince Edward and Anne Neville was ever consummated.

Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury

The Earl of Warwick returned to England and deposed King Edward IV, with the help of Edward IV’s younger brother, Prince George, the Duke of Clarence. Edward IV fled into exile to Burgundy with his youngest brother the Duke of Gloucester, while Warwick restored Henry VI to the throne.

Prince Edward and Margaret lingered behind in France until April 1471. However, Edward IV had already raised an army, returned to England, and reconciled with his brother the Duke of Clarence. On the same day Margaret and Edward landed in England (April 14), Edward IV defeated and killed the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet. With little real hope of success, the inexperienced Prince Edward and his mother led the remnant of their forces to meet Edward IV in the Battle of Tewkesbury.

They were defeated and Edward of Westminster was killed.

According to some accounts, shortly after the rout of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury, a small contingent of men under the Duke of Clarence found the grieving prince near a grove, and immediately beheaded him on a makeshift block, despite his pleas. Paul Murray Kendall, a biographer of Richard III, accepts this version of events.

Another account of Edward’s death is given by three Tudor sources: The Grand Chronicle of London, Polydore Vergil, and Edward Hall. It was later dramatised by William Shakespeare in Henry VI, Part 3, Act V, scene v.

Their story is that Edward was captured and brought before the victorious Edward IV and his brothers and followers. The king received the prince graciously, and asked him why he had taken up arms against him. The prince replied defiantly, “I came to recover my father’s heritage.” The king then struck the prince across his face with his gauntlet hand, and his brothers killed the prince with their swords.

However, none of these accounts appear in any of the contemporaneous sources, which all report that Edward died in battle.

Edward’s body is buried at Tewkesbury Abbey. His widow, Anne Neville, married the Duke of Gloucester, who eventually succeeded as King Richard III in 1483.

Legal Succession: Henry VI & Edward IV Part one.

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Henry V of England, King Henry VI of England, Legal succession, Margaret of Anjou, Richard Plantaganet Duke of York

In the last part of this series we read that Henry IV was a usurper. He deposed Richard II and that there were many other members of the royal family that held a better claim to the throne than Henry. However, it seems that the majority of the descendants of Edward III were either content with being King or powerless to challenge him. Henry IV died in 1413 was succeded by his eldest son as King Henry V of England. Henry, a very tall king at 6 foot 3 is remembered for his battles during the 100 years war with France. He even was able to secure the French succession for his eldest son. But that topic is for another series. This is a complex episode in English history. I will cover this period in a couple of blog entries.

Henry V died in 1421 and his eldest son inherited the throne as King Hnery VI of England. It is with his reign we see the repercussion of the usurpation of Henry IV as the descendants of Edward III that held a better claim, began to fight with the descendants of Henry IV. These battles for the throne is known in history as the Wars of the Roses.

Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, 6th Earl of March, 4th Earl of Cambridge, and 7th Earl of Ulster was descended from two older son of Edward III and had a better claim to the throne than Henry VI. The Duke of York rose to power and eventually became Lord Protector during the times when Henry VI became metally ill. The Duke of York had no desire to usurp the throne but did want to be recognized as Henry’s legal heir. During his bout with mental illness Henry VI wife, Margaret of Anjou, gave birth to their only son, Edward, Prince of Wales. This event still did not deter Richard, Duke of York from obtaining the throne.

Part 2 will be on Monday….