A Timeline of Britain
of the Roses The Wars In the fourth part of our history series, the Wars of the Roses take centre stage, as the
Plantagenets find themselves split from within into the rival houses of Lancaster and York WORDS NEIL JONES
disputes of the Houses of Lancaster and York, two rival branches of the dynasty, are known collectively as the Wars of the Roses. And they have intrigued everyone from Shakespeare, who devoted no fewer than eight of his royal plays to the 15th-century Plantagenet sovereigns, to present-day historians like Alison Weir, author of Lancaster & York and The Princes in the Tower. “It is the power conflict that fascinates:
W
the often bloody battle between right and might for supremacy played out between kings, queens and nobles,” Alison says. “The period began with a usurpation, which put an end to the rightful Plantagenet line, and it ended with one of the most dramatic battles in history. “In between, there were plots,
intrigues, military clashes, love affairs, betrayals and murders… and several enduring mysteries, not the least of which is the fate of the Princes in the Tower.” Handsome, red-haired Henry IV,
son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, certainly had plenty to sort out during his reign (1399-1413): from
hen Henry Bolingbroke snatched the crown from his cousin, Richard II, and became King Henry IV in 1399, Plantagenet rule in England entered a dramatic new chapter. The
rebellious barons to financial troubles. To keep Parliament behind him he handed over unprecedented powers. In Wales, the King faced a long and draining guerrilla
war led by Owain Glyndwr, while the perennial struggle for supremacy over Scotland continued. He also sup- pressed a rebellion led by the legendary Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland. An exhibition at Alnwick Castle, ancestral seat of the Percys, gives an insight into the charismatic Hotspur, so called for his “somewhat ferocious and impetuous nature,” as Ralph, the Duke of Northumberland, explains. “Having helped his friend Henry IV to seize the throne, the two fell out, ostensibly over the cost of protecting the border from the Scots. Hotspur claimed that money owed by the crown was never delivered.” Hotspur’s rebellion ended in his death at the bloody Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. King Henry, once a valiant knight,
“It is the power
conflict that fascinates: the often bloody battle between right and
might for supremacy” Alison Weir
would meet an ugly end, too. He was bedridden for the last years of his reign with a strange wasting disease, possibly leprosy. His son and the next Lancastrian
ruler, Henry V (1413-22), did not disappoint in terms of kingly zeal. He set about reclaiming the lost Angevin lands in France, becoming a national hero when he and his longbowmen,
BRITAIN 81
PHOTO: THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON/
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