Lancastrians versus Yorkists: Battle of Barnet, April 14, 1471

Battles often turn on moments where strategy goes out the window and movements on the field take a turn for the worst.  The Battle of Barnet, between the Yorkists under Edward IV and the Lancastrians, under Richard "the Kingmaker", Earl of Warwick is a perfect example.

Warwick had for many years been a loyal supporter of Edward IV.  His daughters were married to Edward's two younger brothers, George of Clarence and Richard of Gloucester.  He'd invested his own men and resources in fighting for Edward to take the throne in 1460.  Over the years, he'd soured on his allegiance to Edward for the some of the same reasons that others soured on Edward.  Edward had married a common, Elizabeth Woodville, against the protestations of his entire council.  Warwick in particular was offended.  He'd personally put a lot of effort into securing a French alliance for Edward.  Edward favored Burgundy over France, and his new wife and her relatives over everyone else.  When Elizabeth became Queen her relatives flocked to court in droves, particularly her brother Anthony, Earl Rivers, who set himself up as a rival to Warwick.

Warwick had enough, as had George of Clarence.  In their minds, Henry VI was far better than Edward.  He was married to a French princess, Margaret of Anjou.  Because of his mental condition, he was malleable, and he had a young son who would depend on somebody like Warwick for a number of years.  In 1470, Warwick and Clarence deserted Edward, began raising an army, and brought Henry back from exile in France.  With Warwick's cunning in battle, they soon claimed London and Edward had no choice but to flee to Burgundy, where his sister Margaret was Duchess.  Edward IV persuaded his brother-in-law Charles of Burgundy to back him in an effort to win his kingdom and landed in England in March.  Barons loyal to Edward began summoning their levies, basically homegrown armies made of men at arms, archers, and even farmers and laborers with improvised weapons.  As men flocked to Edward, Warwick scrambled to raise an army to defend Henry VI and play for time until Margaret of Anjou could arrive with her son and reinforcements from France.  Edward, meanwhile, had captured Henry VI, who was a prisoner in Edward's army.

In early April, 1471, these two forces converged on the town of Barnet, in Hertfordshire north of London.  On Edward IV's side were his brother, Richard of Gloucester, and his cousin and best friend, William, Baron Hastings.  On Warwick's side were his brother, John Neville, Marquess of Montague, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford.  The morning of April 14, 1471 dawn with a heavy fog.  The armies, which had been maneuvering close to one another, faced each other with their placement off.   Richard of Gloucester should have been facing the Duke of Exeter, on Edward's right wing.  Instead, he was facing thin air, in a position to wind around Exeter in a flank maneuver.  The left wing was also crooked, Oxford in a great position to swoop around Hastings.  Edward and Richard quickly pressed their advantage, taking on Montague, in the center and Exeter.  Oxford quickly rushed at Hastings, and broke Edward's line.

Hastings' men broke and fled back to Barnet with Oxford in hot pursuit.  Once in Barnet, Oxford's men decided to loot the town.  Oxford finally scraped his men together and marched them back to the battlefield, where some uniform red and white rose banners would've come in handy.  Instead, Montague's men mistook De Vere's star emblem for Edward's own Sun in Splendor banner.  Believing they had Edward at bay, Montague's men attacked Oxford.  Oxford's men believed that Montague had deserted to Edward, and attacked back.  Warwick, in reserve, tried to straighten out this mess, but it was too late.  One by one, his commanders broke ranks and fled, leaving Warwick to chase down his own army.  In the ensuing confused retreat, Warwick was killed.  In two or three hours, it was over.  Edward was King, Warwick was dead, Henry VI was a prisoner, and George of Clarence, who hadn't been at the battle, was in serious trouble. 

John Neville, Marquess of Montague, was also killed.  Rather than have him and Warwick disemboweled and quartered as traitors, Edward brought them back to London.  They lay in repose at Old St. Paul's so that the populace would know that these two legendary leaders had died.  Then Edward sent them to be buried in their family vaults at Bisham Abbey.  Margaret of Anjou landed at Weymouth with her French army and began attracting leftover Lancastrians to her forces.  Edward would have to defeat them at Tewkesbury on May 4, 1471, with Clarence, who had rejoined his brothers.  Exeter, who'd been left for the dead on the battlefield, recovered and was imprisoned for four years before being pardoned by Edward.  Oxford would later escape from prison and join Henry Tudor, commanding a force at Bosworth in 1485.  Henry VI was killed in the Wakefield Tower in May, 1471. 

Did It Happen: Wars 'N' Roses

According to every textbook on English history, the two main branches of the House of Plantagenet squared off in a bloody generations-long contest for the English throne known as the Wars of the Roses.  The House of York fought under its badge of a white rose, while the Lancastrians chose a red rose.  Eventually, the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, met his demise on the battlefield at Bosworth and his nemesis, Henry Tudor, a descendant of the red rose Lancastrians married Richard's niece, Elizabeth, the White Rose of York.  The two roses were united in the red and white Tudor rose, even as the two bloodlines were united in the Tudor dynasty.

So, did it happen?

Shakespeare says so.  In Henry V, Act 1, the supporters of Richard, Duke of York and the Duke of Somerset dramatically pluck red and white roses from bushes as a way of showing their support for either of the two quarreling dukes.  Sir Walter Scott says so.  In his 1829 novel Anne of Geierstein, which is set during the time period, the term Wars of the Roses appears for the first time.  Nevertheless, the fact remains Shakespeare was a playwright who was working under the reign of Henry VII's great-granddaughter Elizabeth I and later, great-grandson James I.  Sir Walter Scott is often credited as one of the earliest historical novel writers.  I.e., both of them wrote fiction for a living.  No.  Victorian historians were quick to pick up the handy phrase and we've been stuck with it ever since.

Well?  Did it happen?  Not quite.

First, a word about heraldry.  Without getting too complicated, families were identified by their coats of arms.  The Kings of England used the royal arms.  Various families descended from various kings, such as the Dukes of York and Lancaster, would have used variations of the royal arms with various marks or differences, which is a term of art in heraldry.  Individual lords, ladies, clerics, knights, towns and guilds had another more personal identifier called a badge.  Badges were emblems which could either be based on some aspect of the coat of arms or could be some symbol with personal meaning to the individual involved.  For example, Edward I was King of England entitled to use the royal arms.  His personal emblem or badge was a golden rose.  Members of Edward's personal household staff would have worn his badge on their livery to tell whom they served.  Badges were used much the same way as company logos on caps and t-shirts.  They can be part of an employee uniform, or they can be a means of branding.  Thus, badges could be elaborate jeweled objects of art meant to be worn on a chain of office or presented to a high-ranking retainer.  Or, it could be an embroidered or painted patch worn on a cloak or tabard.  Servants, men-at-arms and retainers of a given royal or lord wore their master's badge as a mark of employment.  Anyone loyal to a particular lord, whether he was in the lord's employ or not, could also wear the badge as a mark of their loyalty.

Things got further complicated when the same individual used a different badge during different periods of their life.  When Edward IV was a young man and titled as Earl of March, he used a sun in splendor emblem.  This created a bit of havoc at the Battle of Barnet, when followers of Edward's sun badge mistook it for a similar star badge of Earl of Oxford, fighting on the opposite side of the battle and vice versa, creating cross-fighting between the two groups.  Later, as Duke of York, Edward used the York emblem of the falcon and fetterlock.  Thus, throughout most of the War, each royal or noble personage used his or her own personal emblem, and those loyal to him or her followed suit.  The same held true at Bosworth, where Richard's men fought under his symbol, a white boar, versus Henry Tudor's red dragon.  However, the Wars of the White Boar and Red Dragon just doesn't have the same ring unless it's a karate movie.

So, what about those roses?  The white rose of York was the personal emblem of the first Duke of York, Edmund of Langley, but was not in use by either of the next three Dukes of York, Edward, Richard and his son, Edward IV.  The last two used the falcon and fetterlock.  Meanwhile, the red rose was not a Lancastrian emblem at all.  It was a later Tudor invention, brought about by the union of Elizabeth of York with Henry Tudor.  A joint badge of a white rose on a red rose became the Tudor badge used on Tudor livery, sewn onto cloaks and tabards, carved into palace walls, embroidered on tapestries, draped from chains of office and, over time, an emblem of England in general.

Courtier: Sir John Fastolf, 1380-1459

Sir John Falstaff, the rollicking buffoon of Shakespeare's Henry V, is one of his more memorable characters.   Falstaff may have been based in part on a real man with a similar name, Sir John Fastolf, KG, 1380-1459, courtier, soldier, landowner and man of letters, among other things.  He was born in Norfolk, of a country gentry family.  As a boy, he may have journeyed to Jerusalem in the company of Henry of Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV.  This would account for the three cockleshells on his coat of arms, shells being the sign of a pilgrim.  Young John served as a squire to the Duke of Norfolk and later under Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence, in Ireland in 1405-6. 

John married well, Millicent Tiptoft, which brought him a healthy yearly income.  He served in Gascony and later in northern France, though in 1415 he was at the Siege of Harfleur and thus missed Agincourt.  He became the Duke of Bedford's Master of the Household and was made a Knight of the Garter in 1426.  He was also a Knight of the Golden Fleece.  He was dispatched by the Duke of Bedford in 1429 to reinforce the English besieging Orleans, where Joan of Arc was spoiling for her first encounter with the enemy.  She was said to have told the French commander that if he didn't let her know of Fastolf's coming she would have his head cut off.  Jeanne and Fastolf would cross each other's paths several times battling for control of the Loire valley. 

The Battle of Patay in 1429 was a disaster and Fastolf was accused of cowardice after his men broke and fled the battlefield.  Ineptitude by more senior commanders was more likely the cause of the catastrophe, but Bedford blamed Fastolf and had him suspended from the Order of the Garter.  It would take him until 1442 to clear his name formally and be reinstated to the Order, but the scandal lingered for the rest of his life.  Personally, both Bedford and Richard of York continued to trust Fastolf with important commands and he continued to serve in France.  He returned to England in 1440.  During Cade's Rebellion in 1451, he was charged by the rebels with having contributed to the losses in the Hundred Years War through diminishing the garrisons in Normandy.  Part of what created the suspicions against him was that he had managed to become quite wealthy during the war, liquidating his properties in Normandy and transferring those funds home to England before losing them to the eventuality of French victory.

Besides being thought of as avaricious and cowardly, he was considered to have had a cruel and vengeful disposition.  How much of any of this was true and how much was slanders from enemies will never bee known for certain.  He was distantly related to the Paston family, and used his influence at court to help the Pastons in their land and legal disputes with the Duke of Norfolk, and also with Alice de la Pole, Duchess of Suffolk, something that probably didn't win him very many friends.  Not that he cared, Fastolf had managed his own and his wife's assets such that he was a wealthy man who could work his way through the intrigues of the Wars of the Roses without losing his money or his life.  Though he privately sympathized with the Yorkists, he was careful to keep on the side of the Lancastrians when that was necessary.  He was fond of writing memoranda on military strategy and giving unsolicited advice to government officials in London, he also patronized scholars and had several manuscripts created specifically for his own library.  He finally died in 1459 at Caistor Castle in Norfolk, never knowing how famous he'd become through Shakespeare's character and the preservation of the Paston Letters. 

King: Richard II of England

Questions surround Richard II and his reign.  Was he the cruel, irresponsible despot of Shakespeare or a typical Plantagenet king who didn't put up with any nonsense?  Was he crazy or was there a method to his madness?  Was he a poor king or just unlucky?  And, how did he die?

Richard (1367-1400) grew up surrounded by some of the most legendary men in his family.  His grandfather was Edward III, one of the longest-reigning kings in English history.  Lawgiver, military commander, patriarch of an impressive family that included both John of Gaunt and Edward the Black Prince.  Little Richard was born in Aquitaine.  Originally, he wasn't meant to be king.  His older brother, Edward of Angouleme, died in 1371, bumping Richard up a step in the succession.  The Black Prince had been a successful military commander, but he was slowly succumbing to the chronic dysentery which eventually killed him in 1376, when Richard was nine years old.  Edward III knew that he had to counteract the possibility of his older sons swooping in on the inheritance of a mere boy and quickly invested Richard as Prince of Wales.  Then Edward III died in 1377 and none of that mattered anymore.  Richard was king.

In an effort to keep Richard's uncles, particularly John of Gaunt at bay, it was decided that instead of single Regent, the government would be in the hands of a council.  John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham were still powerful, but their power was counterbalanced by that of other lords, which kept Richard safe for the time being.  He was described throughout his life as tall (he grew to six feet), articulate and intelligent.  Coming from a long line of military men, there was hope for him to follow in the family tradition.  Richard enjoyed tournaments and seemed headed that way.  He had inherited a realm weakened by repeated waves of famine and plague.  Edward III's regime had passed repressive measures aimed at raising revenue and keeping peasants working the land.  This boiled over into the Peasants Revolt of 1381.  Bands of peasants led by Wat Tyler, John Ball and Jack Straw marched on London.  For the first time, Richard began to make his views known, opting for mercy and negotiation.  He agreed to meet the peasants face to face.  With the death of Tyler the mob grew unruly.  Rather than flee or turn his armies on the people, Richard rode forward at 14 years old and told them, "I am your captain.  Follow me!"  He was able to keep the crowd in order until they agreed to disburse.

But neither Richard nor his advisers had any intention of keeping their promises.  Richard later rode with armies tasked with putting down the last embers of the revolt.  In 1382, Richard married Anne of Bohemia.  The couple would come to fall deeply in love and she would be a steady support to her husband.  He would need it.  Richard, like his great-grandfather Edward II, had a habit of trusting his government to favorites.  He made one favorite, Michael de la Pole, Chancellor.  Though the de la Poles later became quite prominent, at the time they were a wealthy merchant family, sure to make the other royals and nobles jealous.  Another favorite was Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who was of noble blood, but still considered an upstart.  While the usual allegations of homosexuality surfaced against Richard, there was another possible reason for his trusting favorites over his own relatives and other nobles.  Favorites were dependent on the king alone and more easily controlled than over-powerful uncles, cousins and other subjects. 

Matters came to a head in 1386, with the demands of Parliament that in exchange for more taxation, the King must give up de la Pole and de Vere.  Richard stated that he wouldn't dismiss so much as a scullion out of his kitchen for Parliament's sake.  Thomas of Woodstock, Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick and other nobles brought an appeal, or accusations of treason against de Vere and de la Pole.  They were joined by Henry of Bolingbroke, Gaunt's son and Richard's eventual nemesis, and Thomas de Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham.  They force de Vere to flee for his life into exile.  De la Pole was arrested and ultimately executed for treason.  Richard would not forget this insult.  Plantagenets, too, paid their debts. 

John of Gaunt stepped forward to mediate a peace and provide a steadying influence just as the Scots invaded the North of England, forcing the King and his nobles to put their differences aside to meet the threat.  Richard dealt with the Scots and negotiated a peace with France.  He also achieved some military and diplomatic success in Ireland.  These triumphs may have made Richard feel that he had more political capital than he actually did.  He had several of the Lords Appellant, including Gloucester, Warwick and Arundel arrested for treason.  Arundel was tried and executed.  Gloucester, himself a Plantagenet, died under mysterious circumstances in prison and it was rumored that Richard ordered him poisoned to spare the public shame of executing a member of the blood royal.  With John of Gaunt's intercession, men loyal to Richard were created dukes, compensated with property of those lords who were, or would shortly be, condemned.  John of Gaunt and his son, Henry of Bolingbroke posed a serious personal threat to Richard, who was still childless despite two marriages.  When John died in 1399, any restraint against deposing King Richard died with him.

As Richard continued to focus on settling old scores, Henry of Bolingbroke was in France, amassing an invading army.  He landed in Yorkshire in June, 1399 and marched virtually unopposed toward London.  Edmund of Langley, uncle to both Richard and Henry, sided with Henry.  On August 19, 1399, Richard surrendered to Henry at Flint Castle, promising to abdicate if his life were spared.  He was brought to London and imprisoned in the Tower.  But Henry of Bolingbroke, now King Henry IV, wasn't entirely safe.  There were other adult members of the Plantagenet family more senior in the succession than he.  Henry claimed the right of kingship as the oldest son of a surviving son (John of Gaunt) from Edward III and was crowned King of England, thus kicking off the Wars of the Roses.

Richard was transferred to Pontefract Castle.  Meanwhile, some lords had remained loyal to Richard and were planning to rescue him and depose Henry.  Henry couldn't allow Richard to live, but couldn't put to death an anointed king of his own blood either.  Richard died approximately February 14, 1400, from being starved to death, though there's no proof of exactly how he died.  He wouldn't be the first, or the last, Plantagenet male to die under mysterious circumstances in prison.  Being a prince/king in the tower was a family tradition.  His body was displayed at Old St. Paul's Cathedral before being buried in King's Langley Church.  Later, his body was reinterred next to Anne of Bohemia in Westminster Abbey. 

Richard would be known as a patron of the arts.  He sponsored painters, writers such as Chaucer and Gower, and sponsored architectural achievements like the rebuilding of Westminster Hall with an ornate hammer-beam roof.  He also introduced more elaborate court etiquette, being the first king to be addressed as majesty, rather than as highness.  In the end, although Richard had his strong points, his reliance on personal favorites and his focus on settling scores and indulging in intrigue was his undoing. 

Royal Family: Children of Edward III

An appropriate subtitle for this post might be "where it all began", since it was from the various lines of Edward III's children that the competing families of York and Lancaster would originate and battle for their various claims to the throne.  Here, then, are the underpinnings of the Wars of the Roses.

Edward III married Philippa of Hainault, an area of what is now Belgium, in 1328.  She would bear him 13 children, of whom 9 lived to grow up.  The four unfortunate ones were William of Hatfield (b and d 1337), Blanche (b and d 1342), Thomas of Windsor (b 1347-d 1348, another plague victim), and William (b and d 1348).  Their sons were Edward, the Black Prince (1330-1376), whose only surviving son Richard II we'll deal with in a later post.  Lionel of Antwerp (1338-1368), whose only daughter Philippa married into the powerful Mortimer family, who will play their parts in the ensuing drama.  John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340-1399), whose son Henry of Bolingbroke became Henry IV, the first of the Lancastrian kings.  John of Gaunt had a large family of both legitimate and illegitimate children, some of whom will also factor in later, particularly the Tudor family.  Edmund of Langley, Duke of York (1341-1402), ancestor of Edward IV (and sons) and Richard III, and also ancestor of the Tudors through his great-granddaughter Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII.  And, finally, Thomas of Woodstock (1355-1397), whose daughter married into the Stratford family.  All of these men and their descendants would either launch their own competing claims for the throne, or marry into families close enough to the royal line to be a threat. 

Edward's daughters also carried his bloodline and their own potential claims, which fortunately for the main lines of the Plantagenet dynasty, none of them had the opportunity to exploit.  Isabella (1332-1382).  Her daughter, Marie de Coucy, became ancestress of several European royal dynasties, including the Bourbons and, through Mary of Scotland, every English King or Queen since James I.  Joan (1334-1348), affianced to Pedro of Castile but died of plague before they could marry and beget children.  Also Mary (1344-1362), who married John IV of Brittany, and Margaret (1346-1361), who married in the Hastings family of the Earls of Pembroke.  Neither of these two had children, or at least any children who survived.