eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
The dynastic struggles of the Wars of the Roses (1455-85) have traditionally been portrayed as belonging to one of the most dramatic periods in the history of England, an age of murder and melodrama. In this classic history of the wars, charting their origins, progress, conclusions and effects, Professor Lander sets the record straight. By putting the wars into their contemporary context, using the written records of the time (many of which are reproduced in the text) and the results of modern research and scholarship, the true picture emerges. The wars were, in fact, very limited. While not denying that contemporary English society was disorderly and violent, Lander suggests that this state of affairs was due far less to civil war than to habits of violence among all classes of society. Fluently and clearly written "The Wars of the Roses" is the perfect overview of one of the most famous of medieval conflicts. Shedding light, as it does, on fifteenth-century history as a whole, the roots of the Tudor dynasty, and the background to Shakespeare's history plays, this book deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in this most turbulent period.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750981286 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 09/23/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 965 KB |
Read an Excerpt
The Wars of the Roses
By J.R. Lander
The History Press
Copyright © 2009 J.R. LanderAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-8128-6
CHAPTER 1
The House of Lancaster
When in 1399 Henry of Derby, the heir of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of the great Edward III, usurped the throne from his cousin, Richard II, he concealed the flaws in his title in a vague and evasive declaration in parliament:
In the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I Henry of Lancaster challenge this realm of England, and the crown with all the members and the appurtenances, als I that am descended by right line of the blood coming from the good lord King Henry third, and through that right that God of his grace hath sent me, with help of my kin and of my friends to recover it: the which realm was in point to be undone for default of governance and undoing of the good laws.(1)
In so doing he ignored the claims of the Mortimer family, descending through a woman, Philippa, the daughter of Lionel of Clarence, the third son of Edward III. These claims after 1425 passed to her great-grandson, Richard, Duke of York. There was no certain rule of succession to the English crown at this time. Should the inheritance descend to the heir male or to the heir general? For the time the claims of the heir general lay dormant – but potentially dangerous. Only success could justify the House of Lancaster in continued possession of the throne. Henry V's renewal of the Hundred Years War in France soon lost its appeal for any except the soldiers who directly profited from his campaigns and the merchants who victualled his armies. Henry bought his triumphs against the Valois at the cost of mounting resentment at the high taxation which he levied on the rest of the community to pay for them. By 1421 many men echoed the indignant wail on which Adam of Usk ended his Chronicle:
And, seeking to avenge it yet more, our Lord the King, rending every man throughout the realm who had money, be he rich or poor, designs to return again into France in full strength. But, woe is me! mighty men and treasure of the realm will be most miserably fordone about this business. And in truth the grievous taxation of the people to this end being unbearable, accompanied with murmurs and with smothered curses among them from hatred of the burden, I pray that my liege lord become not in the end a partaker, together with Julius, with Asshur, with Alexander, with Hector, with Cyrus, with Darius, with Maccabaeus, of the sword of the wrath of the Lord!(2)
After Henry's premature death the following year, the English in France, led by his brother John, Duke of Bedford, for a time extended their conquests. From about 1429, however, the French began to gain ground against the English. By 1435, with the death of John of Bedford and the failure of peace negotiations – the result of almost insanely presumptuous demands which the English made at the conference of Arras – the French war had reached a crisis. Sir John Fastolf, one of the most experienced of the war captains, advised that Henrys V's policy of conquest and consolidation by the maintenance of garrisons had become too expensive. Terror and a 'scorched-earth' policy were his recommendations for the future:
... First, it seemeth ... that the king should do lay no sieges nor make no conquest out of Normandy, or to conquest by way of siege as yet; for the sieges hath greatly hindered his conquest in time passed, and destroyed his people, as well lords, captains, and chieftains, as his other people, and wasted and consumed innumerable good of his finances, both in England and in France, and in Normandy. For there may no king conquer a great realm by continual sieges, and specially seeing the habiliments and ordnances that be-eth this day used for the war, and the knowledge and experience that the enemies have therein, both in keeping of their places and otherwise; and also the favour that they find in many that should be the king's true subjects.
Wherefore ... it is thought right expedient, for the speed and the advancement of the king's conquest and destroying of his enemies, to ordain two notable chieftains, descreet and of one accord, having either of them seven hundred and fifty spears of well chosen men, and they to hold the field continually and oostay, and go six, eight or ten leagues asunder in breadth, or more or less after their discretion; and each of them may answer to other and join together in case of necessity. And that they begin to oostay from the first day of June continually unto the first day of November, landing for the first time at Calais or Crotoy, or the one at Calais and the other at Crotoy, as shall be thought expedient; and so holding forth their way through Artois and Picardy, and so through Vermandois, Lannoy, Champagne and Burgundy, brenning and destroying all the land as they pass, both house, corn, vines, and all trees that bearen fruit for man's sustenance, and all bestaile that may not be driven, to be destroyed; and that that may be well driven and spared over the sustenance and advictualling of the hosts, to be driven into Normandy, to Paris, and to other places of the king's obeisance, and if goodly them think it to be done. For it is thought that the traitors and rebels must needs have another manner of war, and more sharp and more cruel war than a natural and anoienenemy ... to th'intent to drive th'enemies thereby to an extreme famine.(3)
In these unhappy circumstances Henry VI and his later foe, Richard, Duke of York, came to the forefront of politics for the first time. Henry, at the age of fifteen, signed his first royal warrant in December 1436. Richard of York had taken part in a Great Council at Westminster in April and May 1434 and in January 1435 (he was then twenty-four) the royal council appointed him Lieutenant and Governor of France and Normandy. Many years later John Blacman, a Carthusian monk who had been one of Henry's chaplains, wrote a memoir of his master. He depicted an extreme form of a contemporary type of intense lay piety – an English variation of the devotio moderna: bliss to a monk of a strict contemplative order, disastrous for a people in days when a king must rule as well as reign:
He was, like a second Job, a man simple and upright, altogether fearing the Lord God, and departing from evil. He was a simple man, without any crook of craft or untruth, as is plain to all. With none did he deal craftily, nor ever would say an untrue word to any, but framed his speech always to speak truth.
He was both upright and just, always keeping to the straight line of justice in his acts. Upon none would he wittingly inflict any injustice. To God and the Almighty he rendered most faithfully that which was His, for he took pains to pay in full the tithes and offerings due to God and the church: and this he accompanied with most sedulous devotion, so that even when decked with the kingly ornaments and crowned with the royal diadem he made it a duty to bow before the Lord as deep in prayer as any young monk might have done ...
... And that this prince cherished a son's fear towards the Lord is plain from many an act and devotion of his. In the first place, a certain reverend prelate of England used to relate that for ten years he held the office of confessor to King Henry; but he declared that never throughout that long time had any blemish of mortal sin touched his soul ...
. ... A diligent and sincere worshipper of God was this king, more given to God and to devout prayer than to handling worldly and temporal things, or practising vain sports and pursuits: these he despised as trifling, and was continually occupied either in prayer or the reading of the scriptures or of chronicles, whence he drew not a few wise utterances to the spiritual comfort of himself and others ...
... This King Henry was chaste and pure from the beginning of his days. He eschewed all licentiousness in word or deed while he was young; until he was of marriageable age, when he espoused the most noble lady, Lady Margaret, daughter of the King of Sicily, by whom he begat one only son, the most noble and virtuous Prince Edward; and with her and toward her he kept his marriage vow wholly and sincerely, even in the absences of the lady, which were sometimes very long: never dealing unchastely with any other woman. Neither when they lived together did he use his wife unseemly, but with all honesty and gravity.
... It happened once, that at Christmas time a certain great lord brought before him a dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to dance in that guise before the king, perhaps to prove him, or to entice his youthful mind. But the king was not blind to it, nor unaware of the devilish wile, and spurned the delusion, and very angrily averted his eyes, turned his back upon them, and went out to his chamber, saying:
'Fy, fy, for shame, forsothe ye be to blame.'
At another time, riding by Bath, where are warm baths in which they say the men of that country customably refresh and wash themselves, the king, looking into the baths, saw in them men wholly naked with every garment cast off. At which he was displeased, and went away quickly, abhorring such nudity as a great offence, and not unmindful of that sentence of Francis Petrarch 'the nakedness of a beast is in men unpleasing, but the decency of raiment makes for modesty ...
... I would have you know that he was most eminent for that virtue of humility. This pious prince was not ashamed to be a diligent server to a priest celebrating in his presence, and to make the responses at the mass, as Amen, Sed libera nos, and the rest. He did so commonly even to me, a poor priest. At table even when he took a slight refection, he would (like a professed religious) rise quickly, observe silence, and devoutly give thanks to God standing on every occasion. Also on the testimony of Master Doctor Towne, he made a rule that a certain dish which represented the five wounds of Christ as it were red with blood, should be set on his table by his almoner before any other course, when he was to take refreshment; and contemplating these images with great fervour he thanked God marvellous devoutly ...
Also at the principal feasts of the year, but especially at those when of custom he wore his crown, he would always have put on his bare body a rough hair shirt, that by its roughness his body might be restrained from excess, or more truly that all pride and vain glory, such as is apt to be engendered by pomp, might be repressed.(4)
York, with little or no experience of warfare, took up his first command in the most depressing circumstances. The French had penetrated to the very gates of Rouen and in Easter Week they captured Paris. The following year, despite a modest success, rejecting urgent protests from the royal council, he insisted on giving up his charge. Re-appointed in July 1440, he lingered in England, ignoring urgent appeals that he should cross the Channel, until in June 1441 the council at Rouen predicted total defeat unless he immediately went to their rescue. As the following warrant shows the government spared no efforts to provide the money his forces required:
Henry by the grace of God King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland. To the Treasurer and Chamberlains of our Exchequer greeting. For as much as for the setting over the sea of our cousin the Duke of York into our realm of France and Duchy of Normandy for the conservation and keeping of them and also the th'entretenue of our subjects in our obeisance in the same us needeth in haste great and notable sums of money. Whereof we be not as now purveyed neither cannot be without chevisance of our subjects or sale or departing from us of parcel of our jewels. And in so much as the chevisance that we can make at this time for the said cause will not suffice for the contenting of the said army over ready money by us perforce paid and that we would not for th'ease of us and of all Our true subjects but that the same army shall by the grace of our Lord take good effect and exploit it to the good relief and succours of our said realm, duchy and of all our subjects. We will therefore and charge you straitly that anon after the sight of these ye do break, cune, sell and lay to wedde such and as many of our jewels as over the payments by you made for the said army and over ready apprestes to us made for the same will reasonably suffice for the setting over of the said army, and as far as the said jewels will stretch if ye can and may do it. And these our letters shall be unto you here your sufficient warrant and discharge. Given under our privy seal at our castle of Windsor the second day of February the year of our reign XIX.(5)
During the next few months York, advised by Talbot, the greatest of the war veterans, made no less than five valiant onslaughts to relieve the besieged fortress of Pontoise. At last their troops, unable to live on the ravaged countryside, fell back on Rouen and Pontoise surrendered to the French. York accomplished very little after the summer of 1442, despite factions and plots at the French court which weakened his opponents in the field. When the English and French concluded a truce in April 1444 he had seen less than three years' active campaigning during the five years of his second command, and the English position was hardly better than it had been in 1440. York himself, may well have brooded in bitterness of spirit over obstructive political intrigues at home and, as a royal warrant of 1446 clearly shows, by the recent failure of the government to meet his expenses:
Henry by the grace of God, King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland. To the Treasurer and Chamberlains of our Exchequer greeting. We let you weet that we have understand by a supplication of our cousin the Duke of York that where as now late we commanded you by our letters of warrant to content him of all this that should be found due unto him of his appointment of £20,000 yearly for five years ended at Michaelmas last past for the keeping and entretening of our realm of France and Duchy of Normandy as in his indentures thereupon made it appeareth more at large, it is so as he saith that and he should be counted with and paid after the tenor of the said indentures there should be found due unto him of the fourth year of the same five year £18,666 13s. 4d., and of the fifth year the whole sum of £20,000 which amount to the sum of £38,066 13s.4d. And how be it that he hath promitted the lords, captains and soldiers of our garrisons within our said realm and duchy to content them of their wages which he cannot without he may have payment of the said sums, yet natheless he hath agreed him considering the great charges that we have in hand to rebate £12,666 13s. 4d. of the said £38,006 13s. 4d. so that he might be payed of have sufficient assignment of the residue which amounteth to the sum of £26,000. Wherefore we will and charge you that unto our said cousin ye make payment or sufficient assignment of the said £26,000. Given under our privy seal at our Tower of London the 2nd day of June the year of our reign XXIV.(6)
Whether or not the English had wantonly followed Sir John Fastolf's scorched-earth policy, his secretary, William Worcester, a few years later admitted that their administration had become oppressive and savage in the extreme. As the following account, written by the Norman ecclesiastic, Thomas Basin, shows, in their demoralized ferocity they reduced to utter misery wide areas of the borderlands of northern France where their control was constantly disputed:
Thus after the death of his father ... Charles VII succeeded to the throne of France, at the age of twenty-two or thereabouts. In his day, as well through the effect of continual wars, civil and foreign, as through the negligence and idleness of those who conducted business or commanded under his orders as through lack of military order and discipline and the greed and slackness of the men-at-arms the said kingdom was reduced to such a state of devastation that from the Loire to the Seine the peasants had been slain or put to flight. Most of the fields for long remained, over the years, not only uncultivated but without men enough to till them, except for a few odd pieces of land where it was impossible to extend the little that could be cultivated away from the cities, towns and castles owing to the frequent forays of the robbers.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Wars of the Roses by J.R. Lander. Copyright © 2009 J.R. Lander. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface,Introduction,
One The House Of Lancaster,
Two The Fight for the Throne,
Three Edward of York and Warwick the Kingmaker,
Four Peace and Success, 1471–83,
Five Richard III,
Six Henry VII and the Last of the Wars,
Seven The Fortunate Island,
List of Abbreviations,
Sources,
Chronological Table,