La Guerre des deux Roses, 1483-1485

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further to the Hundred Years’ War, many wars broke out between the wealthiest families. The Wars of the Roses took place from 1455 till 1485 in England, it brought into conflict the York family and the Lancaster family.

She was practically ended in 1471 but she began again at the death of Henry VI, king of England representing the Lancaster dynasty. He became mad, and duke Richard of York insured a kind of support during his moments of weakness.

After a pitiless war to get back the throne in Lancashire, the Yorks triumphed at Tewkesbury in May 1471. It was in June 1483 that Parliament gives its agreement so that Richard of Gloucester becomes King Richard III, representing the York dynasty.

The new king quickly becomes unpopular, he is accused of the murder of his nephews. One of his cousins, Henri Tudor, belonging to the Lancaster House by his maternal ancestry appears and presents himself as his rival and claims the crown.

The Tudors family was a royal dynasty of Europe who ruled England in the late fifteenth century until the sixteenth century, when the Tudor family died out, because Elizabeth Tudor had no children, the English crown returned in 1603 to James Stuart, king of Scotland.

Henry Tudor took advantage of the short reign of Richard III (1483-1485) to denounce the abuses and crimes of Richard what drives the Yorks off of the power. He affirms the defeat of the Yorks thanks to his victory at the battle of Bosworth, in August 1485.

By marrying Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV (York dynasty), Henry Tudor, proclaimed king under the name of Henry VII, reconciles the two roses. The English nobility went out ruined by this war, which allowed the new king to lay the foundations of an absolute monarchy. The War of the Roses marks the end of the Plantagenet dynasty which reigned from 1154 to 1485 and the etablishment of the Tudor dynasty.

The war mainly affected the noble families who participated in the fighting and who lost a large part of their members. The nobility, partly ruined by its military effort, is not capable anymore of opposing the king. The nobles don’t have the right anymore to arm and maintain armies of partisans. They cannot either make war on one another or make war on the king. The British bourgeoisie supports the new king, they need peace to carry out their commercial affairs, in order to sell their production they will also develop their merchant navy.