Entry taken from the book The Plantagenets
In the entry dedicated to one of the main figures of the Wars of the Roses, the Earl of Warwick Richard Neville, The Kingmaker, we had pointed out the causes and main events of this conflict.
The fundamental year in the development of this dynastic war was 1471. Edward IV, head of the House of York, who the previous year had been forced to leave England and take refuge in the Continent, he returned from exile with the financial support of the Duke of Burgundy. His brother George of Clarence, who had previously betrayed him, left Warwick and returned to Edward. On April 14, 1471, Edward met and defeated Richard Neville at Barnet, who died in battle.
Defeated Warwick, it was necessary to face the representatives of the house of Lancaster. King Henry VI was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, were back in England. The two armies met at Tewkesbury on May 4, 1471. Edward IV was victorious and the Prince of Wales was executed. Only ten days later Henry VI died, more than likely assassinated, in the Tower of London.
Apparently ending the Wars of the Roses with the death of the head of the house of Lancaster and his heir, the country needed a period to settle down and heal its wounds and for that it needed of a king strong and firmly seated on the throne. Eduardo IV seemed the right man to carry out this process and, with the death of Enrique VI and his son, nobody seemed to be in a position to dispute the throne; After returning Margaret of Anjou to France in exchange for an important ransom, only the young Margaret Beaufort remained from the dismembered Lancastrian party, who had married the son of Catherine of Valois, Jasper Tudor, and who was in exile in France with her son. Enrique.
Edward IV was a tall and attractive man, with charisma for his people who glimpsed in him the monarch capable of leading the country after the civil war and the bloody loss of the French possessions. He was accessible to his subjects, educated, educated and concerned with the administration of justice in the kingdom. On the negative side, he highlighted a certain narcissism and his womanizing character, a great gluttony, his fondness for disappearing for long hours together with his closest friends in the taverns of the cities he visited and the traditional mood swings and fits of fury typical of the Plantagenets. .
It must be taken into account that, despite the bloody story of the battles and murders of the Wars of the Roses, which especially affected the noble families, much of the kingdom and of his subjects (as well as the Church) were not affected by the conflict. For this reason, England was prepared to experience a few years of buoyant commercial flourishing and participate in the Renaissance cultural current that dominated Europe, favored by the diffusion that the invention of the printing press entailed.
The royal court was surrounded by the luxury and trappings expected of a King of England and soon found itself filled with children, as Elizabeth Woodville bore the monarch ten children. The two eldest, Eduardo (born 1470) and Ricardo (born 1473) ensured dynastic continuity.
Eduardo announced that he had no intention of bleeding taxed his subjects and kept his word. He was the first king in over two hundred years who left no debts upon his death. He engaged in lucrative business activities. In addition, the financial health of the country was assured by an agreement reached with the King of France. After a failed attempt to attack the continent (which did not go beyond Calais) the French king agreed to pay a generous annual amount to England in exchange for Edward's commitment to forget about any military expedition across the Channel. That didn't stop the king from also extorting the towns that had supported the Lancastrians and Warwick against him in the war (he deprived Coventry and York of their liberties and forced them to pay a huge fine to get them back).
To make up for the disappointment of his brother George of Clarence's betrayal (which the monarch had forgiven but not forgotten), the king had a faithful servant in his other brother, Richard of Gloucester, who had been by his side through all the ups and downs of the Wars of the Roses (from the flight to Holland to the victory at Tekwesbury, where he led a wing of the army), and who competently administered the royal interests in the north of the country and to whom the king granted the position of Great Chamberlain that Warwick once held.
Between the king's two brothers there had been no good relationship since Clarence's betrayal and things got worse when George, who was married to the eldest daughter of the late Earl of Warwick, tried to to prevent his brother Ricardo from marrying his youngest daughter, Anne Neville, claiming that it was up to him to decide the future of his wife's younger sister. He put the girl under her guardianship, hiding her from her brother. The reaction of the Duke of Gloucester was to find out where George had Anne and kidnap her and then ask the king for her hand, which ended up being granted, despite Clarence's angry protests, which reached Parliament.
Finally the continuous slights and problems caused by George of Clarence exhausted the patience of the king, who had never trusted his brother since his alliance with Warwick against him. In 1477, one of George's followers was convicted of practicing necromancy to try to get the king killed. Shortly before, both brothers had returned to face each other; Clarence was widowed and intended to remarry, but Edward IV vetoed both the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy and the sister of the King of Scotland, fearing that her brother would become too powerful.
Edward IV ended up arresting Clarence and putting him on trial in Parliament for treason. Although he was found guilty, the evidence had been few and clearly prepared, so to avoid further trouble, the king ordered George to be assassinated in the Tower of London (according to legend he had him drowned in a wine barrel). This fact was one of those that later cemented the black legend of his other brother, Ricardo, who was accused of personally perpetrating the murder of his brother Jorge.
From 1479, the king tried to resume the old aspirations of the English kings in Scotland and France. In the latter country, however, the King and the Duke of Burgundy signed the Peace of Arras in 1482, which left the monarch with no room for maneuver.
In Scotland the operations were directed by the king's brother, Richard of Gloucester. Edward was no longer the slim young prince who took part in the major battles of the Wars of the Roses. His love of food and drink had taken a toll on his physical condition and he was in no condition to lead a military campaign in the north. In any case, his brother Ricardo had the necessary experience and charisma to take on the task. In 1481 he carried out a first raiding campaign in the country with the intention of launching the great offensive the following year. The aim was to place the Duke of Albany, brother of King James III, on the Scottish throne. Albany had promised to return Berwick to English rule and to renew Scotland's feudal oath of allegiance to England. But, as happened in France and although Richard managed to take Edinburgh, the two Scottish factions resolved their differences and the English campaign came to nothing. Still, Edward named his brother Protector of the Realm and his son the Prince of Wales. This did not please the queen and the large Woodville family, who would have been happy if Gloucester had met the same fate as Clarence.
Edward IV's fondness for the good life soon took its toll and the king died on April 9, 1483. He left behind a twelve-year-old son, a brother at odds with his family and the hazy but living threat of the Lancastrians Margaret Beaufort and her son Henry who, after a failed attempt to invade England in 1475, remained in France awaiting developments.
According to Roy Strong:
«Edward IV saved the country, taking it from absolute disaster to prosperity. Although he led a campaign against France and was forced into a war in Scotland, his instinct was to seek peace. As a result, the monarchy had once again become the guarantor of order and justice in the kingdom and the source of political power. The tragedy that followed his reign made Edward IV one of the great forgotten kings of England ».
Indeed, the death of Edward IV gave way to two very intense years of events, in which events occurred that are still relevant more than five hundred years later and at the end of which the Plantagenet dynasty had been evicted forever from the throne of England, which it had occupied since 1154…. but that's another story.
Image| Author archive.
Fonts| Dan Jones. Plantagenets, the kings that made England Peter Ackroyd. A History of England:Volume I (Foundations)
Roy Strong:A story of Britain
Derek Wilson:The Plantagenets, the kings that made Britain.