Wars of the Roses: A civil war fought over the throne of England between adherents of the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
<As historical until the death of Edward IV>
Richard III
The restoration of Edward IV in 1471 might have been the end of the Wars of the Roses - indeed, peace was restored for the remainder of Edward's reign - but when he died suddenly in 1483, political and dynastic turmoil erupted again. Under Edward IV, factions had developed between the Queen's Woodville relatives and others who resented their new-found status at court, seeing them as power-hungry upstarts and parvenus. At the time of Edward's death, his heir, Edward V, was only 12 years old, placing the Woodvilles in a position to influence the young king's future government. This was too much for the anti-Woodville faction to handle, and in the struggle for the protectorship of the young king and control of the council, Edward's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who had been named by Edward IV on his deathbed as Protector of England, became the de facto leader of the anti-Woodville faction.
Richard eventually managed to capture Edward V from the Woodvilles and imprisoned him, along with his younger brother, in the Tower of London. After securing the boys, he alleged that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been illegal, making the two boys illegitimate. Parliament agreed and officially named Gloucester as King Richard III.
The Yorkists Splinter
When Richard took the throne he was in a difficult position. Not only had he upset the Woodvilles and their allies when he took power, but he was also a Yorkist without an heir. Although he managed to contain the situation for a time, the situation degraded when Edward V and his brother were smuggled out of the Tower of London in 1485, giving political opponents of Richard something to rally behind.
The civil war started slowly, with areas silently giving their allegience to Edward by subverting Richard's rule. This continued until Richard began to get paranoid and struck out at the nobility, demanding taxes be paid in full, often when they already had been, and occasionally attempting to revoke titles when he thought he was being conspired against. Open warfare erupted in 1492, when Edward sent an army to revoke the Duke of Norfolk's titles, which Richard had previousally granted as a gift for supporting him in 1483.
Lancaster Revival
Meanwhile, Lancastrian hopes were centered on Henry Tudor, whose father, Edmund Tudor, had been an illegitimate half-brother of Henry VI. Henry's claim to the throne was precarious at best, but the Lancasterians rallied behind the charasmatic figure regardless, offering him what they could while still attempting to affect the outcome between the Yorkist candidates. As Lancaster power in England was weak at the time, Henry took a gamble and landed his armies in Calais in 1492, taking advantage of
Victor I's devastating victory over France to secure a "European base" from which to continue the Wars of the Roses. Brittany also participated in this attack, albeit not intentionally, and Victor I, having no desire for France to recuperate or England's internal struggles to end, captured the lands south of Paris, saving Henry from any French counterattack. Henry managed to secure an alliance with Brittany, offering most of his newly acquired French possessions in exchange for assistance in Henry's attempts to claim England from the severely weakened Yorkists.
The Roses Revisited
A Lancastrian invasion force, mostly consisting of mercenaries, landed in Southern England in 1494, escorted by Breton ships. The Yorkists were still fighting with the tide slowly turning against Richard III, but Richard's forces were completely shattered when Henry Tudor's forces took London, killing Richard in the battle. Many of Richard's traditionally Yorkist supporters, fearing retribution should Edward V win, supported Henry in the ensuing war, the remainder going to Edward and hoping for leniancy, and much of Edward's own Lancastrian forces defected as well.
The ensuing war lasted for several years, with the support Henry had gained by Richard's supports dropping over time. Although it looked for a time like a stalemate would be reached, there was no question of the outcome after Brittany invaded Henry's French possessions in late 1503, an opportunistic strike by Adolph I of Victoria thwarting any plans to retake the area. With the loss of his European base of operations, which he had relied upon heavily for soldiers and income, Henry's forces began to dwindle, until he was defeated and hung after the Battle of Surrey. With no Lancastrian candidate readily available and the swift penalties handed out by Edward V to any who would claim it, the Wars of the Roses, excepting a few brief respites, had finally ended.
