Lancaster vs. York- The Wars of the Roses PDF

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Lancaster vs. York- The Wars of the Roses...

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Lancaster vs. York: The Wars of the Roses- a User´s Guide Richard II was the little son of the Black Prince, he became king when he was still only a baby, so his uncle, John of Gaunt, ran the Kingdom. Richard the II is one of the last kings who is known to be more French than English, his nobles instead, seemed more English than French. His nobles don´t like some of his French ideas. Whit that came some problems, the nobles forced Richard to execute his chancellor, and Richard started to arrest and execute the nobles. When John Gaunt came back of his campaigning from Spain, he managed to calm things down, but he died soon because he was sick. Basically, each side thought the other was trying to get rid of all it held. Richard thought the nobles want to take away his power as a king and the nobles thought the king wants to destroy the nobles od England as a class. Then Richard banished two leading nobles, the Duke of Norfolk and John of Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster. and confiscated all Bolingbroke's estates. After that, the nobles were alarmed because they saw that he can do that any of them. When Richard was in Ireland, Henry Bolingbroke fled and wanted his land back, but he actually wants the throne. When Richard came back, Henry was already King Henry, he had Richard put in chains. Within months, Richard was dead - almost certainly murdered. This death was a tragedy in many ways. But lor the English, the tragedy was just beginning. House of Lancaster: Henrys lV, V, and VI Nobody knew if Henry had any right to the throne, he was Edward Ill´s grandson but he had may others as well. When we think about that Henry could seize the throne just because he did not like the current king, what was to stop anyone else from doing the same? And of course, some tried that. The Percys: Henry Percy and his son Herry ´Hotspur´ were fresh from crushing the Scots, so they were big foes to Henry IV. Henry and his son Prince Henry defeated the Percys and killed them both in battle. Owain Glyn Dw`r: Orwain came very close to turning the English out of Wales. A full-scale military campaign, as well as lots of bribery, were necessary for Henry to re-establish English control. No one knows what happened to Owain. Henry VI was unlike his predeces-sors, he was very religious and shy. He married a Frenchwomen which made him even more timid. The in-fighting at court got even worse, with everyone blaming each other lor the disasters in France. It went so far until the king went mad. Henry VI certainly seems to have lost his reason. He had no idea who he or anyone else was. House of York: Edwards IV and V and Richard III Henry VI´s thought that a Regency is the obvious solution, but there is a point that needed to be considered. If you could get rid of Edward ll and Richard II because you didn't think they ruled very well, what should you do with a king who couldn't rule at all? At that point, the Throne Duke of York began to take an interest. He wanted to take over from Henry VI. Guns ´n´Roses The wars were the tragedy for England. Round 1: 1455-1460 War The Duke of York won the Battle of St Albans against King Henry VI. In 1460, the duke claimed the throne for himself. Henry VI`s wife, Queen Margaret, got an army together and cut the duke off at Wakefield. Advantage: Lancaster. Round 2: 1461 Revenge

He knew Duke of York beat Queen Margaret´s men at Towton and forced Henry VI and his family to flee to Scotland. The Duke was crowned King Edward IV. Advantage: York.

Round 3: 1462.1470 Yorkists split and people change sides! Edward IV should marry a French princess, but Edward, married and Englishwomen called Elizabeth Woodville behind Warwick´s back. Warwick and Queen Margaret changed sides and Edward´s brother George too. The Lancastrians declared Henry VI the true king. Edward IV had to run for his life. Warwick became known as ´the Kingsmaker´. Advantage: Lancaster. Round 4: 1471 Edward´s revenge! Edward IV got Duke of Burgundy on his side and killed Warwick and the Prince of Wales and he beat Queen Margaret. He sent Henry VI to the Tower where he died. Game, set and match to York. Edward IV reigned 12 years, from 1471-1483 and he was able to bring a bit of stability to the country. Richard, the brother of Edward IV made sure he, and no other was the protector of Edward´s son. After Edward IV died, Richard put the young king and his brother in the Tower of London and no one has ever heard something of them again. Then Richard staged a coup and declared himself as King Richard III Round 5: 1485 The Lancastrians come back! Henry Tudor, a distant relative claimed the throne. Richard III dashed off to fight Henry, but Henry beat him at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry Tudor became King Henry VII. Henry Tudor seized the throne by force and there were many others who wants to do the same thing. The Scots and the French had an ´auls alliance ´, which meant that they would help each other fight the English. Princes and Pretenders England in 1483 was still getting over the great civil war between the Houses of York and Lancaster that nowadays we call the Wars of the Roses. Richard III / tricky Dicky Why is there still so much fuss about him? Richard, Duke of Gloucester was the younger brother of King Edward IV. Edward asked Richard to look after his two sons after he dies. To keep them safe, he put them into the Tower of London. The Parliament found out that King Edward IV, had not in fact been properly married and so they gave the throne to Richard, who was then crowned to King Richard III. The two brothers were never seen alive again. Shakespeare wrote about Richard III, he showed him as an evil hunchbacked murderer. Many other historians see Richard III in a much more positive way, as a good king and a good soldier. The question now is: did he murdered the princes? We will never know. In 1485 Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, landed with an army at Milford Haven in Wales and challenged Richard for the crown.

Henry Tudor Because Henry was Welsh, the Welsh supported him, the Stanley family changed sides and supported Henry as well. Richard was killed in the fight and so Henry was now King Henry VII. There were many people who had a better claim to the throne than Henry, for example Edward IV´s daughter Elizabeth, so he married her. Now the Yorkists should accept Henry, but they did not. The next claim to the throne lay with Earl of Warwick, the son of Edward IV´s brother George, Duke of Clarence, and in 1487 the Yorkists crowned him king over in Ireland. But Edward VII said that the Earl of Warwick was in the Tower of London. There were a few Pretenders: Pretender NO 1: Lambert Simnel He was a fake claimant, he was a baker´s son from Oxford, the Yorkists wanted him anyway and they put him at the head of the army. Henry had to fight another battle and won; Lambert ended up as a prisoner. Pretender NO 2: Perkin Warbeck

In 1491 came another pretender, he had support from henry´s enemies in France and Burgundy. Henry took him and put him into the Tower. He executed the real Earl of Warwick and Warwick was better to the throne than Henry.

Then came Henry VIII While he was fighting off pretenders, he married his children into the leading ruling houses in Europe and he had good trading agreements with the Netherlands. He gave all the money to his son, who in 1509 became King henry VIII. Bad Ideas of the 16th Century NO 1: Marrying Henry VIII Henry VIII was a good example of the ideal Renaissance prince. Basically, he was good at everything and had everything- except of a son. He wanted to do better than any other King. He needs to find the right wife. Wife NO.1: Katharine of Argon When he came to the throne, Henry was married to Kathrine of Aragon. Her family was the up-coming Kings of Spain. Kathrin was married to Henry´s brother Arthur and when he was dead, she was not allowed to marry his brother, but they got a special dispensation so that they could get married. They both had fights and after that she gave birth to a daughter called Mary. That was not the thing he wantedhe wanted a son! When she got pregnant again, she had two boys, but they died. He thought that was God´s way of punishing him and he wanted to put back the rule of marrying the brother´s wife. So, he searched for the Pope. Henry gets a divorce and a new church Cardinal Wolsey was the chief minister of Henry. He was sent to Rome to talk to the Pope, but he was already been taken as a prisoner by Charles V, how happened to be the nephew of Katharine of Aragon. When Henry heard that, he closed the church and opened his new one. The Church of England. And this Church gave him his divorce.

Wife NO.2: Anne Boleyn Henry was crazy about her. As soon as he got divorced from Katharine, he married Anne in secret, thy got a baby but it was another girl. From that point on, things went downhill for Anne. Anne had enemies, she got arrested and charged whit adultery- with her own brother. Henry sent a special executioner who should cut of her head in one go. Wife NO.3-6 Jane Seymour: Both women before already died when he married Jane, she gave him his wished son, but he was sick, and she died while giving birth. Anne of Cleves: She was a German princess. Henry found her very unattractive, but she was good to link up with the German Protestants, that’s what Thomas Cromwell said. Then the emperor changed his mind about attacking England and so he got married for nothing. After he got a divorce, he was a gentleman and gave her a house and an income, Cromwell´s head was cut off. Catherine Howard: She was a cousin of Anne Boleyn. She was young and he was old, but they got married. She saw he old lover Thomas Culpeper, they met, and Henry found out, he was so upset that he had them both executed.

Catherine Parr: She was the postscript wife, she made England a Protestant country. She was the first queen since Katherine of Aragon to run the country while Henry was away. She passed her ideas onto her stepdaughter Elizabeth. Edward VI, Queen Mary….and Jane Grey? Edward VI was Henry VIII´s son, he was only nine when he came to the throne, he was too young to do any governing so his uncle Jane Seymour´s brother, the Duke of Somerset handled that side of things. The normal people really liked the Duke and called him ´Good Duke´ but he had many enemies at court. 1549 was a very bad year for the Duke, he faced two big rebellions, one in Devon and Cornwall about religion and one in East Anglia against all those enclosures of common land. Two in the same year looked like carelessness, the enemies wanted to kill him, so Somerset grabbed the young king and ran off to Hampton Court. It was too late, he had to come quietly and hand power over to his rival, the Duke of Northumberland. Northumberland wanted to make England more Protestant, but when Edward VI died, Katharine´s daughter Mary become queen. Mary was very Catholic; she wants to get rid of the Protestants like the Duke of Northumberland. He hatched a plot to stop her. He married her son to a sort of Tudor, when Edward VI died 1553 (with only 16) Northumberland moved fast and put Jane the wife of his son on the throne. Mary knew what she was doing so she got rid of Jane, His son and Northumberland. Mary was queen for nine years. Queen Mary put the Protestants to death. King Philip II of Spain, married Mary so he was King of England. Sir Thomas Wyatt led a big rebellion in protest, and he got to London before they stopped him. Spain and France were at war, so Mary joined in and that’s how she lost Calais. Calais had been English since Edward III´s day and losing it was a disaster. Mary thought she was pregnant, but she had stomach cancer.

The Stewarts in a Stew 3 years after Richard III lost his throne at Bosworth, King James III of Scotland lost his throne at the battle of Sauchieburn. Scottish rebels, led by James´s son, found him after the battle and did him in. At James III´s death, his son became King James IV. James IV attacks the English- and loses James IV set up a rich and glittering court. He married Henry VII´s daughter Margaret, he wanted to take the English anyway, in 1513 James marched south into disaster. He ran into an English army led by the Earl of Surrey and Katharine of Aragon. The English took no prisoners, nearly 12,000 scots died that day and James IV was one of them. A new king and another power struggle When James IV was killed, his son James V was the new king. He was only 17 months, so the power of Scotland was up for grabs. The opposing sides were led by: Queen Margaret: She led the pro- English party. She was James IV´s widow and Henry VIII´s sister. The Duke of Albany: He led the anti- English party. He wouldn´t have minded seizing the throne for himself. The battle between them went back and forth. After a lot of Margaret and Albany, James V decided it was time to remind everyone who was king. He escaped and put Earl of Angus under arrest. James V grew up, he was 16 now. James was anti English. James married a French woman called Mary of Gusie. James and Mary became a daughter, also called Mary. When James went to war with England, he died. Bad ideas of the sixteenth century- No 2: Marrying Mary, Queen of Scots

Everyone wanted to marry Mary, henry VIII wanted her for his son Edward. Once Edward was actually on the English throne, the English came back and won yet another Battle of Pinkie, but they still did not get Mary for his king. The Scots put Mary to France for safety reasons. Mary married the Dauphin, the eldest son of the king of France, and the English would just have to get used to it. Mary loved the life in France, but she stood to inherit three thrones: Scotland: obviously France: because she married the heir to the French throne England: because the English were running out of Tudors, and Mary was next line At first, Mary seemed unstoppable: In 1558: Mary married Prince Francis of France In 1559: Francis became King Francis II, Mary became queen of France And then it all started to go wrong: In 1560: Francis II died. No longer queen of France, Mary had to go back to Scotland. Mary hated Scotland, Scotland had become Protestant while she´d been away, she had to keep her religion beliefs private. She married a distant cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. Fist he was a nice man but when their son was born (James) he changed and was a drunken, violent and brute. Mary was really unhappy, but she made herself a friend in the Italian music teacher, Lord Darnley and his friends killed him. Things hotted up: 1. Darnley was lured to Kirk o´ Field House by Mary´s close, er, ´Friend´, Lord Bothwell 2. Kirk o´ Field House blew up! 3. Darnley´s body was found in the garden- strangled- and the chief suspect was Lord Bothwell 4. Mary married Lord Bothwell When the Scottish lords rose up in rebellion, Bothwell fled, and lords took Mary prisoner. When they searched Bothwell´s house, they found a casket full of letters from Mary planning Darnley´s murder. Mary flew but first she did not know where to go, France was too far away, so she decided to go to England and theow herself on the mercy of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth immediately locked her up. First Elizabeth Elizabeth was Anne Boley´s daughter and nobody´s fool. When she became Queen, she needed to see three things straight away: Religion, security, and getting married. Religion: was urgent, Elizabeth and the Parliament set up a not-too-Protestant Church of England. Both Catholics and Protestants could go there. Security: was always a problem, the best way to guard against danger was to have an heir, and that meant that Elizabeth needed to find a husband. Here some options: King Philip of Spain: The English could not stand him. And if Elizabeth would marry him, England would become some sort of Spanish province. A French price: This made political sense. Elizabeth seemed very interested, danced with him and called him frog and kept him hanging on. Until the end, he gave up and went home. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester: Elizabeth really liked him, the problem was, that he was already married. When his wife was found death, he could have never married her, that would have been a scandal. Whoever Elizabeth chose, there´d be trouble. The virgin Queen vs. the not-so-virgin Mary She´d only been on the throne for a few years when she nearly died of smallpox. Her adviser Sir William Cecil was very worried, for a good reason. First there was Mary how was the rightful Queen and second, the major blow that fell in 1570 when Pope excommunicated Elizabeth. Excommunication was the direst punishment the Catholic church could issue. In case of a monarch, like Elizabeth, excommunication could also mean that they had no right to be on the throne, the Catholics were allowed to overthrow her. Catholic plots against Elizabeth The following are Catholics who liked to kill Elizabeth, to get Mary on the throne. Revolt of the Northern Earls, 1569: Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland stage a major rising to resure Mary. Earls flee to Scotland

Ridolfi Plat, 1571: Florentine banker Roberto Ridolfi and the Catholic Duke of Norfolk plan a coup with help from Philip II of Spain and the Pope. Jesuits, 1580: Jesuits missionaries Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion arrive secretly in England and are suspected of plotting against the queen. Campion is arrested and executed, Parsons escapes to Spain Throckmorton plot, 1584: Chatolic Francis Throckmorton arrested and tortured. Reveals plot with Spanish ambassador to murder Elizabeth and stage a French invasion. Throckmorton executed; ambassador sent home. Theses plots are getting more serious. Cecil and Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, decide to play dirty. They read all her letters, especially the secret ones hidden in kegs of ale- which reveal that she is up to her neck in the Babington Plot. The Babington Plot (1586) and the end of Mary Catholic Anthony Babington plotted to murder Elizabeth and Mary agreed to it. Cecil and Walsingham decided to pounce. They had Mary where they wanted her.

Off with her head! Elizabeth would not hear that Mary wanted to kill her. Mary and Elizabeth were queens, when you start putting monarchs on trial and executing them and heaven knows where it will end up. But even Elizabeth could not ignore the Babington Plot. Mary, Queen of Scots went on trial and the court found her guilty. All they needed was a death warrant, and they needed Elizabeth´s signature. Elizabeth did not want so signed the warrant, so her secretary put it under a lot of other papers. Mary´s head was cut off. English sea dogs vs. the Spanish Armada The English started to mess about in boats, there are two reasons for that, the first was the money and the second was the adventure. They could go on a big road or they could just steal from the Spanish. The Spain were sitting on gold and silver mines in the colonies in South America. John Hawkins steal all of it but drake even sailed around the word to find him. Hawkins found a nice lucrative market supplying the Spanish colonies with African slaves. This experience was very useful for the English when Spain decided to turn the tables and attack England. 1588 King Philip II of Spain had enough. England needed to be thought a lesson. Philip put together the largest fleet in history, the Great Armada, and set against England- it was a disaster. Everything went wrong- Philip´s best commander died so he had to put a new one up, the new one suffered from sea sickness and never fought on sea. In 1588 the massive Armada set sail up the Channel in a tight crescent shape that the English could not break. The English prevent the Spanish from landing so the Spanish could not pick up the powerful Spanish army I the Netherlands. The English sent fire ships with floating bombs. Less than half of Philip´s Grand Armada limped back to Spain. The seeds of an empire Henry VII sent John Cabot to the New World to see what he could find, and he found Newfoundland. In 1580´s Sir Walter Raleigh set up a colony in Virginia but did not take off. The English had better luck trading in Russia and the Baltic. In 1600 the queen granted a charter to the East India Company, which went on to lay the foundations for the British Empire ...