Regarding Britain's Wars of the Roses, foreign historians were once an integral part of the "Story of the British Island Nation", sandwiched between the mud and disease of the "humble Middle Ages" and the blood and fire of the "terrible Tudor Dynasty".
The Wars of the Roses lasted for decades, and medieval England seemed to be in the "Dark Age", and the ubiquitous bloodshed and strife were hard to understand that it was called the "Rose".
How did the mysterious War of the Roses of England take place and what did it bring to medieval Britain? Why would historians name war after the romantic and gentle "rose"?
The cause of the outbreak of war
The "Wars of the Roses" was first proposed by the foreign philosopher of history, Walsh, and it is actually a term used by historians to understand and rank a series of intricate events in history, mainly referring to the history of the Period from the Middle Ages from 1453 AD to 1485 AD, between the Lancaster and York families within the English royal family, in order to gain absolute dominance in the ruling class and seize the Throne of England.
The reason for the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses dates back to England in 1399. On 30 September 1399, Bishop St. Assaf charged him with his crimes in Parliament because of his tyranny during the reign of King Richard II, and Richard II himself confessed.
It also meant that King Richard II was disqualified from governing. Just as King Richard II was being accused of his crimes one by one, Henry of Boleynbrook of the Lancaster family appeared, claiming to be of Henry III's blood and inheriting the vacant throne as a way to save the country.
The appearance of Henry of Boleynbrook seemed to give hope to the English people from the failed reign of Richard II, and the Earl of Northumberland and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of England seemed to have changed, and the decision was given to the members of Parliament, and finally the members of Parliament supported it.
Thus, Henry IV, from the Lancaster family, ascended to the throne of the king with the support of the people and the approval of parliament.
The birth of the Lancaster dynasty had legitimacy, but during the first decade of Henry IV's reign, he was at a disadvantage as king, and even his royal power was in a state of instability due to the question of its legitimacy. As soon as Henry IV ascended the throne, he broke his promise to demand taxes from Parliament, causing contradictions between the royal family and Parliament.
From 1400 onwards, Henry won continued support by granting large amounts of land and money to the nobles, an act that greatly discontented the House.
As a result, Henry IV's reign did not go very well, fraught with disputes between the king and the parliament. It was not until Henry V came to power that the lancaster dynasty's plight was ameliorated and he became "england's greatest monarch" through a series of policies.
Henry V died prematurely in August 1422, and his son Henry VI was only nine months old to secure the Lancaster dynasty's dream of a two-state monarchy.
During the period of Henry VI's adult life, the fundamental problem of the Lancaster dynasty's reign was exposed, namely that the development of the dynasty depended too much on the ability of the monarch rather than on its political system.
Henry VI assumed national sovereignty as an adult, but it seems that he was not in office. In the Anglo-French War, Henry VI's willful behavior eventually led to the defeat of the Anglo-French War, and the Lancaster dynasty was also in chaos. At the same time, this has also caused a lot of negative impact.
Henry VI's inaction caused resentment among many English nobles and regarded Britain's surrender to France in 1453 as a disgrace. By 1449, the people and nobles had lost faith in Henry VI's ability to govern, Normandy was about to fall, and civil unrest was in turmoil. It can be said that the 50 years of the Lancaster dynasty after 1399 laid the fuse for the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses.
Then, in the five years after 1449, a series of complex political events brought the situation in England to the point where civil war was inevitable.
In November 1449, the fall of Rouen once again led to a fierce opposition to the Lancaster regime due to the defeat in France, which in turn fundamentally shook the foundations of Lancaster's rule.
Moreover, the political hostility between the Dukes of Somerset and the Dukes of York expanded, involving national politics in the struggle between the two families of power.
In the summer of 1450, the people of Kent, Essex and Wilt rose up, and society fell into turmoil, and the various forces in England who wanted to usurp power and usurp the throne began to stir.
On 22 May 1455, Richard, Duke of York, and his ally Neville brothers, the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, launched an attack on the supporting Lancasters.
The Duke of York ignored the royal power and directly used military force against Henry VI, intensifying the struggle between the two sides and setting a precedent in English history for armed violence against the monarch.
After the end of this armed conflict, the Duke of Somerset, who supported the Lancaster dynasty, was killed, as well as many of the neville brothers' political enemies, thus opening the prelude to the Wars of the Roses.
The unprecedented intensification of the contradictions between the two families has forced more and more people in the political family to make their own political choices between the Lancasters and the Yorks, and infighting has begun.
Fierce internal battles after internal battles
At first, the Duke of York and his allies did not go very well, with only one victory at the Battle of Northampton in July 1460.
Affected by this victory, the Duke of York was more enthusiastic about seizing the throne. Unfortunately, in December of that year, the Duke of York was accidentally killed at the Battle of Wakefield. The death of the Duke of York propelled his eldest son, Edward, to the forefront of the struggle and became the focus of the world's attention.
Edward lived up to expectations, showing talent and qualities superior to that of his father.
In the spring of 1461, Edward ascended the throne as Edward IV. At the end of the same month, Edward IV defended the throne with victory at the Battle of Tauton. Over the next three years, Edward further consolidated his throne in the face of resistance from the Lancasters.
In May 1464, the Lancasters were finally defeated, and in the course of the military struggle between the two sides, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, became a major vassal with military success. Edward IV's victory did not put an end to the struggle, but sowed the seeds of a new round of turmoil and war.
The end of the Lancaster resistance in the north and the capture of Henry VI, who was on the run in July 1465, were supposed to bring peace and stability to the entire kingdom.
Although the dissident Lancasters still plotted rebellions at home and abroad, they lacked the resources necessary to challenge Edward IV's dominance.
Unlike Henry VI, Edward IV was not weak in his personal character or in his rules, but his royal authority was limited by the political culture and governing apparatus he himself controlled.
Throughout the 1660s, the public power of the king went hand in hand with the private power of the Earl of Warwick and his relatives, the Neville brothers, and the king's arbitrariness challenged and damaged the power of the Earl of Warwick, which became the root cause of the rekindling of the fire of civil war in 1469. In 1469, the Earl of Warwick promoted a rebellion and revolt in Yorkshire.
Most seriously, Sir Neville, who supported the Lancaster family, rebelled in the north of England. By the spring of 1470, Edward IV was finally determined to weaken the power of the Earl of Warwick and suppress the rebellious dukes and nobles. Unexpectedly, the rebellious Count received assistance from King Louis XIV of France in France.
The Earl of Warwick regrouped and launched an uprising in the north of England, expressing his obedience to henry VI, who had previously been captured, and then entered London, where he was supported by the English people.
At the same time, the Earl of Warwick deposed Edward IV and re-established Henry VI, who had been abandoned for incompetence. In 1971, Edward IV defeated the Lankester army, and after the successful restoration, he moved into the capital and ordered henry VI to be executed.
In May 1471, Edward IV was finally able to look to the future with great ambition. His right to succeed to the throne has been proven on the battlefield, while the contenders for the throne, Henry VI of the House of Lancaster and edward, later Prince of Wales, have died, as have his main political rivals in the 1660s, the Earl of Warwick. However, in less than 15 years, the Yorkist dynasty came to an end.
Edward IV was a powerful king, and in his later reign the Lancasters seemed to no longer rebel and England remained at peace.
In 1483, after the death of Edward IV, his two sons were assassinated by their uncle Richard III. Subsequently, Richard III usurped the throne and became king, the last king of the House of York. Richard III was brutal and provoked resistance from all walks of life.
Henry Tudor from the Lancaster family overthrew the tyranny of Richard III, once again pushing the Lancasters to the pinnacle of power. In 1485, Henry Tudor killed Richard III at the Battle of Bursworth and was crowned King Henry VII, subsequently inaugurating the great Tudor lineage.
Henry Tudor established a marriage with Elizabeth of the House of York and spent 10 years or more extinguishing the embers of the Wars of the Roses.
On a smaller scale, Richard, Duke of York, had no immediate male heirs, while on a larger scale, the entire Yorkist clique fell apart, with his closest vassals to Edward IV beginning to take allegiance to a new king, Henry Tudor. The new king was only a generalist among the exiled Lancasters in 1471.
This dramatic reversal of the fate of the House of York occurred in a very short period of time, from the death of Edward IV on 9 April 1483 to the victory of Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485, a period of just over two years.
This period witnessed the usurpation of and possible murder of a legitimate king, the resurgence of aristocratic rebellions, the direct or potentially decisive interference of foreign monarchs in england's internal affairs, and the death of an English king on the battlefield, until finally, the curtain of the Wars of the Roses was brought down by Henry VII.
The origin of the Wars of the Roses
The long bloody struggle between the York and Lancaster families is called the Wars of the Roses because of certain historical factors. The white rose is one of the coats of arms or decorative motifs used by the House of York.
Similarly, the red rose was one of the coats of arms used by the Duke, which was later also used by the Lancaster family. Henry Tudor also used the red rose as his symbol after his great victory.
In medieval England, the rose has become a symbol of the ancient royal coat of arms. An English historian once wrote that in tudor's victory "the fangs of the wild boar were no longer sharp (referring to Richard III), and the red rose (Henry Tudor) served as the white avenger (the son of Edward IV was murdered)".
In less than a year, Henry VII added the white roses of the House of York to the red roses of the House of Lancaster. This fusion of coats of arms with red and white roses was commonly used to decorate royal palaces. Because of this, historians at the end of the 15th century represented the long struggle between the two families in red and white roses.
The marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth made the red and white roses intertwined, and also represented the end of the struggle between the two families and their integration. After Henry VII became king, the bloody civil war ended, and Henry VIII strengthened the fusion of these two factions after he ascended the throne, and the union of the two families of Lancaster and York was the general trend, which lasted for nearly five hundred years.
The historical impact of the Wars of the Roses
The bloodshed and turmoil of the Wars of the Roses brought down many tyrannical feudal lords and made the English populace and dukes and nobles yearn for a strong and stable government.
This substantial social transformation greatly contributed to the development of the British dictatorship. Because of this, the tudor monarchs who came after them knew how to make themselves a veritable monarch in fact.
At the same time, the Wars of the Roses had a huge impact and impact on all aspects of English society. Especially between 1459 and 1461, and also between 1469 and 1471, the war itself had great needs in terms of personnel, funds, and bloody sacrifices, which were the same as the royal needs of foreign wars.
Compared with 1471, there were fewer nobles, gentlemen, villagers, and townspeople who participated in the war in 1485 than in 1461. The war shaped the attitude of the nobility towards its own role in government and the relationship between the aristocracy and the royal family.
The war also contributed to the formation of social and political relations within English towns. Of course, there are not thousands of families in England who have suffered the effects of death and physical disability from the Civil War.
Moreover, the civil war that broke out in England in the second half of the 15th century dominated all aspects of politics and society at the time. Dynastic changes, popular participation in the war, and upheavals at the level of political insurrection led to a transformation of the kingdom in terms of its way of governing, its patterns of political behavior, and its language.
The extent to which the various components of the English polity are involved in the political process has also undergone tremendous and long-lasting changes.
epilogue
In the English Middle Ages, the Lancaster family seized the throne, which made the essence of the royal power and the royal power constrained, and also provided the necessary preconditions for the outbreak of the War of the Roses.
The struggle between the Lancasters and the Yorkists lasted for several decades, during which they experienced fierce battles that directly led to frequent changes in the ruling class of England, until Henry VII ascended to the throne in 1471, ending the struggle between the two families, spreading the red and white roses insignia all over the palace, and pushing England onto the road of absolute monarchy.