Many people may know that the bad ending drama "Game of Thrones" refers to the "War of the Roses" of the 15th century in Britain to a certain extent in terms of power setting. Dog, I also know that I am a steel straight ♂, and Ben is scornful of this hormone-flavored war name. However, recently I plan to write more war history, and in order not to disgust myself in the future, I plan to disgust myself today. So first tell you what happened to this village fight that took place in the island country
In 1422, England welcomed their most mentally handicapped king, Henry VI, and here comes the background. Henry V was a relatively good figure, and the period from 1413 to 1422 was also the highest time when the Hundred Years' War between England and France was fought, and the English army under Henry V beat the French as if in 1940. He even captured Paris before France surrendered, an epic achievement enough for henry's family to blow for a lifetime.
(Photo: Henry V visiting Paris, the landmark behind is Notre Dame Cathedral)
But the occupation of Paris also consumed henry v's good fortune in his life, including his son's luck. In August 1422, he died of diarrhea at the Château de Vincennes, east of Paris. The throne then descended to his 7-month-old son, Henry VI, along with the unfinished Hundred Years' War and a bunch of waste ministers.
Then the bad luck in Britain began. In 1429, a village girl named Joan of Arc claimed to have received the care of the Holy Spirit, and then the English troops who fought along the way threw away their armor. (Sure enough, the French needed to be led by women.... ）
But in 1431, Joan of Arc was captured, and the English were overjoyed and immediately tied her up and roasted. At this time, the French were angry, and it was difficult to stand up once, and as a result, the goddess was burned by the people, of course, she was not happy, and the momentary excitement, the combat effectiveness was bursting, and even in 1436, she single-handedly recovered Paris. By 1453, all the land that the British had occupied in France had been lost, and they had rolled back to the island.
Well, this background narrative alone seems to have taken up all the space, and then goes on to talk about the situation in the British mainland at that time. After the end of the Hundred Years' War, Henry VI and his staff were scolded from top to bottom in England. I felt that the pot that had lost so many territories had to blame this feeble-minded king, and this scolding was of course no problem, because Henry VI himself was a weak and ignorant lord of the government, and when he learned that the overseas territories were lost, he simply had a direct neurotic attack, which left a huge power vacuum.
(Pictured: Henry VI, known historically as mad king Mad King)
At that time, there were two branches of the English Plantagenet Dynasty, one was the Lancastrian family, and Henry VI was his family. The other was the York family, led by Charles, then Duke of York. According to the order of the time, if Henry VI could not control the government and did not have a direct heir who could administer the country (Henry VI's son was just a full moon at that time... The Duke of York should have served as regent first. It is logical that after the Duke of York became regent, he gained great power, and Henry VI's Queen Margaret could not participate in politics as a female stream, but she married into the Lancastrian family after all, and during the Duke of York's reign, the two families represented by them, Lancaster and York, on both sides, began a boring and boring English palace fight drama at the London court. For no other reason than that, the Duke of York wanted to replace Henry, while Margaret wanted to uphold Henry VI's orthodoxy and wait for her son to grow up and succeed to the throne.
On Christmas Day 1454, Henry VI, who had cerebral palsy, finally cleared his mind, and Margaret watched the mentally handicapped husband burst into tears. It is estimated that half of this tear is that he feels that he can finally justifiably drive away The Regent, and on the other hand, he feels that after marrying this mental retardation, this life is really too difficult...
After Henry VI woke up, he undoubtedly cut the rights of the Duke of York, after all, Europe at that time paid great attention to the divine right of kings, especially concerned about the legitimacy of blood. The Duke of York saw that the text did not work, so he simply came to wu, so he returned to his territory and began to pull the banner of the true king of England and gather troops to rebel. (After all, it actually has a certain legitimacy of blood), that is, from this point on, the thirty-year-long War of the Roses officially began.
The reason why it is called the Rose War is because the family crests of the Lancastrian and York houses are the red rose and the white rose, and the rose war is essentially the story of the two large families of the Plantagenet Dynasty fighting for the throne.
The reason why I want to start with the seemingly boring story of the Beginning of the Wars of the Roses today is mainly to pave the way for the history of European warfare, which is a good node to carry on from top to bottom. In the next article, the dog describes the more boring rose war.