The Family War for the British Monarchy
The Wars of the Roses raged for 32 years from 1455 to 1487. They began when Richard, Duke of York, supported by the powerful Neville family, tried to seize the crown from his cousin, the feeble and mentally incapacitated King Henry VI. However, the attempt failed. The Duke of York was slain in battle along with his ally Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury and father of Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick. The feud then passed on to the next generation of Yorkists, led by Warwick and the Duke of York’s son, Edward. Warwick was instrumental in securing victory for the Yorkists, who crushed the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton in 1461. Henry VI was deposed and imprisoned, and his place was taken by the slain Duke of York’s son, who was crowned as King Edward IV.
Edward was a great warrior, but was uninterested in government. So Warwick governed the realm on his behalf. It did not end well, and led to yet another twist in the family feud. The relationship between the monarch and his chief lieutenant soured when Edward impulsively married a commoner. That ruined years of negotiations by Warwick for a treaty between England and France, which would have been sealed by Edward’s marriage to a French princess. Things came to a head in 1470 when Warwick, aided by King Edward’s younger brother, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence – who had married Warwick’s daughter and thus became his son-in-law – deposed Edward.