The Wars of the Roses, the Kingmaker, And Deadly Brotherly Rivalry
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (1428 – 1471), was one of the most powerful nobleman of his era, and a capable military commander during the Wars of the Roses between the Yorkist and Lancastrian branches of the Plantagenet family. He began the conflict on the Yorkist side, but then switched his support to the Lancastrians, and his role in deposing two kings earned him the epithet “Warwick the Kingmaker”.
The Wars of the Roses began when Richard, Duke of York, supported by the Nevilles, attempted to seize the crown from his cousin, the mentally incapacitated king Henry VI. However, the Duke of York and Warwick’s father were slain in battle, and the struggle passed on to the next generation of Yorkists, including 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, now crowned as Edward IV. The new king was a great warrior, but was uninterested in government, so Warwick governed the realm on his behalf.
The relationship soured because of Edward’s impulsive marriage to a commoner. That ruined years of painstaking negotiations by Warwick for a treaty between England and France, which was to 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, First Duke of Clarence – who had married Warwick’s daughter and thus became his son-in-law – deposed Edward. The Yorkist king was forced to flee England, while the deposed Lancastrian Henry VI was released from imprisonment, dusted off, and restored to the English throne.
Warwick’s triumph was short lived, however: Edward returned to England in 1471, and raised a counter rebellion. At a critical moment, Warwick was betrayed by his son in law, George, Duke of Clarence, who had a change of heart and defected back to his brother, Edward. The two sides met in the Battle of Barnet in April of 1471, a Lancastrian defeat in which the Kingmaker was killed.
Another and final Yorkist victory at the Battle of Tewkesbury the following month confirmed Edward IV’s restoration to the throne. The unfortunate Henry VI was quietly murdered to eliminate the possibility of further trouble from Lancastrian loyalists. And to be thorough, Henry VI’s only son, the teenaged Henry of Lancaster, was also killed.
As to the wishy-washy George, Duke of Clarence, he continued to demonstrate his ingratitude to his elder brother. Understandably, that irked Edward IV, who had made his younger brother a duke in the first place, then made him Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at age of 13, only to see his generosity get repaid with multiple conspiracies. When the Duke of Clarence was caught conspiring once again, an exasperated Edward finally had enough.
The king imprisoned his younger brother in the Tower of London, and tried him for treason, personally conducting the prosecution before Parliament. George was convicted, attainted, and sentenced to death. On February 18th, 1478, the Duke of Clarence was executed by getting dunked into a big barrel of Malmsey wine, and forcibly held under until he was drowned.