10. The Fall of the Yorkists and Restoration of the Lancastrians
The relationship between King Edward IV and his chief lieutenant Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, soured when Edward impulsively married a commoner. That ruined years of painstaking 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.
The Yorkist king was forced to flee England, while the deposed Lancastrian King 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 on April 14, 1471, in which the Lancastrians were defeated and the Kingmaker was killed.