Wars of the Roses, The

The, a prolonged struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York, rival claimants for the crown of England. Before actual hostilities broke out the adherents of the Lancastrian faction wore the red rose as a symbol; the partisans of York, the white rose. In Act II, Scene IV, of King Henry VI, Part I, Shakespeare made much of the choice of colors. The period of these wars is given usually as 1447-1485, or between the narrower limits of military activity, 1454-1471.

Both houses were descended from Edward III who left four sons. The line of the elder ran out. The dukes of Lancaster were descendants of John of Gaunt, the third son; the dukes of York, descendants of Edmund, the fourth son. The strife was not quite fraternal, but it lay between cousins of lengthening degree. The Lancastrians had the legal claim as royal inheritances go; the Yorkists, at the opening of the period, held possession, which they regarded as nine points in law. Moreover Richard, Earl of Cambridge, second in the Yorkist line of descendants, had married Anne Mortimer, the last surviving descendant of the second son of Edward III. The Yorkist heir was able therefore to claim descent from the second son and the fourth son of Edward III, but legality had little to do with a strife characterized as the most selfish, bloody, and ruthless since Danish times.

A map of England, colored to represent the territory adhering to the rival houses, is a motley affair. The great estates whose proprietors wore the white rose were intermingled with Lancastrian estates, royal estates which belonged to the party that was in, and estates that preserved neutrality. In general, however, the more powerful nobles of the north sided with Lancaster, while London and towns of the south were for York. Religious issues were made political issues. There appears to have been little sincerity, but Lancaster is credited with the greater willingness to put down heresy. The period is one of confusion to the ordinary reader. It is clarifying to hold in mind that the Henrys, IV, V, and VI, were Lancastrians; and the Edwards, IV and V, and Richard III were Yorkists. The wars actually began in the reign of Henry VI, third of the Lancastrian line. Passing by skirmishes Yorkist victories were won at

The last named battle placed Henry VII, a Tudor, but a Lancastrian on his mother's side, on the throne. He was the heir of the Lancastrian fortunes, and by his marriage with Elizabeth, the legitimate heiress of the house of York, both interests were united and the wars ceased. Well they might cease. Nearly all the male descendants of Edward III had been murdered or slain on the field of battle-the rival houses had all but exterminated each other. The reader need not grieve perhaps for selfish nobles who put their lives in play and lost, but what of 33,000 Englishmen who lay stricken in the snow of Towton field. The rank and file were not volunteers or adventurers. The customs of feudalism required the holders of land, willing or unwilling, to follow their lords to battle or lose their homes. The wars were carried on without an appeal to a vital principle. The American Civil War settled certain important issues which had to be settled and which we were not frank enough, and fearless enough, and fair enough, to settle in any other way. Few Englishmen regret the work done by Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides, but the Wars of the Roses settled no great issue-had no favorable aspect. They carried misery and desolation to English homes. At best we may say strife slew the old nobility, suspended the sittings of Parliament, and opened the way for arbitrary royal authority and the creation of a new nobility subservient to the king. After all, better days came for the English people, but it is difficult to trace improved conditions to Towton and Tewkesbury.

The heroic figure of the wars is Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, "The Kingmaker," who rode at the head of 500 personal followers that required six oxen for breakfast. The way in which he changed sides, ever in the thickest of the fray, may be read in Bulwer's powerful novel, The Last of the Barons. Stevenson's Black Arrow, a tale of the two roses, one of the best boy's books in print, gives pictures of the selfishness, the treason, and withal the heroism, of the times.