Wars of the Roses
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Were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: Lancaster and York. The wars extinguished the male lines of the two branches, leading to the Tudor family inheriting the Lancastrian claim to the throne.
Chronology
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1. First Phase of the Wars of the Roses
The First Battle of St Albans, fought on 22 May 1455 at St Albans, 22 miles (35 km) north of London, traditionally marks the beginning of the Wars of the Roses in England. Richard, Duke of York, and his allies, the Neville earls of Salisbury and Warwick, defeated a royal army commanded by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who was killed. With King Henry VI captured, a subsequent parliament appointed Richard of York Lord Protector.
2. Second Phase of the Wars of the Roses
23 September 1459 - 29 March 1461: After a series of Yorkist victories from January-February 1461, Edward claimed the throne on 4 March 1461, and the last serious Lancastrian resistance ended at the decisive Battle of Towton.
3. Third Phase of the Wars of the Roses
26 July 1469 - 21 may 1471: A new phase of the War of the Roses broke out in 1469 after the Earl of Warwick, the most powerful noble in the country, withdrew his support for Edward and threw it behind the Lancastrian cause. Fortunes changed many times as the Yorkist and Lancastrian forces exchanged victories throughout 1469-70 (and Edward was even captured for a time in 1469). When Edward fled to Flanders in 1470, Henry VI was re-installed as king on 3 October 1470, but his resumption of rule was short-lived, and he was deposed again following the defeat of his forces at the Battle of Tewkesbury, and on 21 May 1471, Edward entered London unopposed, resumed the throne, and probably had Henry killed that same day.
4. Fourth Phase of the Wars of the Roses
October 1483 - 22 August 1485: With all significant Lancastrian leaders now banished or killed, Edward ruled unopposed until his sudden death in 1483. His 12-year-old son reigned for 78 days as Edward V. He was then deposed by his uncle, Edward IV's brother Richard, who became Richard III. The accession of Richard III occurred under a cloud of controversy, and shortly after assuming the throne, the wars sparked anew with Buckingham's rebellion, as many die-hard Yorkists abandoned Richard to join Lancastrians. While the rebellions lacked much central coordination, in the chaos the exiled Henry Tudor, son of Henry VI's half-brother Edmund Earl of Richmond, and the leader of the Lancastrian cause returned to the country from exile in Brittany at the head of an army of combined Breton, French and English forces. Richard avoided direct conflict with Henry until the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485. After Richard III was killed and his forces defeated at Bosworth Field, Henry assumed the throne as Henry VII and married Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter and heir of Edward IV, thereby uniting the two claims. The House of Tudor ruled the Kingdom of England until 1603.
