York Guides

A Struggle for Power

THE Wars of the Roses were not fought for any high principles. They were a struggle for power between two branches of the royal house, the descendants of Edward III's third son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and those of his fourth son, Edmund, Duke of York. The names "Lancaster" and "York" refer to the titles of the rival contestants and have little to do with the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. In fact, the Lancastrians were predominant in Yorkshire, and the Yorkists drew most of their support from the Midlands.

The scene of the plucking of the roses, dramatised by Shakespeare, is pure fiction. The red rose was the personal badge or emblem of the Dukes of Lancaster, and the white rose the emblem of the Dukes of York. It was only later that they were adopted as county emblems. Fighting went on intermittently between 1455 and 1485. It was a war fought by the great men of the land with their private armies. The ordinary people took little part. While on the surface it was a time of violence and confusion, the deep continuing thread of English life went on.

The roots of the struggle went back to events in Yorkshire at the turn of the century. John of Gaunt's son, Henry of Lancaster, fell into disfavour with his cousin, King Richard II, and was sent into exile. In 1399, he landed at Ravenspur, at the mouth of the Humber, seized the king, who was then in Yorkshire, threw him into Pontefract Castle, where he was murdered, and became king as Henry IV.

At the time, there was no challenge from other claimants. Edward III's second son left only a daughter and though no queen had reigned in her own right, English law did not rule out the possibility of inheritance through females. Her grand-daughter married the Duke of York, whose grandfather was Edward's fourth son, and thus linked a potential claim to the throne with the title and great estates of York.

If the Lancastrian kings had given the country a long period of good government their right would probably never have been challenged. Henry IV was strong. His son Henry V, the victor of Agincourt and conqueror of a large part of France, was popular. His son Henry VI succeeded as a child and when he grew up proved quite incompetent to rule.

The greatest danger to the Crown was the concentration of power in the hands of a few mighty family groups. It was the age of the political marriage, entered into purely to promote family interests, and without the slightest consideration for the feelings of the parties concerned, who were often mere children. Noble families would form "alliances" by marriage. There was fierce competition for the hands of important heiresses. Younger sons and daughters were bestowed on families of lesser standing, who were thus drawn within the orbit of the greater.

The power of the great landowners rested on their for-tified strongholds. From the simple Norman keep, the castle had developed into a complex system of fortifications. Yorkshire is rich in such remains; - York Castle, a curious quatre-foil on a huge artificial mound; Richmond, with its great square keep on the circumference of ramparts crowning a precipitous cliff overlooking the Swale. At Conisbrough, the buttressed keep is still impressive, though the wall and towers surmounting a high natural mound have disappeared. Pontefract was even stronger - a huge keep surrounded by a double line of walls and towers, built on a rocky outcrop which was almost impregnable in itself.

The need for such massive structures was passing. Middleham and Spofforth have no advantages of site. They were intended as homes as well as strongholds, and the need for security was overshadowed by the impulse for display. It was an age of pride and magnificence. The great nobleman proclaimed his rank and lineage by his coat-of-arms. He surrounded himself by a huge household of retainers. Not all were fighting men. There were ladies and gentlemen in attendance, chaplains and clerks, grooms and huntsmen, and a staff of domestic servants. The castle became a little court and the administrative centre of his lands. Gloomy halls were turned into state apartments; stables and offices were built within the circuit of walls. The great man's retainers wore his "livery", a badge or emblem, like the roses of York and Lancaster, often adapted from his coat-of-arms. It emphasised their obligations to him, and would distinguish them as "his" men in war.

His influence extended over the local gentry and lesser landowners by a looser bond known as maintenance. It was a contract for years or for life, in which the client undertook to serve his lord "in peace or war", in return for the great man's promise to "maintain" him against all others, usually in courts of law. Maintenance led to many abuses. A jury, even a judge, would hesitate to convict a wrongdoer who was powerfully "friended", and much crime and disorder went unpunished. Thus the "over-mighty subject" threatened to undermine the loyalty owed by the subject to his king.

In Yorkshire, two families, the Percies and the Nevilles, stood out above all others. Both had originally been Border magnates, entrusted with the defence of the frontier against the Scots, and had extended their influence into Yorkshire, mainly by shrewd marriages. The Percies, whose head was the earl of Northumberland, were a great fighting stock. Their power rested on a chain of strongholds, of which Alnwick was chief. In Yorkshire, they had vast estates, especially in the East Riding, where the magnificent Percy tomb in Beverley Minster commemorates one of the family. Their castles of Wressell, Leconfield and Spofforth were better adapted to stately living than their grim Border strongholds. They were allied by marriage to important families such as Clifford, Roos, Dacre, Mowbray and Scrope.

Yorkshire, richer and more populous than the wild Borderlands, was a base and recruiting ground for the Scottish wars. Many of their tenants were "retained" at a fee to turn out well-armed and well-horsed when called on. "Thousands for a Percy" was no vain boast. The lesser gentry were proud to follow their interests and serve as their officials. At first they opposed the Lancastrian seizure of the crown and the earl and his son Harry Hotspur paid for rebellion with their lives. But the Percies were too powerful, and too valuable as defenders of the Border, to be overthrown. They were left in possession of all their rights, and were reconciled to Lancastrian rule.

The Nevilles were a powerful and prolific clan, who held a position similar to the Percies on the Western Borders. From their strongholds at Brancepeth and Raby, they had pressed down into Yorkshire, inheriting great estates and the castles of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton. Ralph Neville of Raby, first earl of Westmorland had nine children by his first wife and fourteen by his second, Joan Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt and step-sister of Henry IV. Countess Joan was a forceful lady, who saw that her own children were favoured above the elder line. She persuaded her husband to leave his Yorkshire lands and the castles of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton to her eldest son, Richard.

Richard acquired the title of earl of Salisbury and estates in the south by marriage to the heiress of the Montagues. His brothers' and sisters' marriages spread Neville influence into Cleveland and the Sheffield areas, and far outside Yorkshire. Not unnaturally the impoverished elder line, which kept little but the title, became jealous, and could be counted on to take the opposite side.

A still more brilliant alliance was to come. In 1423, earl Ralph paid £2,000 to the Crown to have the guardianship and marriage of young Duke of York, whose father had been killed at Agincourt. He was brought up at Middleham and married Joan's fourteenth and youngest child Cecily, known for her beauty as the "Rose of Raby". The earl of Salisbury's eldest son, another Richard, who was a few years younger than Richard of York, married the heiress of the Beauchamps, who brought him the title of earl of Warwick and great estates in the Midlands. Thus the Nevilles became one of the most powerful family groups in the kingdom, allied by marriage to the Yorkist branch of the royal line.

Under the rule of the incompetent Henry VI, the country drifted into deep disorder. By 1453, the English were driven out of France. Old soldiers returned, ready to sell their services and used to violence. The jealousy between Nevilles and Percies broke into open conflict. In the same year, the king became intermittently insane. His only son was an infant, and York seemed the obvious regent. He was bitterly opposed by the strongminded queen, Margaret of Anjou, and the Lancastrian party. The northern lords marched south and in 1455 there was a skirmish at St. Albans. The Yorkists had the better of the fighting - Northumberland and Lord Clifford were killed - but York was unable to maintain his position and fled the country. Both sides began to muster their strength. York returned in 1459. Richard Neville marched out from Middleham with five thousand men to join his son, the earl of Warwick, in the Midlands. It was the signal for a general upheaval. To some extent the war that followed was a struggle between the backward, feudal North and the more highly developed, richer South, though everywhere there were local jealousies and conflicts. York's lands lay mainly on the Welsh marches and in the eastern counties. London and most of the towns saw in the Yorkists a better hope of good government.

No sooner had the Nevilles departed than the Percies overran Yorkshire, and were joined by most of the magnates. The Cliffords, lords of a chain of castles in Westmorland, and of Skipton, which commanded the Aire Gap, were doughty fighters, prominent in Border warfare. Lords Dacre and Greystoke held Border commands as well as lands in mid-Yorkshire. Roos of Helmsley owned a number of ships, and had learnt his fighting at sea. The only family of note on the other side were the Mowbrays of Thirsk, relatives of the Yorkist Duke of Norfolk.

The Scropes of Castle Bolton had a different background. They did not belong to the old fighting nobility, but since the time of Richard Scrope, chancellor to Richard II, held high official positions in church and state. Their castle, six miles from Middleham, had been completed in 1399 in spite of opposition from the Nevilles. "Good" Archbishop Scrope of York led a rebellion against Richard II's supplanter and paid for it with his life, but thereafter they settled down to serve the Lancastrian kings. Castle Bolton was less a stronghold than a residence for stately living, and they took little part in the early stages of the war.

South Yorkshire was dominated by three castles belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster, Conisbrough, Pontefract and Tickhill. Pontefract commanded a bridge over the Aire carrying the most important highway linking north and south. York had a castle at Sandal, near Wakefield, but defensively it was not as strong as Pontefract. All over the North were the fortified pele-towers of the gentry, mostly built for defence in the days of the Scottish raids. The tenor of life was tough and militant. Yorkshiremen were accustomed to hard living, and had a reputation as skilful bowmen; good fighting material to march behind the banners of their lords.