Bosworth: The French Connection

Part I

Blood and Roses: Scions
The Wars of the Roses, one of the bloodiest periods in English history, has its roots in the Plantagenet dynasty of King Edward III (1312-1377) of England. During his fifty-year reign Edward III transformed England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. 

Edward III

The court of Edward III was a centre of chivalry and in 1343 he announced his intention to found an ‘Order of the Round Table’ with three hundred knights with St George as their Patron, with a corresponding building and chapel, "in the same manner and estate as the Lord Arthur, formerly King of England". However, by 1348 he had abandoned plans for the Round Table and announced the creation of the ‘Order of the Garter’. Membership was exclusive to just 25 Knights, the exact same number of places around King Arthur’s Round Table at Winchester. The early Plantagenets emulated the Great King Arthur in their Round Table tournaments and patronage of Arthurian literature drawing comparison between contemporary figures and the Knights of the Round Table. By emulating Arthur the Plantagenets exhibited an overwhelming desire for his second coming particularly with the hopes for Arthur of Brittany (1187-1203). The age of chivalry came to an end with the death of the last Plantagenent king Richard III at Bosworth. Yet oddly the first Tudor king named his first son Prince Arthur (1486-1502) who was set to rule as King Arthur II.

The marriage of Edward III and his wife, Philippa of Hainault, produced thirteen children, of which five sons survived infancy. The king married his sons to English heiresses and created the first English dukedoms for them. His sons amassed significant wealth and power; Edward had created a dynasty of high-powered magnates.

Edward’s eldest son and heir Edward of Woodstock (1330-1376), the Prince of Wales also known as the ‘Black Prince’, was one of the most prominent warriors of the ‘Hundred Years War’ but never became king as he died before his father. Edward III’s other four sons that reached maturity were Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338–1368) who also died before his father; John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340–1399); Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (1341–1402); Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1355–1397) whose descendants were the Dukes of Buckingham.

John of Gaunt in particular was in a very powerful position becoming Duke of Lancaster through his marriage to Blanche, heiress of the House of Lancaster which had been founded in the 13th century by Edmund Crouchback, second son of Henry III. The Duchy of Lancaster was virtually an independent state. When her older sister Maud died without any surviving children, Blanche and her husband John inherited her father’s titles and estates adding these to their vast holdings including more than 30 castles. As Duke of Lancaster, John was now the most powerful magnate in England.

When Edward III’s eldest son and heir the Black Prince died in 1376 the next in the line of succession was his son Richard of Bordeaux (1367-1400) - his elder brother Edward of Angoulême (1365-70) had died of plague as a young boy. Yet Richard was just 10 years old at the time he became monarch and his minority years were governed by a series of councils without appointment of a nominated regent. There was suspicions at the time that John of Gaunt, now Edward III’s oldest surviving son, would usurp his place in succession, consequently Richard of Bordeaux was hurriedly invested as Prince of Wales and presented with his father's titles. John stayed loyal to his nephew and honoured his father’s wishes and on Edward III’s death in 1377 the throne duly passed to young Richard of Bordeaux who was crowned Richard II.

It is fair to say that Richard II’s reign was not the best, in fact to say it was a disaster would be an understatement. He had come to the throne in the middle of the The Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) and proved to be too young and inexperienced to provide the strong leadership required by a nation at war. Richard’s grandfather Edward III had enlarged his holdings in France but by 1380 only Calais remained in English control. Richard II faced further difficulties at home during the 1380’s: he incurred the Peasants Revolt and then war with Scotland created the need to raise taxes which accelerated his unpopularity.

By the mid-1380’s Richard was relying heavily on Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and more so on Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the so-called King’s ‘favourites’, which caused resentment with other nobles. Many were uncomfortable with the succession of the young Richard II in 1377 as his father, the Black Prince, had never attained the crown. In some quarters it was believed that one of Edward III's three surviving sons, John of Gaunt, Edmund of Langley or Thomas of Woodstock, should have succeeded King Edward III.

One in particular was Richard’s cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, the son and heir of John Gaunt. Henry along with his uncle Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, youngest surviving son of Edward III, was involved in the revolt of the ‘Lords Appellant’ against the King’s favourites, notably the Earl of Oxford, which resulted in defeat for Richard II at the battle of Radcot Bridge in 1387 and the enforced banishment of Oxford. However, Richard continued to rule and from 1397 tended to act as an absolute monarch without parliament. He them moved against his uncle Thomas of Woodstock who he had never forgiven for his part in the revolt of the Lords Appellant. Richard is thought to have arranged for Woodstock’s murder while he was in Calais. For his part Henry of Bolingbroke went unpunished at the time but the following year was exiled from court in 1398. 

John of Gaunt

When Henry’s father John of Gaunt died in 1399, Richard II blocked Henry’s inheritance as the Duke of Lancaster. Henry assembled a force of his supporters in France and travelled back to England. Henry overthrew Richard and put him in prison. Richard II was forced to abdicate on 29 September 1399 and Henry Bolingbroke was crowned King Henry IV on 13 October 1399. Richard was held in captivity at Pontefract Castle and said to have starved to death in February 1400. 

The succession was further complicated as Richard II died childless, and his presumptive heir Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March (1374-1398), claimed succession as great-grandson of Edward III through his mother Phillipa, the only child of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. When Roger died in Ireland in 1398 his son Edmund, 5th Earl of March, (1391-1425) inherited his title and claim to the throne. 

The legal principle of male primogeniture dictated that Edmund’s claim to the throne was stronger than the descendants of John of Gaunt. Yet Edmund was a young child himself, barely 8-years old at the time of the death of Richard II, it seemed there was little appetite for another minority monarch and Parliament therefore agreed that Henry of Bolingbroke should succeed and his son Henry of Monmouth (1386-1422), the future King Henry V, recognized as heir apparent.

As part of his claim to the throne Henry Bolingbroke used his descent from Edmund Crouchback, 1st earl of Lancaster, son of Henry III (1207-1272), on his mother’s side, Blanche of Lancaster. He argued that Edmund was actually the first son of King Henry but was pushed aside in favour of his brother, the future Edward I, because of his ‘deformity’. 

If correct then Henry Bolingbroke, by line of descent, would be the senior successor to Henry III. However, if accepted this would determine that all the kings since Edward I were usurpers, including Bolingbroke’s own grandfather Edward III. And, significantly for Bolingbroke, it would remove Edmund, 5th Earl of March as heir to the throne. Furthermore, it would also result in any descendants of John of Gaunt through later wives, including the Beauforts through Katherine Swynford, were excluded from the line of succession. Bolingbroke’s claim was rejected by the legal committee that examined it but he maintained his claim to the throne through his mother Blanche of Lancaster was superior to that through his father, John of Gaunt.

To neutralise any threat from the supporters of Edmund, 5th Earl of March, the newly crowned King Henry IV placed the young Edmund and his brother Roger in confinement at Windsor and Berkhamsted castles under the jurisdiction of Sir Hugh Waterton. However, the Mortimer’s claim to the throne would later lead to plots against Henry IV and his son Henry V by the House of York. 

When Edward II was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Edward III a precedent appeared to have been set that reigning monarchs could be deposed by those with strong claims to the throne. However, Henry Bolingbroke, although descended from Edward III's fourth son, John of Gaunt, was not a direct heir to throne as with the case of Edward II. Although many nobles were not happy with the succession of Richard II many were also concerned with the way Henry IV had taken the throne; the first usurpation by the House of Lancaster. 

Henry IV

Indeed, to complicate matters of succession even further Anne de Mortimer, the daughter of Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, had married Richard, Earl of Cambridge, son of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, the fifth son of Edward III. The son of Anne and the Earl of Cambridge inherited Edmund of Langley’s title as Richard, 3rd Duke of York (1411-1460), also known as Richard Plantagenent, which he would later use to challenge the House of Lancaster.

Two factions were clearly developing and England had taken the first steps toward the Wars of the Roses. The death of Thomas of Woodstock had left just two sons of Edward III alive, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. 

A Family at War
In the following century descendants of the House of Lancaster and the House of York engaged in a lengthy dynastic conflict from 1455 to 1487 challenging each other on the battlefield for the throne of England. During those 32 years the crown changed hands seven times with four kings deposed, three kings murdered and one killed in battle. The period also saw the death of several Royal Princes and many nobles in battles in which the two dynasties came close to destroying each other in some of the bloodiest battles ever fought on English soil.

Over 30 years the Wars of the Roses involved 16 major battles, culminating in Bosworth Field in 1485 which is considered to have brought the conflict to an end with the dawn of the Tudor period. However two years later Henry VII, the first Tudor king, faced a Yorkist challenge that supported the pretender Lambert Simnel as rightful heir to the throne. Henry confronted the rebel army at the battle of Stoke Field in 1487, resulting in a decisive Lancastrian victory that cemented the crown to the House of Tudor for more than a century. 

Tensions between the Lancastrians and Yorkists had been simmering for some time and came to a head during the reign of Henry VI (1421-1471), only son of Henry V and youngest ever king of England, was challenged by Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. Unlike his father, Henry VI was not a strong king politically or militarily and England’s strong position constructed under Edward III and reinforced by Henry V was in danger of slipping away.

The Hundred Years' War in France, a series of conflicts from 1337 to 1453 between England and France over territorial disputes and claims to the French throne, had not gone well for England under Henry VI and ended with a French victory, resulting in the loss of most of the English territories in France won by Henry V, with only Calais remaining under English rule. Discontent with the reign of Henry VI grew in England resulting in the rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450.

The Yorkists challenge against Henry VI was vigorously opposed by the King’s French wife Margaret of Anjou, who supported by the Lancastrian faction, ultimately led to the outbreak of the conflict we know as the Wars of the Roses. Richard led the Yorkists against Henry VI at the First Battle of St Albans in May 1455. On this occasion the king was not deposed but the Yorkists were now in control.

Edward IV, son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville, was undoubtedly the most successful monarch during the Wars of the Roses, reigning for almost 22 years from 1461 to 1483, but for a six month interlude over the winter of 1470-71. Edward IV was a descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III, and only eighteen when his father Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. The following year he defeated the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross and then a month later annihilated them at Towton, said to have been the bloodiest battle fought in England, he deposed King Henry VI and took the crown.

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, termed ‘the kingmaker’, had supported Edward IV in attaining the throne but fell out with the new Yorkist king. Described as the ‘Universal Spider’ for the political webs he spun, King Louis XI of France persuaded the Earl of Warwick to work with Margaret of Anjou to restore her husband Henry VI to the throne. Warwick and Margaret had been on opposite sides in the conflict but Louis’ scheme was successful and Edward was forced into exile in 1470. He fled to Flanders, a part of the Duchy of Burgundy.

Yet on his return to the throne Henry VI continued to exhibit the same frailties that had plagued his earlier reign and it wasn’t long before Edward IV returned to England and challenged the Lancastrian regime. Louis XI declared war on the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, who responded by providing a military force to Edward IV, in order for him to challenge Henry VI and reclaim the throne. 

Landing at Hull Edward IV then entered London unopposed and took Henry VI captive and locked him in the Tower of London. Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian army at Barnet in April 1471 where Warwick perished on the battlefield, and the following month Edward’s Yorkist army crushed a second Lancastrian force at Tewkesbury, killing Henry’s sixteen year old son Prince Edward of Westminster. A tradition claims the boy took refuge in the abbey but was dragged out and butchered in the street. Edward IV had regained control of the government and within days Henry VI was dead, generally believed to have been murdered in the Wakefield Tower on the orders of the Yorkist king.

With dynastic troubles in England now relatively settled under Edward IV’s rule, the King went on to invade France in 1475, but Louis ‘the spider’ set his diplomacy to work again and negotiated the Treaty of Picquigny, by which the English were paid off to leave France. The Treaty established a seven-year truce between England and France with the English renouncing their claim to lands in Northern France such as Normandy, retaining only Calais; it seemed territorial disputes with France were finally over.

The Burgundian Connection
The treaty also effectively isolated King Louis XI ’s arch-enemy Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, from his Yorkist allies who, as we have seen, had supported Edward IV in opposing King Henry VI. 

Louis spent most of his reign dealing with political disputes with Charles the Bold for which he employed Swiss soldiers, whose military might was renowned across the Continent. Charles invaded Switzerland in 1476 with the intention of creating a kingdom independent of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Charles’ aggression had started a series of battles termed the ‘Burgundian Wars’ (1474-1477). The surprise invasion proved to be a massive error by Charles that ultimately cost him his life. Charles besieged the Swiss fortress at Grandson in early in 1476.When the castle surrendered after just nine days Charles had the entire garrison of four hundred men executed, either hanged or drowned. A few months later in June the Swiss gained their revenge at Murten where they annihilated Charles’ army which at the time was one of the most modern armies in Europe with highly-trained infantry, calvary, with gunpowder weapons and English and Welsh archers. The complete destruction of Charles’ army resulted in the death of 10,000 Burgundian soldiers at Murten and changed military tactics in Europe. 

Swiss pikemen engage with Burgundian cavalry

Yet, Charles rebuilt his army and in October 1476 besieged the city of Nancy hoping for a swift victory as at Grandson earlier in the year. In January 1477 Duke Rene II of Lorraine arrived with a massive army of 10,000-12,000 troops and a compliment of 10,000 Swiss mercenaries to relieve the garrison. Instead of a frontal attack Rene and his Swiss commanding officers opted for an attack on Charles' left flank by the largely Swiss vanguard, while the centre attacked the right. In the ensuing battle Charles was struck on the head by a halberdier and died. The victory marked the end of the Burgundian Wars.

The Swiss became internationally renowned for their expertly-drilled pikemen, who were much in demand as mercenaries for their expertise with the pike and the halberd. Swiss tactics would prove to play an essential part in the outcome of the Wars of the Roses

>> Continued in Part II - Exile

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