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In Episode One, The origins of the wars are explained. The reign of the weak Henry VI, characterised by corruption of many nobles and advisors, leading to the popular rebellion led by Jack Cade in 1450.
The subsequent mental illness of King Henry, and the appointment of Richard of York as Lord Protector in 1454, is also covered.
The subsequent mental illness of King Henry, and the appointment of Richard of York as Lord Protector in 1454, is also covered.
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00:00The bitter civil wars that raged in 15th century England are known to history by the emblems of the two rival factions in the House of Plantagenet.
00:10The White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster.
00:16For more than 30 years, these deadly rivals were locked into a struggle for power.
00:24A struggle that would witness slaughter amongst the greatest families in England, the death of princes and kings.
00:32A struggle that would eventually lead to the bloody field of Bosworth.
00:39There, the bloodstained crown of England would be claimed by Henry Tudor and a new, strong dynasty would emerge from the maelstrom of the Wars of the Roses.
00:54The End
00:56The End
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00:58The End
00:59The End
01:01The End
01:02The End
01:04The End
01:05The End
01:06The End
01:08The End
01:09The End
01:10The End
01:12The End
01:13The End
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01:18The End
01:19The End
01:21The End
01:23The End
01:24The End
01:53The End
02:23Our image today of the Wars of the Roses is likely to be one of incessant warfare,
02:31of nobles only too keen to pick up a sword and charge off to the next battle.
02:36The origins of the Wars of the Roses can be traced back to the previous century and the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
02:56The conflict burst into life in 1337 during the reign of Edward III, but it was, in fact, little more than an escalation of a conflict that had preoccupied kings of England for generations.
03:13With the French monarchies' ever-increasing strength and confidence, it was predictable that the King of England's position as one of France's chief landholders would come under threat.
03:29The Hundred Years' War is a war between the English and French for control of France, and it lasts really, actually, for several hundred years rather than a single hundred years.
03:41But it leaves the English king with a series of claims to territory in France and also a claim to the French throne.
03:48And what Henry V does in the 1410s is powerfully revive these English claims and lead a very successful conquest of the whole of Normandy in alliance with the Duke of Burgundy.
03:58Clearly, leadership was a key to success in the Hundred Years' War, and Henry V was a military genius facing Charles VI of France, who was mentally unstable.
04:09The fact that Charles believed he was made of glass really wasn't an advantage on the battlefield.
04:15And over the next few years, Henry launched a series of sieges which effectively took control of France, and he was able to force upon the French a treaty which disinherited the French heir,
04:28and it meant that Henry and his own heirs would become the kings of France after Charles VI's death.
04:35That was complete victory.
04:37The treaty, which confirmed the English king's succession to the throne of France, was signed at Troy in 1420.
04:47With the elderly Charles VI of France the only barrier to Henry V's acquisition of the French title,
04:54England's territorial gains in France seemed assured.
04:57The premature death of Henry in 1422, probably from dysentery, fundamentally changed England's position.
05:15The realm was unprepared for his sudden loss, and the late king's infant son was promptly pronounced Henry VI,
05:23inheriting the English crown at the age of only nine months.
05:29It was a distinctly uneasy inheritance.
05:32For just two months later, Henry's maternal grandfather, Charles VI of France, also died,
05:40leaving the child sole monarch of the two great kingdoms.
05:44Clearly the death of Henry V was potentially a very serious blow to the ability of the English really to make good the claim to the French throne.
05:57The only king who was likely to make good the claim to the whole of France would have been Henry V.
06:04And I suppose Henry VI's claim is just as good as he was able to make it militarily.
06:13The claim really rested in the Treaty of Troyes, and the question of whether the English could make that stick.
06:20But the reality was that Henry's claim depended solely on success on the battlefield.
06:26If the English were defeated and pushed back across the Channel,
06:29then Henry's claim simply wasn't worth the parchment it was written on.
06:32Fortunately for the new king, the war in France continued successfully under the leadership of Henry VI's uncle,
06:42John, Duke of Bedford.
06:45Meanwhile, in England, it would not have been a surprise,
06:49given the uncertain times and Henry VI's tender age,
06:53if someone had challenged his succession.
06:56But this was not the case,
06:58and during the king's minority,
06:59a council of men from the chief noble houses ruled England and France.
07:06Among these were Henry's uncle Humphrey,
07:09the Duke of Gloucester,
07:10and his great uncle,
07:12Henry Beaufort,
07:13the Bishop of Winchester.
07:16These men,
07:17able advisers as they were to the king,
07:20were hardly the best of friends.
07:21The disputes between Gloucester and Beaufort
07:25seem to dominate the first 20 years of Henry VI's reign.
07:29There was one occasion when their supporters turned up at Parliament
07:32with clubs and staves hidden under their clothing,
07:35just in case they needed them for self-defence.
07:38The origins of their disputes really lie in a personal dispute for power
07:42and disputes over policy.
07:44Gloucester thinks that he should be protector of England
07:47rather than there being this minority council
07:50which has been set up in the teeth of his opposition.
07:53So a lot of his attacks in the 1420s on Beaufort
07:57are really attacks against the council
07:59and an insistence that he should have a more powerful kind of protectorate.
08:05Gloucester is an enthusiastic exponent
08:07of aggressive military action in France.
08:11He's watching Bedford
08:12and whenever he thinks Bedford isn't doing enough
08:14he comes forward with his own proposals
08:16for a more aggressive prosecution of the war.
08:20Whereas Beaufort is thinking more in terms of a mixture
08:24of truces, possibilities of peace negotiation
08:27and support to the Duke of Bedford.
08:31In France, however,
08:33things started to go badly wrong for the English.
08:36Although they scored victories at Cravon in 1423
08:40and at Verneuil in 1424
08:44they could not possibly have reckoned
08:46on the arrival of Joan of Arc
08:48at the Siege of Orléans in 1429.
08:52It was a pivotal moment.
08:55The extraordinary peasant girl
08:57inspired the revival in the fortunes of the French.
09:00A revival that resulted in the crowning of the Dauphin at Reims.
09:06With the subsequent loss of their vital Burgundian allies
09:10Henry VI's early reign was dominated
09:12by the increasingly disastrous course of the Hundred Years' War.
09:18Not only had Henry to contend with events in France
09:21looming over him throughout his reign
09:24was the issue of Lancastrian legitimacy
09:26and the competing claim to the throne of the Duke of York.
09:30As usual, during these turbulent times
09:33little was clear or cut and dried
09:37and the responsibility for this can be laid squarely
09:40at the feet of John of Gaunt, Earl of Lancaster
09:43the third surviving son of King Edward III
09:46from whom Henry VI was descended.
09:50John of Gaunt, a very powerful man
09:53married by the king first of all
09:54to the heiress of the House of Lancaster
09:56so the huge estates of the Duchy of Lancaster
09:58are brought within the royal orbit by Gaunt's marriage
10:02and then later married off by the king
10:04to the heiress of the throne of Castile.
10:06He's an early illustration, actually
10:09of the difficulties of fitting into the English polity
10:11these great members of the royal family
10:14who own huge estates
10:17who are too big men, really
10:19to fit under not very competent kings.
10:22It seems harsh to blame John of Gaunt and Edward III
10:25for the fact that they had too many children
10:27but in the 1450s
10:29there were just far too many people at the royal court
10:31who had royal blood pumping round their veins.
10:36After the death of Edward III's eldest son and heir
10:42the Black Prince
10:43Edward named his grandson Richard as his successor
10:47and upon Edward's death
10:49he became king
10:51ruling as Richard II.
10:55Only 11 years of age when he came to the throne
10:58Richard's reign was marked by turmoil
11:01and it ended when
11:03in 1399 he was deposed by his cousin
11:07Henry Bolingbroke
11:08John of Gaunt's son.
11:11Henry was crowned Henry IV in that year
11:13and in 1400
11:15Richard was murdered at Pontefract Castle.
11:19The death of the childless Richard
11:21was most convenient for Henry.
11:23For now
11:24the direct line of descendancy
11:26from the Black Prince
11:27Edward III's eldest son
11:29was ended
11:30making Henry's position
11:31that much stronger.
11:34It was through Henry IV
11:36and his son
11:37Henry V
11:38that King Henry VI
11:39drew his own claim to the throne.
11:44But Henry was not the only descendant
11:47of Edward III
11:48with a claim.
11:50Through Edmund Langley
11:51one of Edward's other sons
11:53came the candidate
11:55from the House of York.
11:56Edmund
11:58was the grandfather
11:59of Richard
12:00Duke of York
12:01Henry VI's cousin
12:03and the great grandson
12:04of King Edward III.
12:07He was
12:08therefore
12:08a generation
12:10closer to Edward III
12:11than the young king himself.
12:14He also had a further claim
12:15through the female line
12:17descending from
12:18Edward III's
12:19second son
12:19Clarence.
12:21If you admit
12:23that the crown of England
12:24can go through women
12:25then
12:26Richard II's
12:28nearest heir
12:29was not
12:30Henry of Lancaster
12:31but
12:32a descendant
12:33of Lionel of Clarence's
12:35daughter
12:36Philippa
12:37Edmund Mortimer
12:39Earl of March.
12:41In 1399
12:42Mortimer
12:44was a child
12:45and easily
12:46therefore
12:47overlooked
12:48but
12:49the Mortimer claim
12:50was not
12:51to go away.
12:52in practice
12:54it was unlikely
12:55that York
12:56was going to claim
12:57the throne
12:57after all
12:58the nobility
12:59supported Henry VI.
13:02Now York
13:02was only ever likely
13:03to put forward
13:04his claim
13:05if something disastrous
13:06happened
13:07if he was pushed
13:08into challenging Henry.
13:12Henry VI's minority
13:14came to an end
13:15in 1436
13:16when the king
13:17was 15.
13:17unhappily
13:19Henry was to prove
13:21a weak monarch
13:21and a man
13:22utterly unsuited
13:24for these troubled times.
13:25he was sensitive
13:29pious
13:30and scholarly.
13:33John Blackman
13:34a monk
13:34with a personal
13:35knowledge
13:36of King Henry's
13:36court
13:37recorded that
13:38the king
13:41was travelling
13:41through Cripplegate
13:42and he saw
13:43over the gate
13:44there
13:44the quarter
13:45of a man
13:45on a tall stake
13:46and asked
13:47what it was.
13:49When told
13:49it was the quarter
13:50of a traitor
13:51who had been
13:51forced to the king's
13:52majesty
13:53he said
13:54take it away
13:55I will not have
13:56any Christian man
13:57so cruelly handled
13:58for my sake
13:58and the quarter
14:00was moved immediately.
14:04Henry VI
14:05is a difficult
14:06man for us
14:07to know
14:08much about
14:09because he's been
14:10coloured
14:10in all sorts
14:12of different ways.
14:13Some have presented
14:14him at the time
14:15and subsequently
14:16as more or less
14:17an idiot
14:17others have presented
14:19him as
14:20a very pious
14:21and saintly
14:22figure.
14:24and quite often
14:25actually
14:25we find in history
14:26fairly idiotic
14:27fairly weak
14:28and feeble
14:28kings get written
14:29up as if they
14:30are saintly
14:31or monk-like
14:32so whenever we see
14:33Henry called
14:35by those kinds
14:35of terms
14:36I think we might
14:37smell the rat
14:38of somebody
14:38pretty incompetent.
14:40If you actually
14:40look at what
14:41happened to the
14:42realm under Henry
14:43rather than
14:43going over and
14:44over what his
14:46character might
14:46or might not
14:47have been
14:47what you actually
14:49see is a
14:50complete emptiness
14:51at the centre
14:52where you should
14:54have the king
14:54and the king's
14:55will on which
14:57the realm depended
14:57that the king
14:59would act
14:59and would act
15:00positively
15:00to make his
15:01government work
15:02there seems to be
15:04a complete void.
15:05Great historian
15:06of this period
15:07K.B. McFarlane
15:07said that Henry VI
15:09went from first
15:10to second childhood
15:11without the usual
15:11interval
15:12and that really
15:13sums it up
15:13quite nicely.
15:14Fearful that
15:17Henry's weakness
15:17would cause
15:18irreparable damage
15:19to the country
15:20the powerful figures
15:21from the ruling
15:21council of his
15:22minority
15:23continued to
15:24govern the country.
15:27King Henry
15:28was a ripe target
15:29for a growing
15:30circle of avaricious
15:31ministers and
15:32greedy nobles.
15:35Now the
15:37unstable Henry
15:38began to bestow
15:39honours and lands
15:40upon his favourites
15:41quickly draining
15:42the healthy coffers
15:43left by his father
15:44and creating
15:46resentment
15:46against those
15:47nobles who
15:48gained most
15:48from Henry's favour.
15:50Chief amongst them
15:51was the Duke of Suffolk.
15:57Suffolk is a very
15:58interesting figure
16:00in many ways
16:01often treated
16:01as something
16:02like the villain
16:03of the piece
16:03though in my own
16:04view Suffolk
16:05is something
16:06of a civil servant
16:07hero actually.
16:08He has a respectable
16:09military career
16:11in the 14 years
16:1210s and 20s
16:13respectable rather
16:15than spectacular
16:15but he's a useful
16:16right-hand man
16:17for the Duke of Bedford.
16:19He finds a place
16:20on the minority council
16:22and also gets put
16:24into the royal household
16:26as steward
16:26of the royal household
16:28and it's that
16:29joint position
16:30in the household
16:32and on the council
16:33that gives Suffolk
16:34the capacity
16:36to move
16:37to the head
16:38of affairs
16:38really in the course
16:39of the 1430s
16:40and become
16:41the very
16:41dominant figure
16:42in the 1440s
16:44that he is.
16:45So Suffolk
16:46is an important
16:47manager
16:47of royal authority
16:48and an important
16:50cause of the
16:50relative calm
16:51of the 1430s
16:53and 1440s
16:54calm which is
16:55pretty remarkable
16:56given the fact
16:57that the king
16:57is not himself
16:58ruling effectively.
17:00The king's
17:03spendthrift handling
17:04of the nation's
17:05fortune and his
17:06weak grasp of
17:07administration
17:08was already causing
17:09serious discontent
17:10amongst the members
17:11of the former council
17:12but it was his
17:14arbitrary redistribution
17:16of wealth and power
17:17and his creation
17:18of so many
17:19newly empowered lords
17:20with their own
17:21bands of retainers
17:22that led to an
17:24eruption of infighting
17:25over land,
17:26property rights
17:27and inheritance.
17:29It was a dangerous
17:31time for the
17:31established nobles
17:32whose previously
17:34stable position
17:35was placed in
17:35jeopardy by the
17:36arrival of these
17:37ambitious newcomers.
17:39In 1445, Henry VI
17:48married the 15
17:49years old Margaret
17:50of Anjou, a princess
17:52from Valois who
17:54would soon grow
17:55into a woman to
17:56be reckoned with.
17:58Henry VI's wife,
18:01Margaret of Anjou,
18:03from the outset,
18:04in English eyes,
18:06had two major
18:07disadvantages.
18:08One is that she
18:10was foreign
18:11and specifically
18:13French who were
18:14regarded of course
18:15as the ancient
18:16enemy and the
18:18other was that
18:19her marriage to
18:20Henry brought
18:21the country no
18:22financial advantage.
18:24On the contrary,
18:25the marriage and
18:26the attendant
18:26festivities were
18:28extremely expensive
18:29and since Henry's
18:31reign by this time
18:33was virtually
18:34bankrupt, this was
18:36not a good start.
18:42The marriage
18:42between Henry and
18:43Margaret, the
18:44King of France's
18:45niece, was part of a
18:46treaty agreed with
18:47the French at Tours
18:48in 1444 by de la
18:51Pole, the Duke of
18:52Suffolk.
18:53The Duke of Gloucester
18:54was mortified.
18:56War was the only way
18:57in which the country
18:58would regain what was
18:59hers, he argued.
19:02Gloucester was swiftly
19:03silenced and his
19:05hawkish views saw him
19:06isolated from the rest
19:07of the royal household.
19:09With the support of
19:10the Queen, de la Pole
19:12had Gloucester arrested
19:13for treason in 1447
19:15although he needn't
19:17have bothered.
19:18Gloucester died in
19:19distinctly mysterious
19:20circumstances soon after.
19:22his death, therefore, made
19:27him one of the few
19:28members of the royal
19:29household exempt from
19:30responsibility for the
19:31political disasters that
19:33followed and the Duke of
19:34Gloucester would later
19:36become something of an
19:37icon for the Yorkist
19:38cause.
19:39Gloucester is almost
19:40certainly murdered.
19:42Some chroniclers say that
19:43he's murdered with a
19:44red-hot spit in the
19:46fundament, other
19:47chroniclers say that he's
19:48pressed to death between
19:49feather beds.
19:50But what these are are
19:51attempts to explain a
19:53murder that leaves no
19:54obvious mark on the
19:56publicly displayed parts
19:58of a body.
20:00The story that Gloucester
20:02had been murdered
20:03swiftly spread along with
20:04the myth of the good
20:06Duke of Gloucester, the
20:07man who'd stood
20:08valiantly against the
20:10clique of ambitious
20:11courtiers, the man who'd
20:13defended the reputation,
20:14the legacy of his
20:15brother Henry V.
20:16Unfortunately for that
20:18myth, we now know that
20:19actually it was Gloucester
20:21who was politically
20:21isolated.
20:22The rest of the nobility
20:23were behind Suffolk,
20:25even the Duke of York,
20:26who was the one who made
20:28the most use of the
20:29Gloucester myth in later
20:30years.
20:35England's hold on France
20:37had loosened even
20:38further as the result of a
20:39massive error of judgment
20:41by Henry.
20:42Richard, Duke of York,
20:44despite his impressive
20:45military record fighting the
20:47French, was sent to Ireland
20:49as Lord Lieutenant.
20:51Henry transferred the role
20:52of English commander in
20:54France to his inept
20:55favourite and York's great
20:57rival, Edmund Beaufort,
20:59Duke of Somerset.
21:02Somerset was yet another
21:03noble with a distant claim
21:04to the throne owing to his
21:06relationship to John of Gaunt.
21:08In Somerset's case,
21:10through Gaunt's third wife,
21:11Catherine Swinford, and the
21:13Beaufort line.
21:14The Beauforts were the
21:16illegitimate offspring of
21:18Gaunt, who had been
21:19legitimised by Henry IV on
21:21condition that they would
21:22not lay claim to the crown.
21:25This piece of legislation
21:27could easily be reversed,
21:28and with Henry VI still
21:30childless, and Somerset in
21:32favour, York's position as
21:34heir apparent might not be
21:36guaranteed.
21:37There is no evidence at all
21:39of serious hostility between
21:41York and either Somerset,
21:43Somerset, or his forebears
21:45before 1450.
21:49I don't think we should take
21:50terribly seriously any sense
21:52that York felt hostile to
21:56the Beauforts because they
21:57had a potential claim to the
21:59throne which might be
22:00exercised if Henry VI was
22:01to die without heirs,
22:04because nobody seems to have
22:05been taking the Beaufort claim
22:07to the throne seriously at
22:09that point.
22:10Although personal hostility is
22:11likely to have been a part of
22:13their relations, we need to see
22:14these people as politicians
22:16representing alternative
22:17solutions to England's
22:19problems, and indeed
22:20representing quite large
22:22bodies of opinion and quite
22:24large bodies of politicians
22:25themselves.
22:26It's not just a personal
22:27conflict, it's also a public
22:29conflict.
22:31The Duke of Somerset was
22:32simply no soldier or military
22:34leader, and it was perhaps no
22:36great surprise that more
22:38English territory in France was
22:39lost under his command.
22:44Matters were swiftly coming to a
22:46head, and Henry's mismanagement of
22:48affairs in both countries now gave
22:50birth to a real domestic crisis.
22:53In 1449, a parliament was summoned to
23:03investigate the parlous state of
23:04affairs.
23:06The English people demanded to
23:08know why the war with France, which
23:10had cost them so dearly in taxes, had
23:12been so disastrously mismanaged.
23:16Increasing instances of abuses of the
23:18law, particularly by the newly
23:20established feudal lords and their
23:22retainers, was also causing enormous
23:25public outcry.
23:27Blame had to be apportioned somewhere,
23:30and it was the Duke of Suffolk who
23:32provided an attractively high-profile
23:35scapegoat for the ills of the country.
23:40The parliament blamed Suffolk for the
23:43catastrophic loss of France, and in
23:461450, he was formally impeached.
23:50Suffolk was accused of having made a
23:52treacherous peace with France under the
23:54influence of Henry's French queen, and
23:57of surrendering the territories of
23:58Anjou and Maine.
24:01Sent into exile by the king for his own
24:04safety, Suffolk was waylaid en route to
24:07France, and was murdered at sea,
24:10summarily executed with a rusty sword.
24:14It seemed that ordinary people throughout the
24:16land were looking to the Duke of York for
24:18salvation.
24:20Posted in Ireland, York was, at least,
24:23blameless for the fresh French disasters of
24:251450, news of which mortified the kingdom.
24:30Normandy had been lost.
24:33Few can have been unaware that it was the
24:35loss of this important duchy that had spurred
24:37King John's barons into revolt over 200 years before.
24:41The summer of 1450 saw the simmering discontent among the
24:52people of England at last boil over, and the country burst into
24:56open rebelling.
25:03At the head of the revolt was an Irishman named Jack Cade.
25:08We don't know a great deal about who Jack Cade was.
25:14The government, first of all, thought that he was called John
25:16Mortimer, and Mortimer, of course, is this very charged name.
25:20It's the name of the family from whom Richard of York gets his
25:24claim to the throne, the claim to the throne which is better than
25:28the Lancastrian claim to the throne.
25:30When they put it about that he was an Irishman, they may again
25:33have been alluding to this Mortimer connection because York was a
25:37great Irish landowner, and one of the things the government tries
25:40to do in the early 1450s is to suggest that York was behind the
25:45Cade Rebellion.
25:47One of Cade's pseudonyms was John Amendol.
25:50John put everything right.
25:52And really that sums up the situation in England in early 1450.
25:56Anything that could go wrong was going wrong.
25:59The English were being pushed rapidly out of Normandy, and English
26:03refugees were traipsing back through London, clutching their few
26:07belongings.
26:09This was a pitiful sight to onlookers, and simply stirred up more
26:12anger at the politicians.
26:15And then there were economic problems.
26:17The cloth and wool trade across the south of England was struggling,
26:20leading to unemployment and falling wages.
26:22And then disorder was breaking out.
26:26One of the king's leading councillors, Bishop Mullanes, was murdered in
26:30Portsmouth by sailors who hadn't been paid wages.
26:34Suffolk himself had been murdered, despite the fact that he had the king's
26:38safe conduct.
26:39And yet another councillor, the king's chaplain, Bishop Ayscoe, was
26:43shortly to be murdered in his own diocese.
26:45The country appeared to be falling apart.
26:48The demands of the rebels were issued by Cade in a proclamation of
26:53grievances, a document that survives to this day.
26:59These be the points, cause, and mischiefs of gathering and assembling of us,
27:03the king's liege men of Kent.
27:05We say our sovereign lord may understand that his false counsel has lost its law,
27:10his merchandise is lost, his common people is destroyed, the sea is lost,
27:15France is lost.
27:17The king himself is so set that he may not pay for his meat nor drink.
27:21And he owes more than ever any king of England ought.
27:24For daily his traitors about him, where anything should come to him by his laws,
27:29anon they take it from him.
27:31His true commons desire that he will remove from him all the false progeny and
27:36affinity of the Duke of Suffolk, and to take about his noble person his true blood of his
27:41royal realm, that is to say, the high and mighty prince, the Duke of York,
27:46exiled from our sovereign lord's person by the noising of the false traitor,
27:51the Duke of Suffolk, and his affinity.
27:53If Cade's demands were couched in the language of reason, the lengths to which he was prepared
28:08to go to achieve them were not.
28:11The uprising became increasingly violent.
28:15Cade's rebels occupied the Guildhall in London and freed the prisoners in the
28:20marshalsea and King's Bench jails.
28:23They looted private houses and shops to the terror of the London merchants who had
28:27suffered enough from the recent demise in foreign trade.
28:31Finally, Cade's men besieged the Tower of London itself and dragged Lord Say, the
28:38king's treasurer, out from within its walls.
28:42The unfortunate Say was murdered along with William Cromer, the sheriff of Kent.
28:46It was recorded that, they took Say to Cheapside and there smote off his head.
28:55The same day, Cromer was beheaded in Mile End.
28:58Afterwards, they brought their heads on poles and placed their heads together, making them
29:04seem to kiss each other.
29:05Initially, there was great support for the demands of Cade's rebels.
29:11People sympathised with their objectives.
29:14There were even those in the king's army who sympathised and that forced the king to
29:19leave London and retreat.
29:21But once the rebels were in London, once they'd embarked upon their looting and executions,
29:27then the tide turned against them.
29:30The Londoners brought together their own force and in a pitched midnight battle, presumably
29:36fought by torchlights along the London Bridge, they kicked out the rebels, slamming the gates
29:42on them with great relief.
29:44And it was the Londoners who put an end to Cade's rebellion, not the king.
29:48With the rebels ousted from London, the revolt was finally ended by royal promises of reforms
29:55and free pardons, which, probably to no one's great surprise, turned out to be false.
30:02Jack Cade, the architect of the outbreak of public anarchy, attempted to escape to the south
30:07coast, but he was hunted down and killed during a skirmish in a garden near Heathfield in Sussex.
30:14Jack Cade's rebellion turned out to be a major scare for the government of England
30:21and a damning indictment of the king's rule.
30:25With Suffolk gone and the king as incompetent as ever, a new councillor-in-chief was needed.
30:33The MPs of the Commons echoed Cade's rebels and called for the Duke of York to return to
30:38England and deal with the troubles of the realm.
30:41York delayed and remained in Ireland, possibly trying to distance himself from the recent
30:48revolt.
30:50Somerset seized his chance.
30:56Somerset, having been in command when Normandy is lost, came back, found the court in disarray,
31:03the attack on Suffolk, the country in disarray, picked up the pieces and got some kind of semblance
31:09of government going.
31:11Meantime, York came back from Ireland and decided that he was the person who would sort the country
31:20out.
31:21So what you have here are two very prominent nobles, both closely related to the king, both
31:28potentially, if they wanted to push it, with a claim to the throne, each claiming that he
31:36was the one to rule the country. And from that point onwards, neither of them could back down.
31:42York clearly hoped to establish himself as Henry's principal councillor in the wake of
31:47Cade's rebellion. But he left it too late. By the time he returned from Ireland in the
31:52autumn of 1450, the role had been filled by Somerset.
31:55York may have had popular support, in London at least, but he had little amongst the nobility.
32:00In the wake of Cade's rebellion, the nobility wished to put loyalty and unity first, and
32:07it was York who appeared to be threatening that unity.
32:11The winter of 1450 witnessed the Duke of York's attempts to remove the king's advisers.
32:19York clearly blamed Somerset for the disasters in France. Normandy had been lost, mainly because
32:26of flawed military planning and a feeble response to the French uprisings. By calling for administrative
32:32and financial reform, York started to gain popularity amongst MPs, and he publicly vowed
32:39to avenge the losses in France. York soon had to curb his accusations, however, as Somerset
32:48enjoyed the king's support, and his claims seemed to be verging on treason. Somerset was, for
32:55the moment at least, secure in his position as Henry's councillor in chief. Without the support
33:02of the nobles, York would have to bide his time.
33:06What begins to emerge in some ways in the early 1450s is two radically different approaches
33:13to the problem of order in Henry VI's England. On the one hand, there is York and the MPs
33:20and the Commons, who are calling for justice upon the traitors, restoration of royal finances,
33:26restoration of noble council around the king. On the other hand, there is the Duke of Somerset,
33:31who basically says, if we could just deal with all these rebels and troublemakers, everything
33:37would be okay. The king is capable of ruling, the king is well advised within his household.
33:43So we have a situation in which York and Somerset are sworn to deal with one another, in a sense.
33:50The position that each man is striking requires him to get rid of the other.
33:56In August 1451, Somerset returned to England from his disastrous stewardship of France.
34:03Only two months previously, Bordeaux had fallen and after 300 years in English possession,
34:10Gascony had been lost. To the Duke of York, the situation looked bleak.
34:16Over the last year, he had failed in his attempt to remove Somerset and the public support for his position
34:23after Cade's rebellion was beginning to fade. For York, the loss of France was the final straw.
34:30Something must be done.
34:36In February 1452, after deciding that force might succeed where diplomacy had failed,
34:42Richard, Duke of York, put himself at the head of an open rebellion.
34:47York took an army, right across the country, down into Kent, to threaten the king,
34:53and hopefully remove Somerset from power. But he simply didn't have enough support.
34:59There were only two nobles on his side. The rest stood resolutely behind the king.
35:04Even the Neville's, who, in a short time, were going to be York's allies.
35:09York doesn't get the big burst of popular support that he may have been counting on,
35:14and then he stops looking like a popular leader, the man of the common wheel,
35:18and begins to look rather more like a shabby magnate trying to rouse the rabble to support his own policy.
35:26So York is really thoroughly defeated.
35:29York had behaved rashly in 1452, and the result was that he was now politically isolated.
35:36Nobody wanted to ally with him for fear of the taint of treason being attached to them.
35:41After the failure of the rebellion, the Duke of York was released,
35:45but only after having suffered the humiliation of being made to swear an oath of loyalty to the king at St Paul's in London.
35:54Despite his best efforts, both diplomatic and military, the Duke was no nearer achieving his aims,
36:01and the experience seems to have exhausted him.
36:05For the next year and a half he laid low, a brooding presence on the sidelines of English politics.
36:13The tensions between the Dukes of York and Somerset had now escalated to the point that the court and nobility were dividing into two very hostile and rival factions.
36:31The quarrelsome nobles such as the Percys who lived here at Walkworth Castle in Northumberland needed an over-mighty ruler to keep them in check.
36:41As King Henry was failing to provide this authority, warring lords were siding with the two rival Dukes in the hope of gaining advantage in decisions on their disputes once Somerset or York had control of the king.
36:56Somerset enjoyed the support of Queen Margaret and Henry's Lancastrian supporters.
37:03York's camp was joined by the powerful Neville family from the north of England, headed by the influential Earls of Warwick and Salisbury.
37:13Warwick hated the Duke of Somerset, while the entire family had a long-standing feud with the indomitable Percy family, the Earls of Northumberland.
37:25As a result of these bitter rivalries, the Perses sided with Somerset and the Lancastrians against York.
37:33Baronial power struggles had begun to dominate the nation's agenda, and they were to have disastrous consequences.
37:42The Neville's and the Perses are the two most powerful families of Northern England, really.
37:49And of the two in the Lancastrian period, the Neville's are the more powerful family.
37:54The Neville's have their estates in North Yorkshire and towards the western side of the very far north of England.
38:02They're more powerful in this period than the Perses because they're married into the royal family,
38:07and because the Perses, having assisted Henry IV's usurpation of the throne in 1399, then rose up against the king in 1403 and 1405,
38:16and consequently suffered confiscation of their estates.
38:20The Perses, who are the Earls of Northumberland and have major land holdings on the eastern side of the northern border with Scotland,
38:26have won their way back to a degree of acceptance, particularly under Henry V, but they're slightly the second-rank family.
38:34There was no major sign of hostility between the families until the summer of 1453, and then it was a wedding, as it so often is with families, that caused the trouble.
38:45Thanks to this marriage, the Neville's were about to gain control of lands which formerly had been Percy territory.
38:52This seems to have set off Lord Egremont, a younger son of the Percy family, and he attacked the wedding party on its return home.
39:01But this piece of private warfare began hostility between the Neville's and the Perses that came to dominate so much of the civil war over the succeeding years.
39:13While local feuds and lawlessness spread throughout England, on the other side of the Channel there was a sudden upswing in English fortunes.
39:22Bordeaux was recaptured, and the news came that the Queen was expecting her first child.
39:28But as so often in the saga of the Wars of the Roses, good news was soon followed by bad tidings.
39:39In July 1453, the English were overwhelmed and defeated at the Battle of Castillon in Gascony.
39:47Bordeaux fell a second time into French hands, this time for good, and the Hundred Years War effectively drew to a close.
39:56For England, it was a deeply ignominious end to a conflict that had seen the highs of Cressy and Agincourt, and in August, the King became insane.
40:10Henry's madness may have been brought about by learning of the massive defeat at Castillon in Gascony, but in fact, immediately beforehand we get the closest to active ruling that you find from the adult Henry VI.
40:31This looks to me very much like Somerset taking the King around the country to make it look like active ruling, but whichever it was, it seems completely to have worn him out and finished him off.
40:44He falls into a kind of stupor, he can't move, he can't speak, he has to be carried around.
40:51Somerset decides to keep on business as usual, to behave as if the King is absolutely fine.
40:57But it doesn't work this time, because the King is well and truly mad, he's not just uninterested in government.
41:04And with near warfare breaking out in the north of England, something really has to be done to restore the situation.
41:11The government has to come clean about the King's illness, it has to gather together the nobility to try and find some kind of platform for a new form of rule.
41:22And that means calling York back in. It's a middle of the road group of councillors who, in the teeth of resistance from Somerset and probably from the Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Kemp, summon York to attend a council.
41:35And York attends that council with every intention, it seems, of taking control.
41:41In October 1453, Queen Margaret gave birth to a son, Edward, at last providing a direct heir to the throne.
41:54The new baby became the focal point of Margaret's life, and she began to channel her considerable energy into ensuring that the child received what was his by birthright, the succession to the throne.
42:08She became even more suspicious of the Duke of York, who, after all, would still be heir should any misfortune befall the young Edward.
42:23Meanwhile, in November 1453, Somerset's politicking and ruthless accumulation of wealth caught up with him.
42:30He was arrested and imprisoned in the tower.
42:35One of the many men he had crossed was the Earl of Warwick, later to become famous as Warwick the Kingmaker.
42:42For Somerset, falling out with Warwick had been a particularly bad move.
42:49One reason why York is able to get his way on getting rid of Somerset is not only the fact that the Lords, I think, have lost confidence in Somerset's capacity to run the show,
42:58but also the hostility of the Nevels towards Somerset, part of which seems to relate to Somerset's attempt to gain control of the Lordship of Glamorgan in South Wales,
43:10which is regarded by the Earl of Warwick as his own property and his own sphere of interest.
43:17The Nevels' support for York against Somerset was a classic case of my enemy's enemy is my friend.
43:23York's newfound power gave the Nevels the chance to win their own battles, firstly against Somerset and also against the Perses.
43:33Even from within the confines of the tower, Somerset continued to plot, adding to the atmosphere of tension and uncertainty at court.
43:46In March, 1454, the council reluctantly appointed York as protector and for the following nine months he ruled England as king in all but name.
43:58As protector, York is in many ways quite effective, actually.
44:05He delivers somewhat biased justice in the north of England, mainly in favour of the Nevels and against the interests of the Perses,
44:13but in doing that he's fairly typical of the way the north has been ruled in the past.
44:18And this means that when the king recovers at Christmas, 1454, there is some uncertainty among the lords about whether to swing back to the rule of Somerset and the royal household and the queen around the king.
44:33There's quite a lot more sympathy, I think, for York and the Nevels, although their bitter enemies, the Perses, are probably calling for action against them behind the scenes.
44:43Historians have often agreed that if Henry's madness was a tragedy, his recovery was a national disaster.
44:53The king summarily dismissed York as protector and immediately released Somerset from the tower, making civil war almost inevitable.
45:03York and the Nevels clearly felt on the defensive.
45:06A great council was summoned to Leicester, which is in the heart of the old Duchy of Lancaster lands, in May.
45:15And one would guess that York and the Nevels had in mind what, for example, had happened to Gloucester at the very parliament in 1447.
45:25So they decided that they would come armed to this council.
45:31And as they came from the north, so they met Henry and his forces coming up towards the council from London.
45:41And they met at St Albans. Negotiations ensued, rather as it occurred at Dartford.
45:48But this time York was not going to be tricked, so it did not end with York laying down his arms and ended in battle.
45:58And so, on May 2nd, 1455, the first real battle of the Wars of the Roses began.
46:11Inside the town of St Albans, King Henry VI and his household waited as the Lancastrian army fought to hold off the attacks by the Yorkist forces.
46:20At first, all went well as the Yorkist troops struggled to break through the narrow streets.
46:25Tightly packed together, they were easy prey for the Lancastrian archers.
46:34It was the Earl of Warwick who, seeing the futility of further attacks through the lanes, signaled a change of tactics and made an assault through the back of the houses.
46:45Very soon, the Yorkists had broken into the market place and there was total panic in the royal household.
46:53Henry himself sustained a wound in the neck as the Yorkist arrows rained down and he was forced to shelter in a tanner's cottage.
47:04The Yorkists had won an important victory.
47:08But what did the Duke of Somerset hold up in the castle inn?
47:11How must he have felt as he heard the Yorkists batter down its doors?
47:17Knowing the fate that awaited him if he surrendered to his arch enemy York, Somerset decided to go down fighting.
47:25Flailing wildly with his sword as Yorkist soldiers surrounded him, he is supposed to have killed four men before he was hacked to death.
47:33The Battle of St. Albans may have been little more than a skirmish when compared to the slaughter to come.
47:43Perhaps 100 men, mostly Lancastrians, lost their lives.
47:47But three important nobles, the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of North Humberland and Lord Clifford had all been killed.
47:58Signifying without question that in the coming war, no quarter would be asked or given.
48:05Henry was made a prisoner of the Duke of York.
48:15With his arch rival, the Duke of Somerset dead, the kingdom lay within York's grasp and everything depended upon how he played his next move.
48:25And although many hoped the crisis in royal government had finally been resolved, 30 years of bitterness, rancor and bloodshed lay ahead for England.
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