It’s fair to say most history lovers have a pet obsession, one particular era that grabs them by the collar and never lets go.
Some are conquest-crazed, still enthralled by William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings.
Others are die-hard Tudorphiles, fixated on Henry VIII’s unfortunate wives and his religious mood swings.
But few are as fanatical as those whose imaginations are ignited by the Wars of the Roses. Count me among them.
This saga is essentially one long dynastic family feud between the Plantagenet Houses of York and Lancaster. The towering personalities, whiplash alliances, betrayals, usurpations, and outright treachery read like fiction.
And better fiction than most. In fact, the War of the Roses directly inspired George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. Shakespeare wrote a trilogy of plays covering it.
And if you’re drawn to the waning medieval world, England still wears the scars.
You can wander from Leicester to Yorkist strongholds and Lancastrian castles. End at Bosworth Field, where the war closed in blood, mud, and a crown lost in a thorn bush.
A Mini History of the Wars of the Roses
The Seeds of Conflict: A Useless King and a Stronger Claimant
The Wars of the Roses didn’t actually begin with a sword being drawn. They began when Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV) stole a crown that technically wasn’t his.
In 1399, he deposed his cousin Richard II and took the throne for the House of Lancaster. It was a bold move, but a messy one.
By skipping over the senior Yorkist line in the succession, he didn’t just grab power and broke the dynasty. That single stunt planted a dynastic time bomb.
For a while, it looked like the Lancasters might get away with it. Henry IV bullied his way through it, and his son Henry V distracted everyone by thumping the French at Agincourt.
But the moment the crown passed to Henry VI, a well-meaning wet blanket with recurring bouts of catatonia, the cracks ripped open.
Unlike his predecessors, Henry VI had no charisma, no authority, and, inconveniently, no functioning grasp of kingship.
The nobility stopped listening. Private armies sprang up. The great families started circling like wolves.
And waiting in the wings was a man with a better hereditary claim than the king himself: Richard, Duke of York.
Add a domineering queen (Margaret of Anjou) who governed in Henry’s place and alienated half the aristocracy, and all the dry timber Bolingbroke left behind finally caught fire.
The usurpation was the cause. Henry VI’s reign was the opportunity.
Everything after that was just family therapy with battleaxes.
The First Clash: St. Albans
The first real blow of the Wars of the Roses landed in 1455 at the First Battle of St. Albans. Richard, Duke of York, marched against Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, the king’s favorite and his personal rival.
York’s forces won decisively. Somerset was killed in the fighting, and Henry VI was conveniently “rescued” and taken into Yorkist custody.
The battle was short, bloody, and deeply symbolic. It was the first time armed nobles had drawn steel against the king’s inner circle.
The turning point came from Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick. He launched a surprise flanking attack and carved straight through the Lancastrian defenses.
He was the wealthiest man in England, with his fingers in every pie. He’d later earn the nickname “The Kingmaker,” and this was the moment he stepped onto the stage.
This is where the Wars of the Roses officially begins.
Battle of Wakefield: York’s Fall
After St. Albans, Richard was briefly named Protector of England given the king’s incapacitation. He essentially ruling in Henry VI’s name while the king drifted in and out of lucidity.
But Henry’s formidable wife, Margaret of Anjou, had absolutely no intention of letting York walk off with the crown or her son’s inheritance.
She regrouped the Lancastrian forces and waited for her moment.
That moment came at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. York rode out thinking he was facing a small force. Instead, he walked into a trap.
The Lancastrians annihilated his army, switching the levers of power again. York was killed in the fighting, along with his second son Edmund.
Depending on which chronicler you believe, his head was either stuck on a pike wearing a paper crown or simply displayed as a lesson.
For the moment, Margaret was firmly back in control and Henry VI was her puppet king.
But lopping off York didn’t end the war. It just passed the torch to his far more charismatic and ruthless heir: Edward, Earl of March, soon to become Edward IV.
Edward IV Takes the Throne
Margaret of Anjou’s triumphs didn’t last long. In 1461, her forces were smashed at the Battle of Towton. It was the bloodiest engagement of the entire conflict and a decisive Yorkist victory.
Richard of York was dead, but his eldest son Edward was no ordinary heir. Tall, handsome, charismatic, and tactically brilliant, Edward quickly rallied Yorkist supporters and built a new army.
He proved his mettle at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, then marched decisively north. By the end of the campaign, Edward had claimed the crown as Edward IV.
To the nobility and townsfolk alike, Edward seemed the perfect antidote to Henry VI’s hapless reign: vigorous, capable, and a symbol of Yorkist legitimacy.
But he was also licentious and a lover of luxury, who dressed flamboyantly and drank lavishly.
Lucky for him, he was supported by none other than “The Kingmaker,” who helped engineer Edward’s rise to power.
The Secret Marriage
But Edward’s early popularity didn’t survive his love life. In 1464, to the horror of his court, Edward secretly married Elizabeth Woodville. She was a Lancastrian widow with children and no royal blood.
The match was politically disastrous. Warwick had been negotiating a prestigious French marriage alliance. Instead, Edward humiliated him by marrying for love.
Even worse, Elizabeth’s ambitious Woodville family rapidly filled court offices, snapping up lands, titles, and royal marriages.
The nobles bristled at the sudden rise of social climbers. Warwick, insulted and sidelined, turned from Edward’s kingmaker into his mortal enemy.
Warwick Turns the Tables
By 1469, the rift had exploded into civil war.
Warwick raised rebellions, defeated Edward in the field, and even captured the king, daring briefly to hold him prisoner in Warwick Castle. For a moment, it looked as if Edward’s reign would collapse as quickly as it began.
Warwick wasn’t finished either. In 1470, he allied with Margaret of Anjou, staged another rebellion, and restored Henry VI to the throne in what became known as the Readeption of Henry VI.
Edward was forced to flee into exile, humiliated and betrayed.
Edward Strikes Back
But Edward wasn’t finished. In 1471, he returned to England with Burgundian support, retook London, and met Warwick’s forces head-on at the Battle of Barnet.
There, Warwick — the man who had made Edward king in the first place — was cut down in the fog of battle.
Edward followed up with a crushing victory at the Battle of Tewkesbury, where Margaret’s son and Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster, was killed.
Soon after, Henry VI “died” in the Tower of London (probably with help from Edward’s men).
With Warwick gone and the Lancastrian line extinguished, Edward IV was secure on the throne … for now.
Edward’s Thorn in the Side: George, Duke of Clarence
But the danger wasn’t only external. Edward’s younger brother, George, Duke of Clarence, had already betrayed him once.
He married Warwick’s daughter, Isabel Neville, and backed the Lancastrian restoration during Edward’s exile.
Even after Barnet and Tewkesbury, Clarence didn’t stop scheming. Ambitious and unstable, he spent years clawing for more power and sowing trouble at court.
Edward tolerated it longer than most monarchs would have. But, in 1478, Clarence went too far. Convicted of treason, he was executed in the Tower of London.
According to legend, he chose to be drowned in a butt of malmsey wine, a suitably bizarre end for one of the most unreliable Plantagenets.
Death of Edward IV
Edward IV fell ill in 1483 and died unexpectedly at Westminster Palace. He was only 40, which we’d consider young, though in medieval terms it passed for middle age.
The likely cause was pneumonia after a fishing trip. By then, the once-athletic king had gone the way of a Henry VIII prototype — heavy, indulgent, and fond of excess.
His appetite for food, drink, and pleasure probably did more harm than any enemy. Some historians point to heart disease brought on by his lifestyle.
Rumors of poison surfaced, as they always did when a ruler died suddenly. But there’s no real evidence behind them and most scholars shrug it off as political gossip.
The Rise (and Fall) of Richard III
Edward IV’s brother Richard was declared Protector of the Realm. And, having married the Kingmaker’s daughter Anne, took possession of Warwick Castle.
Richard III started out as the model younger brother. He was a first-rate general, fought loyally for Edward IV, and was rewarded with the dukedom of Gloucester and marriage to Anne Neville, heiress to Warwick’s fortune.
When Edward IV, the Woodvilles (Elizabeth’s grasping relatives) tried to rush 12 year old Edward onto the throne and elbow Richard out as Protector. Richard wasn’t having it.
He called up his northern army (standard operating procedure), retrieved the boy king, and later his younger brother Richard.
Both princes were housed in the royal apartments at the Tower of London. It was hardly a prison, more a palace with better security, while coronation plans went ahead.
Richard swore loyalty to Edward V and even ordered the robes. But the nobility had doubts.
Another boy king so soon after Henry VI’s disastrous reign? And with the hated Woodvilles pulling the strings? No thanks.
Then came the bombshell. On June 8, Bishop Stillington revealed that Edward IV had been secretly pre-contracted to Lady Eleanor Butler before marrying Elizabeth Woodville.
This was serious business and rendered all their children illegitimate. Parliament moved fast. By June 22 the Titulus Regius declared Edward’s brood bastards. On July 6, Richard was crowned.
The Endgame: Bosworth
Richard’s reign lasted just two turbulent years, dogged by scandal, rebellion, and the shadow of a challenger: Henry Tudor.
A Lancastrian exile with a paper-thin claim, Henry had something more powerful than bloodline. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, believed he was God’s chosen king and schemed relentlessly on his behalf.
In August 1485, Henry landed in Wales with barely 2,500 men, but gathered more recruits as he marched east. Richard, still king and still a formidable soldier, mustered his forces with difficulty.
England’s nobles were weary of dynastic feuding and reluctant to bleed their coffers yet again. Even the Yorkists were split.
Both sides courted the Stanleys — Thomas (Henry’s stepfather) and William. True to form, they refused to commit, waiting to see which way the wind blew.
The White Rose, Pruned
On the morning of August 22, Richard positioned his army atop Ambien Hill outside Bosworth. Crown glittering on his helmet, he must have cut a fearsome figure. Henry, by contrast, had never seen battle.
Richard was flanked by the dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland — though not for long. Norfolk was cut down by the Earl of Oxford’s vanguard. And in one of the era’s most notorious betrayals, Northumberland stood idle and then fled, leaving his king fatally exposed.
Sensing Henry’s banner drifting too close to the Stanley camp, Richard gambled everything. He charged downhill with his household knights, aiming to kill Henry outright before he could rally his forces.
But thanks to Northumberland’s desertion, Richard lacked the horsemen to back his bold strike. At the crucial moment, the Stanleys committed. Not to the king they were sworn to serve, but to Henry.
Richard was surrounded, unhorsed, and hacked to death in the mud. His body was stripped and defiled, and his battered crown was placed on Henry Tudor’s head. The last Plantagenet king went down fighting, crying out the only words that fit:
“Treason! Treason!”
The battle marked the end of England’s medieval era and rang in the Tudor age. It was one of the most dramatic moments in ancient history.
Richard was the last English monarch to die of such a fate. Indeed, the battle was the final time that the crown changed hands on a battlefield.
The Symbolic End: Tudor Propaganda & the Red-and-White Rose
A victorious Henry had promised to marry Elizabeth of York, Edward IV’s eldest daughter.
He wasn’t thrilled about the prospect. But the match was intended to bolster Yorkist support for Henry VII and unite the York and Lancaster houses.
King Henry VII was crowned on August 22, 1485.
The Tudor smear campaign shifted into high gear — they effectively weaponized history.
Henry VII branded Richard III a usurper, had his corpse stripped and slung over a horse, and quickly erased the Titulus Regius, which had legitimized Richard’s reign. That clever move restored Elizabeth of York’s claim, conveniently strengthening Henry’s own shaky credentials.
To cement the new dynasty, Henry paid Thomas More to write a venomous history painting Richard as a crookbacked monster. A century later, Shakespeare doubled down, giving Elizabeth I the propaganda piece she wanted with Richard III.
Meanwhile, Henry VII polished his own image, cloaking himself in piety and pretending to have rescued England from the “dark ages” of Plantagenet misrule.
And so a thirty-year family feud ended in mud, blood, and propaganda. The Tudors held the throne, Richard III got the villain edit, and England got a dynasty that understood the value of a good PR campaign.
Where to See the Wars of the Roses Today
If you want to walk in the footsteps of Yorkists and Lancastrians, a handful of sites bring the drama to life:
- Warwick Castle (Warwickshire): Power base of the Kingmaker himself, Richard Neville. The exhibitions lean theatrical, but the medieval core is still there.
- Tower of London (London): Fortress, prison, and royal palace rolled into one and, most famously, the last known home of the Princes in the Tower. You must pre-book a timed entry ticket.
- Leicester: Visit the Richard III Visitor Centre and Leicester Cathedral, where England’s most controversial king was reburied in 2015.
- Bosworth Battlefield (Leicestershire): The site of Richard III’s last stand and Henry Tudor’s unlikely victory. There’s a visitor centre, trails, and annual reenactments.
As for the other battlefields — Towton, Tewkesbury, Barnet — you can visit them. Though most are open fields marked with memorials and best appreciated if you know the story behind them.
If you’d rather watch the carnage than just read about it, here are some screen and page options worth your time:
What to Watch
• The White Queen (Starz/BBC)
Gorgeous, gossipy, and full of Yorkist drama, the series follows Elizabeth Woodville, Warwick, and the lead-up to Richard III.
• The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses (BBC)
A sleek adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry VI and Richard III. Dark, well-acted, and much clearer once you know the story.
• The White Princess (Starz)
Follows Elizabeth of York and the aftermath of Bosworth — Tudors, distrust, and the PR cleanup job.
What to Read
• The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
A detective unpicks Tudor propaganda. It’s short, clever, and still influential.
• The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
Beloved historical fiction that casts Richard III as tragic hero, not hunchbacked villain.
• The Hollow Crown by Dan Jones (if you want one nonfiction pick)
Readable, fast-paced overview of the wars and the personalities behind them.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my mini history of the Wars of the Roses. You may enjoy these other UK history guides:
- The Battle of Hastings
- The Battle of Lewes
- History of Medieval and Tudor England
- The wives of Henry VIII
- Life of Mary Queen of Scots
- Richard III & the Princes in the Tower
- Life of Shakespeare
- Best day trips from London for history buffs
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