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Home "England of the Middle Ages" The War of the Scarlet and White Roses " Myths of the war of the Scarlet and White Roses
Myths of the War of the Roses
The Civil War, which went down in history as the Wars of the Roses, took place between Yorkshire and Lancashire, whose symbols were the white and scarlet rose.
It lasted for 30 long years and caused huge damage to the population and devastation of the lands on which this population lived.
During the war, so many representatives of the aristocracy were exterminated that Henry VII had to re create this social layer.
Henry VII was the king who brought peace and prosperity to the kingdom, unlike his predecessor, the usurper Richard III, who stole the throne through deception and a series of low murders.
At that time, the big bow dominated the battlefield, and among the soldiers were knights and heavily armed horsemen, covered from head to toe with bulky plate armor, riding war horses, also clad in armor.
A familiar picture, perhaps not containing a word of truth.
Edward IV, king who ruled in England in 1464-83.
He seized the throne with the help of Duke Warwick, whom he later killed in battle.
In the same year, on his orders, Henry VI was assassinated in prison.
The moral principles of Edward VI were very confused and unstable, greed is huge.
The way in which Ong arranged his wedding discredited him completely.
He achieved financial independence from parliament through a brief war with France in 1475.
Subsequently, he received an annual subsidy of 20,000 crowns from Louis XI.
In the XVI century, the history of England was rewritten to please Henry Tudor in order to help establish the Tudor dynasty on the throne after the period of unrest that followed the War of the Roses.
As a result, a lot of widely spread, but completely wrong opinions about the events of this war have survived to this day.
Before I venture to make a general conclusion, I would like to consider the ingrained misconceptions mentioned in general terms at the beginning of the chapter.
A civil war is a war in which citizens of a country kill their own compatriots.
By this definition, the war of the roses may well be classified as a civil war.
In fact, this war was a manifestation of the dynastic struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster and affected only the aristocratic families of these houses, as well as their adherents and successors.
These campaigns were more of a protracted power struggle between two political parties than a civil war.
Both parties recognized the need to unite the kingdom and the existing system of government, represented by the king, the Council and the parliament.
None of the parties sought to destroy or weaken the royal power, as was the case during the civil wars on the continent.
Each of the factions only wanted to gain power in the Council and thereby rule the country.
Thus, the wars were waged by large barons, mainly of the border regions, with the help of private armies that were not in the public service.
The conflicts of large feudal lords to some extent differed from other wars of the era, both internal (civil) and external, in that the barons tried not to touch ordinary people, because they needed supporters who supported their struggle against other feudal lords; and also because they were interested in the prosperity of the kingdom.
Philippe de Comines notes in his memoirs: "The British did not kill anyone after winning a battle, especially ordinary people.
On the contrary, each of the opposing sides tried to win the favor of the commoners.
King Edward told me that when he was finally convinced of his victory at the end of the battle, he jumped on his horse and shouted an order to spare the commoners and put the noble knights to death.
Of the latter, few managed to escape.
The English kingdom had one advantage over other kingdoms: the countryside, as a rule, was not ravaged, the inhabitants were not destroyed, the buildings were not destroyed or burned.
All the troubles fell mainly to the soldiers and the nobility.
It is believed that the war of the Roses lasted for 30 years: from 1455 to 1485.
This figure can be divided into three periods of the peak of the conflict: 1455-64, 1469-71, 1483-87.
The actual time of the campaign is 428 days.
The confrontation broke through with another fight, after which everything very quickly subsided.
The longest hike from Wakefield to Towton lasted 4 months.
Even Edward's campaign to seize the throne took only 2 months, from the moment he landed at Ravenspur to the battle of Tewkesbury.
Taking into account the above facts, it can be understood that the long bloody battles and other horrors associated with the civil war were not characteristic of the war of the roses.
Modern historians believe that the idea of looted lands, devastated by the civil war, was fixed in history thanks to the efforts of Tudor supporters.
They created this image in order to strengthen the contrast between the devastation that reigned in the country before the accession of Henry VII to the throne, and the peace and prosperity that came to the land of England under the new king.
The aristocracy suffered very much.
Although this is still a question: is it so strong?
Yes, many knights were killed.
But their families were not destroyed, as is often claimed.
The old nobility actually survived the war.
K. B. McFarlane cites a figure of 25 percent, indicating the rate of extinction of noble families.
Of course, 25 percent is a high mortality rate.
Undoubtedly, the nobility was dying out.
Such a great decline was caused by the lack of male heirs, as well as the fact that many lives were taken by the war.
The noble families really suffered cruelly: of the 16 names of dukes and earls that existed in the last decade of the reign of Henry VII, only two remained unharmed — William, Earl of Arundel, who did not take part in either the war or the political struggle, and Ralph Neville, the second Duke of Westmorland.
There is also confusion about the names of the two parties — the Yorks and the Lancasters.
At that time, the York dynasty had the most supporters in the midlands of England, and the Lancastrians dominated in Yorkshire!
It is important to remember that the Yorks and Lancasters are the names of two competing dynasties that have little in common with geographical names.
We should not be confused by the confrontation of two modern English counties of the same name, which in no way relates to the events described.
It should be noted that even the name of the war is wrong.
The noisy quarrels of the major barons of that period were given such a sonorous name many years later.
Probably, the name was coined by Sir Walter Scott in the XIX century.
Shakespeare's play "Henry VI"played a role in the rooting of delusion.
It has a famous scene where the warring representatives of the nobility collect red and white roses in the Temple garden.
The quarrels between the noble families continued.
One of the most confusing circumstances was that families often became allies of yesterday's rivals by marrying representatives of the opposite side, after which titles and estates passed into the hands of recent enemies thanks to heiresses.
I hope that the brief description of the events offered here and the famous figures who took part in them will help to understand who fought with whom, where, when and for what.
The War of the Roses
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