Page 56 - All About History - Issue 11-14

How has literature and film
portrayed the events?
One of our main sources for information in
popular culture on the War of the Roses is William
Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy, which charts the
political machinations, fights and jealousies that
tore the English political system apart in the mid-
15th century. Indeed, the current name for the
series of battles – War of the Roses – actually
stems from Act 2, Scene 4 of the work, where the
bickering lords are asked to show their allegiance
to either Richard Duke of York or the rival Duke of
Somerset by selecting either a red or white rose
from a garden. This scene, despite its dubious
historical accuracy – historians think it never took
place – was later seized on Sir Walter Scott and
popularised through his work Anne of Geierstein.
The name, ‘Wars of the Roses’, therefore stuck and
has proceeded to be used to describe the conflict
since. Up until this point, the conflict had instead
simply been referred to as the ‘civil war’.

The historically apocryphal scene from
Shakespeare’s Henry VI where supporters of the
Yorkists and Lancastrians pick either a red or
white rose to show their allegiance The Battle of Tewkesbury, one of the
decisive battles of the War of the Roses

fluidly from one house to the other, but sometimes the House of Lancaster pressed on, with father’s ally. The two of them and their armies
into nothingness, with no real victor or controlling their army returning south, outmanoeuvring then made a beeline for the capital. Margaret
stake identifiable. Warwick’s Yorkist army and defeating them and Henry VI were not in London, as they were
These battles didn’t just see commoners cut at the Second Battle of St Albans. By now, all travelling northward, so the Yorkists entered the
down in their thousands; for Richard Plantagenet, seemed to be lost for the House of York. city unopposed and to a rapturous welcome. The
the Duke of York, Wakefield would be his final With Richard Plantagenet dead and the Earl of welcome was so enthusiastic because Henry VI’s
resting place. Decades of warfare had finally Warwick having suffered a bad defeat, the House incompetence as king had seen popular opinion
caught up with him. With Richard slain in battle of York desperately needed a figurehead to rally sway in Edward’s favour and the common people
and his second son Edmund and ally Richard of around and so Richard’s first son, Edward of had seemingly had enough of being under
Salisbury captured and executed, Wakefield was March, stepped into the breach. He had already Lancastrian ruler.
one of the largest Lancastrian victories of the defeated Jasper Tudor’s Lancastrian army at Such was the anti-Lancastrian mood that not
War of the Roses and a boon for the ageing but the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in Herefordshire only did Edward receive huge support from all
powerful Margaret of Anjou. Following Wakefield, and, hearing of Warwick’s defeat, joined his the Yorkist nobles around the city but he was
unofficially crowned king in an impromptu
“ Importantly though, while Margaret and ceremony held at Westminster Abbey. Edward
the House of Lancaster were down for knew though that while he had enjoyed the
ceremony, he would never truly be king until
the count, they were not down and out” Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou had been
disposed of. Vowing to Parliament that he would
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