THE STRUGGLE IN FRANCE
By the end of the fourteenth century, the long war with France, known as the Hundred Years War, had already been going on for over fifty years. But there had been long periods without actual fighting.
When Henry IV died in 1413 he passed on to his son Henry V a kingdom that was peaceful and united. Henry V was a brave and inteligent man, and like Richard I, he became one of England's favourite kings.
Since the situation was peaceful at home Henry V felt able to begin fighting the French again. His French war was as popular as Edward III's had been. Henry had a great advantage because the king of France was mad, and his nobles were quarrelsome. The war began again in 1415 when Henry renewed Edward III's claim to the throne of France. Burgundy again supported England and The English army was able to prove once more that it was far better in battle than the French army. At Agincourt the same yecar the English defeeated a French army three times its own size. The English were more skilful, and had better weapons.
Between 1417 and 1420 Henry manged to capture most of Normandy and the nearby areas. By the treaty of Troyes in 1420 Henry was recognised as heir to the mad king, and he married Katherine of Valois, the king's daughter. But Henry V never became king of France because he died a few months before the French king in 1422. His nine-month-old baby son, inherited the thrones of England and France.
As with Scotland and Wales, England found it was easier to invade and conquer France than to keep it. At first Henry V's brother, John duke of Bedford, continued to enlarge the area under English control. But soon the French began to fight back. Foreign invasion had created for the first time strong French national feeling. The English army was twice defeated by the French, who were inspired by a mysterious peasent girl called Joan of Arc, who claimed to hear heavenly voices. Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, and given to the English. The English gave her to the Church in Rouen, which burnt her as a Witch in 1413.
England was now beginning to lose an extremely costly war. In 1435 England's best general, John of Bedford, died. Then England's Breton and Burgundian allies lost confidence in the value of the English alliance. With the loss of Gascony in 1453, the Hundred Years War was over. England had lost everything except the port of Calais.
The wars of the Roses
Henry VI, who had become king as a baby, grew up to be simple-minded and book-loving. He hated the warlike nobles, and was an unsuitable king for such a violent society. But he was a cicilised and gentle man. He founded two places of learning that still exist, Etnon College not far from London, and King's College in Cambridge. He could happily have spent his life in such places of learning. But Henry's simple-mindedness gave way to periods of mental illnes.
England had lost a war and was ruled by a mentally ill king who was bad at choosing advisers. It was perhaps natural that the nobles began to ask questions about who should be ruling the country.They remembered that Henry's grandfather Henry of Lancaster had taken the throne when Richard II was deposed.
There were not more than sixty noble families controlling England at this time. Most of them were related to each other through marriage. Some of the nobles were extremely powerful. Many of them continued to keep their own private armies after returning from the war in France, and used them to frighten local people into obeying them. Some of these armies were large. For example, by 1450 the duke of Buckingham had 2,000 men in his private army.
The disconted nobility were divided between those who remained loyal to Henry VI, the "Lancastrians", and those who supported the duke of York, the "Yorkists". The duke of York was the heir of the earl of March, who had lost the competition for the throne when Richard II was deposed in 1399. In 1460 the duke Of York claimed the throne for himself. After his death in battle, his son Edward took up the struggle and won the throne in 1461.
Edward IV put Henry into the Tower of London, but nine years later a new Lancastrian army rescued Henry and chased Edward out of the country. Like the Lancastrians, Edward was able to raise another army. Edward had the advantage of his popularity with the merchants of London and the southeast of England. This was because the Yorkists had strongly encouraged profitable trade, particulary with Burgundy. Edward returned to England in 1471 and defeated the Lancastrians. Henry VI died in the Tower of London soon after, almost certainly murdered.
The war between York and Lancaster would probably have stopped then if Edward's son had been old enough to tule, and if Edward's son had been old enough to rule, and if Edward's brother, Richard of Gloucester, had not been so ambitious. But when Edward IV died in 1483, his own two sons, the twelve-year-old Edward V and his younger brother, were put in the Tower by Richard of Gloucester. Richard took the Crown and became King Richard III. A month later the two princes were murdered. William Shakespeare's play Richard III, written a century later, accuses Richard of murder and almost everyone belived it. Richard III had a better reason than most to wish his two nepheus dead, but his guilt has never been proved.
Richard III was not pupular. Lancastrians and Yorkists both disliked him. In 1485 a challenger with a very distant claim to royal blood through John of Gaunt landed in England with Breton soldiersto claim the throne. Many discontented lords, both Lancastrians and Yorkists, joined him. His name was Henry Tudor, duke of Richmond, and he was half Welsh. He met Richard III at Bosworth. Half of Richard's army changed sides, and the battle quickly ended in his defeat and death. Henry Tudor was crowned king immediately, on the battlefield.
The Wars of the roses nearly destroyed the English idea of kingship for ever. After 1460 there had been little respect for anything except the power to take the Crown. Tidor historians made much of these wars and made it seem as if much of England had been destroyed, this was not true. Fighting took place for only a total of fifteen month out of thewhole twenty-five year period. Only the nobles andtheir armies were involved.
It is true, however, that the wars were a disaster for the nobility. For the first time there had been no purpose in taking prisoniers, because no one was interested in payment of ransom. Everyone was interested in destroying the opposing nobility. Those captured in battle were usually killed immediately. By the time of the battle of Bosworth in 1485, the old nobility had nearly destroyed itself. Almost half the lords of the sixty noble families had died in the wars. It was this fact which made it possible for the Tudors to build a new nation state.
