Did the Wars of the Roses start in December 1450?

York vs Beaufort. Beaufort vs York. The great feud.

Happy 1^st December, everyone. If you’re like me, you will already have had the Christmas tree up for a few weeks. I love Christmas, the lights, the mulled wine, the crazy range of chocolate on sale (shoutout to Sainsbury’s for their chocolate shortbread stars). Vera keeps trying to attack one of the hanging baubles from the tree, which happens to be of a pint of Guinness, oddly. Maybe she fancies a beer?

Anyway, onto some history. The 15th century civil war known as the Wars of the Roses is rightly regarded as one of the most complex and unquestionably captivating periods in European history. It was a three-decade long, destructive conflict that tore the upper echelons of the English nobility apart in a manner not witnessed since The Anarchy in the mid-12th century.

Traditionally, this vicious conflict is traditionally considered to have begun on 22 May 1455 with the first Battle of St Albans. In the narrow streets of this historic town, a Yorkist faction smashed their Lancastrian foe, eliminating their rivals and seizing control of the realm. Naturally, such shocking bloodshed did not end that day, and would instead trigger three-decades of internecine warfare that tore England’s nobility apart, figuratively and literally.

Can we, however, date the actual beginning of the conflict to 1 December 1450?

England, during this year, was an increasingly divided land, as bitter recriminations over English military failures in France exacerbated tensions at the royal court of Henry VI. That year alone had witnessed the murder of Adam Moleyns, Lord Privy Seal in January, the English losing at the Battle of Formigny in April, the extrajudicial slaughter of the king's favourite councillor William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk in May, Jack Cade's popular uprising against taxation and the murder of the royal confessor William Ayscough in June and the treasurer James Fiennes, Baron Saye, in July, before the return of Richard, Duke of York, to England in September when he demanding widescale reform. A busy year. A bloody year.

The two principal figures in the realm during this time were the duke of York, and his detested rival, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Whilst York was alienated from power, Somerset held all the reigns of power, a favourite of his cousin Henry VI. It didn’t help that both men, York and Somerset, had potential claims to the English throne, and the king was currently childless after several years of marriage. Tense doesn’t quite cut it.

Both men had already been feuding for several years over Somerset’s conduct in France in previous years. York’s tenure as lieutenant in France, a lucrative post in which the holder wielded power over the English-held dominions, had ended in 1445, and the post was given to Somerset. At the same time, the new lieutenant was raised from earl to duke, rivalling York’s rank.

Somerset’s spell in France, however, proved disastrous and by 1450, he had overseen the complete loss of all English possessions in Normandy, including York’s favoured fortress of Rouen, the mightiest in the region. Somerset’s reputation collapsed amongst some of the nobility in England, particularly York, although he was infallible in the eyes of the man who mattered: Henry VI.

When York returned to England from Ireland in September 1450, where he had been unceremoniously posted a few years earlier, out of the way, a clash with Somerset was inevitable. Quite simply, both dukes could not coexist peacefully, nor did either have any inclination to do so. York’s intention was to assume command of the government on behalf of the unstable king, replacing the fallen Suffolk and re-establishing good governance and financial probity to the realm. York, however, was politely rebuffed, only to frustratingly see Edmund Beaufort handed such authority.

So, when parliament convened in Westminster on 6 November 1450, and York's chamberlain Sir William Oldhall was elected speaker of the Commons, York was provided a national platform to appeal for reform. This necessitated, of course, the destruction of Somerset’s court party, widely blamed for much of the kingdom's ills. York was something of a populist, and knew how to appeal to the commons.

Oldhall, York’s mouthpiece, demanded widespread restructuring of the royal household and improved fiscal management, noting how the king was in debt to the ‘great and grievous’ amount of £372,000 with an annual income of only £5,000. Concern was also voiced about the ‘many murders, manslaughters, rapes, robberies, riots, affrays and other inconveniences’ committed throughout the realm, noted to be ‘greater than afore’. Chief concern, however, fuelled by York, was the removal of the king’s leading councillors. Those targeted were even named, charged with:

‘misbehaving about you’re Royal person, and in other places, by whose undue means your possessions have been greatly amenused, your laws not executed, and the peace of this your realm not observed neither kept, to your great hurt, and trouble of the liege people of this your realm’.

The very first name on the list of shame was ‘Edmund, Duke of Somerset’. The Commons demanded all offenders be ‘voided and removed from your most noble presence, person and estate’ for life, with an added provision they be forbidden from coming within twelve miles of the king. All offices and fees, it was hoped, would be forfeit by 1 December 1450.

King Henry, however,  paid little heed to the complaints, declaring he was ‘not sufficiently learned of any cause why they should be removed’. Big mistake, Harry.

On the evening of 1 December, the date by which the Commons had demanded all offices and fees be surrendered, the duke of Somerset was feasting at the Blackfriars Priory in Ludgate when several armed soldiers attempted to break through the doors. The duke fled in panic through the corridors of the priory until he reached a small boat on the nearby Thames, embarking before he could be seized by his pursuers. He had been forced to leave behind his possessions in his haste to escape, with the author of Gregory’s Chronicle recounting how the duke was ‘robbed of all his goods, and his jewels were taken and borne away’. Ten days later, his castle of Corfe was also ransacked by men connected to the Yorkist affinity.

Somerset had managed to escape certain lynching at the hands of his attackers on this occasion, a violent fate suffered that year by his colleagues Suffolk, Saye, Moleyns and Ayscough. He was ordered into the Tower of London by Henry VI for his own protection, where he remained throughout the Christmas period until feelings subsided.

Although there is little evidence York himself personally the December 1450 ambush, the extant feud between these two rival royal dukes rapidly deteriorated into a blood-feud that would, eventually, lead to both their deaths within the decade. Their sons, however, would pick up the mantle and continue the wars into the 1460s.

The Wars of the Roses are often portrayed as a dynastic battle between the houses of York and Lancaster, but in truth, from their outset, it was issues between a York and a Beaufort that was the driving force behind the conflict. This York-Beaufort dynamic was still evident at Bosworth Field at the end of the war when York’s son Richard III faced down the Somerset’s great-nephew Henry Tudor, the Beaufort family heir.

LEARN MORE:

You can, of course, learn more about the feud between York and Somerset in my biography of the Beauforts, ‘The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown’.

The book also explores the family’s illegitimate origins as the offspring of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, their struggles during the latter phases of the Hundred Years’ War, and their destruction during the Wars of the Roses.

Available from all good retailers, and some links can be found HERE