The Battle of Tewkesbury, which took place on Saturday 4 May 1471, was one of the most decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses in England.
The Battle of Barnet was a decisive engagement in the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic conflict of 15th-century England. The military action, along with the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury, secured the throne for Edward IV.
The Battle of Wakefield took place in Sandal Magna near Wakefield in northern England, on 30 December 1460. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by nobles loyal to the captive King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster and his Queen Margaret of Anjou on one side, and the army of Richard, Duke of York, the rival claimant to the throne, on the other.
The Battle of Towton took place on 29 March 1461 during the Wars of the Roses, near Towton in North Yorkshire, and "has the dubious distinction of being probably the largest and bloodiest battle on English soil". Fought for ten hours between an estimated 50,000 soldiers in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday, the Yorkist army achieved a decisive victory over their Lancastrian opponents. As a result, Edward IV deposed the Lancastrian Henry VI and secured the English throne.
John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu was a major magnate of fifteenth-century England. He was a younger son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, and the younger brother of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the "Kingmaker".
The Battle of Mortimer's Cross was fought on 2 February 1461 near Kingsland, Herefordshire, not far from the Welsh border. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by Jasper Tudor and his father, Owen Tudor, and other nobles loyal to King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster, his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and their seven-year-old son, Edward, Prince of Wales, on one side, and the army of Edward, Earl of March. Some sources say it was fought on 3 February, and the exact location has been the subject of some speculation.
The Battle of Northampton was fought on 10 July 1460 near the River Nene, Northamptonshire. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by nobles loyal to King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster, his Queen Margaret of Anjou and their six-year-old son Edward, Prince of Wales, on one side, and the army of Edward, Earl of March, and Warwick the Kingmaker on the other. The battle was the first in which artillery was used in England.
The Rout of Ludford Bridge was a largely bloodless confrontation fought in the early years of the Wars of the Roses. It took place on 12 October 1459, and resulted in a setback for the Yorkists. Although this seemed to be a triumph for the rival Lancastrians at the time, they had thrown away their advantage within six months.
The Battle of Ferrybridge, 28 March 1461, was a preliminary engagement between the houses of York and Lancaster before the larger battle of Towton, during the period now known as the Wars of the Roses.
The Act of Accord was an act of the Parliament of England. It was passed on 25 October 1460 during a period of intense political division and partisanship at the top of government. Three weeks earlier, Richard, Duke of York had entered the Council Chamber—in the presence of several lords—and laid his hand on the empty throne, claiming the crown of England. His grounds were that he and King Henry VI were both direct descendants of Edward III, but York possessed two claims, through both the male and female lines, and Henry's was through only one. Following discussions between Royal justices, York and Parliament, the House of Lords decided that Henry was to retain the crown for life, but York and his heirs were to succeed him. This automatically removed Henry's son, Edward, Prince of Wales, from the succession. Henry agreed to the compromise, which became the Act of Accord.
John Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk,, Earl Marshal was a fifteenth-century English magnate who, despite having a relatively short political career, played a significant role in the early years of the Wars of the Roses. Mowbray was born in 1415, the only son and heir of John de Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and Katherine Neville. He inherited his titles upon his father's death in 1432. As a minor he became a ward of King Henry VI and was placed under the protection of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, alongside whom Mowbray would later campaign in France. He seems to have had an unruly and rebellious youth. Although the details of his misconduct are unknown, they were severe enough for the King to place strictures upon him and separate him from his followers. Mowbray's early career was spent in the military, where he held the wartime office of Earl Marshal. Later he led the defence of England's possessions in Normandy during the Hundred Years' War. He fought in Calais in 1436, and during 1437–38 served as Warden of the Eastern March on the Anglo-Scottish border, before returning to Calais.
Thomas Fauconberg or Thomas Neville, sometimes called Thomas the Bastard, or the Bastard of Fauconberg, was the natural son of William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, who was a leading commander in the Hundred Years' War and, until joining his cousin, Richard Neville in rebellion on the Lancastrian side against another cousin, Edward IV, served on the Yorkist side in the Wars of the Roses.
John Clifford, 9th Baron Clifford, 9th Lord of Skipton was a Lancastrian military leader during the Wars of the Roses in England. The Clifford family was one of the most prominent families among the northern English nobility of the fifteenth century, and by the marriages of his sisters, John Clifford had links to some very important families of the time, including the earls of Devon. He was orphaned at twenty years of age when his father was slain by partisans of the House of York at the first battle of the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of St Albans in 1455. It was probably as a result of his father's death there that Clifford became one of the strongest supporters of Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI, who ended up as effective leader of the Lancastrian faction.
John Neville, Baron Neville was an English nobleman who fought for the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses. He belonged to a senior but impoverished branch of the Neville family of northern England, which had earlier been disinherited in favour of a younger branch headed by John's half-uncle, Richard, Earl of Salisbury. John Neville and his brothers spent several years feuding with Salisbury over the contested inheritance and, when the dynastic wars broke out, John sided with the Lancastrians whilst the junior Nevilles sided with the House of York.
Sir Andrew Trollope was an English professional soldier who fought in the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses.
Events from the 1460s in England.
The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The wars were fought between supporters of the House of Lancaster and House of York, two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflict resulted in the end of Lancaster's male line in 1471, leaving the Tudor family to inherit their claim to the throne through the female line. Conflict was largely brought to an end upon the union of the two houses through marriage, creating the Tudor dynasty that would subsequently rule England.
The First Battle of St Albans took place on 22 May, 1455, at St Albans, 22 miles (35 km) north of London, and traditionally marks the beginning of the Wars of the Roses in England. Richard, Duke of York, and his allies, the Neville Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, defeated a royal army commanded by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Unusually, the battle was contested in the town of St Albans itself, with the bulk of the fighting taking place in the streets and a tavern being used as a redoubt. Somerset was killed in the battle, and King Henry VI captured, clearing the way for a subsequent parliament to appoint Richard of York Lord Protector.
The Second Battle of St Albans was fought on 17 February 1461 during the Wars of the Roses in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.
The siege of the Tower of London was an episode of the Wars of the Roses, in which adherents of the rival Plantagenet houses of Lancaster and York were pitted against each other. In June 1460, several Yorkist nobles, who had unsuccessfully rebelled against King Henry VI the year before and had fled to Calais, invaded the south east of England at Sandwich. They enjoyed widespread support through popular discontent with the ruling court among the populace of Kent and the merchants of London, and were greeted by enthusiastic crowds when they entered London on 2 July.
