Why Did the Wars of the Roses Start?

A watercolour recreation of the Wars of the Roses.

 What Caused the War?
In the simplest terms, the war began because Richard, Duke of York, believed he had a better claim to the throne than the man sitting on it, Henry VI.

 Ever since Henry II, the first Plantagenet, took power, Kings had been holding onto their crown by the skin of their teeth and not all of them succeeded. Edward II, for example, was ousted by his wife and replaced by his son Edward III, but at least this kept things in the family.

 Problems occurred in 1399 when Richard II was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke who would go on to be the Henry IV. This created two competing lines of the family, both of which thought they had the rightful claim. On the one hand were the descendants of Henry IV – known as the Lancastrians – and on the other the heirs of Richard II. In the 1450s, the leader of this family was Richard of York and his followers would come to be known as the Yorkists.

 A Dodgy King However, all this dynastic arguing was something of a smokescreen. What really mattered were more practical issues and in particular the disappointing reign of Henry VI.

A portrait of the ailing Henry VI whose inability to rule effectively due to his illness contributed to the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses

 When he became king Henry was in an incredible position. Thanks to the military successes of his father, Henry V, he held vast swathes of France and was the only King of England to be crowned King of France and England. However it was not a title he could hold onto for long and over the course of his reign he gradually lost almost all England’s possessions in France.

 Finally, in 1453, defeat at the Battle of Castillion called an end to the hundred years war and left England with only Calais from all their French possessions.

 The nobles were not happy, but this was as nothing to Henry’s reaction. He had always had a fragile mind and in 1453 it broke. Historians believe he suffered from a condition known as catatonic Schizophrenia which would see him lapse into catatonic states for long periods of time.

 Battle for Power
 Henry’s weakness created two factions at court. One, led by the Duke of Gloucester and Richard, Duke of York favoured a more aggressive policy in the war, while the other led by the Dukes of Suffolk and Somerset favoured peace. They were supported by the Queen Margaret of Anjou who was rumoured to be having an affair with Somerset.

 With Henry in no fit state to rule, Richard was named Regent. Although he relinquished when Henry recovered it had given him a taste for power and this alerted Margaret. She sensed a threat from Richard and did everything she could to force him out of power.

 The two sides met in the Battle of St Albans. It was only a small skirmish, but it saw the death of the Duke of Somerset and several other Lancastrian noblemen. This created sons who were out for revenge and turned a dynastic struggle into an even more poisonous blood feud.

 Even then there were chances to turn back. The Act of Accord in 1460 named Richard heir, but there was no turning back. Margaret – perhaps grieving for Somerset – was determined to get her revenge on Richard. She would have it when he himself was killed in battle, but that only left his son Edward who was even more determined to get his revenge. The Wars of York and Lancaster had begun.

 By Tom Cropper
Tom is a freelance journalist who studied history at Essex University. His work can be found in many different publications focusing on business and politics.

6 myths about Richard III

History Extra

Myth 1: Richard was a murderer Shakespeare’s famous play,
 Richard III, summarises Richard’s alleged murder victims in the list of ghosts who prevent his sleep on the last night of his life. These comprise Edward of Westminster (putative son of King Henry VI); Henry VI himself; George, Duke of Clarence; Earl Rivers; Richard Grey and Thomas Vaughan; Lord Hastings; the ‘princes in the Tower’; the Duke of Buckingham and Queen Anne Neville.

But Clarence, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan and Buckingham were all executed (a legal process), not murdered: Clarence was executed by Edward IV (probably on the incentive of Elizabeth Woodville). Rivers, Grey and Vaughan were executed by the Earl of Northumberland, and Hastings and Buckingham were executed by Richard III because they had conspired against him. Intriguingly, similar subsequent actions by Henry VII are viewed as a sign of ‘strong kingship’!

There is no evidence that Edward of Westminster, Henry VI, the ‘princes in the Tower’ or Anne Neville were murdered by anyone. Edward of Westminster was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury, and Anne Neville almost certainly died naturally. Also, if Richard III really had been a serious killer in the interests of his own ambitions, why didn’t he kill Lord and Lady Stanley – and John Morton?

Morton had plotted with Lord Hastings in 1483, but while Hastings was executed, Morton was only imprisoned. As for the Stanleys, Lady Stanley was involved in Buckingham's rebellion. And in June 1485, when the invasion of his stepson, Henry Tudor was imminent, Lord Stanley requested leave to retire from court. His loyalty had always been somewhat doubtful. Nevertheless, Richard III simply granted Stanley's request - leading ultimately to the king's own defeat at Bosworth.

Myth 2: Richard was a usurper
The dictionary definition of ‘usurp’ is “to seize and hold (the power and rights of another, for example) by force or without legal authority”. The official website of the British Monarchy states unequivocally (but completely erroneously) that “Richard III usurped the throne from the young Edward V”.

Curiously, the monarchy website does not describe either Henry VII or Edward IV as usurpers, yet both of those kings seized power by force, in battle! On the other hand, Richard III did not seize power. He was offered the crown by the three estates of the realm (the Lords and Commons who had come to London for the opening of a prospective Parliament in 1483) on the basis of evidence presented to them by one of the bishops, to the effect that Edward IV had committed bigamy and that Edward V and his siblings were therefore bastards.

Even if that judgement was incorrect, the fact remains that it was a legal authority that invited a possibly reluctant Richard to assume the role of king. His characterisation as a ‘usurper’ is therefore simply an example of how history is rewritten by the victors (in this case, Henry VII).

Myth 3: Richard aimed to marry his niece It has frequently been claimed (on the basis of reports of a letter, the original of which does not survive), that in 1485 Richard III planned to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. There is no doubt that rumours to this effect were current in 1485, and we know for certain that Richard was concerned about them. That is not surprising, since his invitation to mount the throne had been based upon the conclusion that all of Edward IV’s children were bastards.

Obviously no logical monarch would have sought to marry a bastard niece. In fact, very clear evidence survives that proves beyond question that Richard did intend to remarry in 1485. However, his chosen bride was the Portuguese princess Joana. What’s more, his diplomats in Portugal were also seeking to arrange a second marriage there – between Richard’s illegitimate niece, Elizabeth, and a minor member of the Portuguese royal family!

Myth 4: Richard slept at the Boar Inn in Leicester In August 1485, prior to the battle of Bosworth, Richard III spent one night in Leicester. About a century later, a myth began to emerge that claimed that on this visit he had slept at a Leicester inn that featured the sign of a boar. This story is still very widely believed today.

However, there is no evidence to even show that such an inn existed in 1485. We know that previously Richard had stayed at the castle on his rare visits to Leicester. The earliest written source for the story of the Boar Inn visit is John Speede [English cartographer and historian, d1629].

Curiously, Speede also produced another myth about Richard III – that his body had been dug up at the time of the Dissolution. Many people in Leicester used to believe Speede’s story about the fate of Richard’s body. However, when the BBC commissioned me to research it in 2004, I concluded that it was false, and I was proved right by the finding of the king’s remains on the Greyfriars site in 2012. The story of staying at the Boar Inn is probably also nothing more than a later invention.

Myth 5: Richard rode a white horse at Bosworth
In his famous play about the king, Shakespeare has Richard III order his attendants to ‘Saddle white Surrey [Syrie] for the field tomorrow’. On this basis it is sometimes stated as fact that Richard rode a white horse at his final battle. But prior to Shakespeare, no one had recorded this, although an earlier 16th-century chronicler, Edward Hall, had said that Richard rode a white horse when he entered Leicester a couple of days earlier.

There is no evidence to prove either point. Nor is there any proof that Richard owned a horse called ‘White Syrie’ or ‘White Surrey’. However, we do know that his stables contained grey horses (horses with a coat of white hair).

Myth 6: Richard attended his last mass at Sutton Cheney Church
It was claimed in the 1920s that early on the morning of 22 August 1485, Richard III made his way from his camp to Sutton Cheney Church in order to attend mass there. No earlier source exists for this unlikely tale, which appears to have been invented in order to provide an ecclesiastical focus for modern commemorations of Richard.

A slightly different version of this story was recently circulated to justify the fact that, prior to reburial, the king’s remains will be taken to Sutton Cheney. It was said it is believed King Richard took his final mass at St James’ church on the eve of the battle.

 For a priest to celebrate mass in the evening (at a time when he would have been required to fast from the previous midnight, before taking communion) would have been very unusual! Moreover, documentary evidence shows clearly that Richard’s army at Bosworth was accompanied by his own chaplains, who would normally have celebrated mass for the king in his tent.

John Ashdown-Hill is the author of The Mythology of Richard III (Amberley Publishing, April 2015). To find out more about the author, visit www.johnashdownhill.com.

Henry VIII: 5 places you (probably) didn’t know shaped his life

History Extra

Henry VIII. Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540. The painting has the inscription 'Anno Aetatis suae XLIX' (His year of age, 49)’. Palazzo Barberini, Rome, Italy. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

Ludlow Castle

Henry never visited Ludlow Castle and yet events there were to have the greatest and most irreversible impact upon his life. In November 1501, Arthur Tudor, the eldest son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York (and Henry’s VIII’s older brother), married the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon at old St Paul’s Cathedral. Following the wedding the new Prince and Princess of Wales moved to Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, seat of the Council of the Marches, where Arthur’s role at its head was considered to be good preparation for his eventual role as king. But it was not to be. Arthur died quickly and unexpectedly on 2 April 1502. The cause of death is uncertain but it was a shock to all. Arthur's death was a huge personal, as well as political, tragedy for the Tudor family. With his older brother dead, Henry’s future was altered completely and irreversibly. He was now heir to the throne with all the expectation, pressure and duty that entailed, including the essential task of securing the Tudor line of succession. One of Henry’s first decisions as king was to marry, and he chose his brother’s widow, Catherine. As time ticked by, and despite numerous pregnancies, the royal couple had not produced a surviving male heir. Henry found that his conscience was becoming troubled and he began looking for a reason why he and Catherine remained “childless” (as Henry saw it, despite having a living daughter, Mary). He turned to the Bible for answers. Two passages from Leviticus, which refer to the taking of a brother’s wife, gave Henry reason to believe, with sincerity, that God was punishing him for marrying Catherine. His argument rested on his belief that Catherine was not a virgin when they married. Catherine herself maintained that she was “virgo intacta” and actively opposed Henry’s theory. Her steadfastness made it frustratingly difficult for Henry to convince others of his logic. The unsuccessful negotiations to secure an annulment of the marriage from Pope Clement VII ultimately led to Henry making the momentous decision to break from the church in Rome. Catherine and Arthur had been married for six months – is it possible they had not had sex during that time? Would the pious Catherine have jeopardised her soul by maintaining a lie even on her deathbed? If only the ruined walls of Ludlow Castle could talk, they could tell us what really happened in the prince’s bedchamber!


Eltham Palace

As a child, Henry VIII had enjoyed a more relaxed, less rigid upbringing and education than his older brother Arthur. Being only the ‘spare’ and not the heir, Henry was not required to spend as much time in his father’s court and he therefore enjoyed more time in his mother’s company. As a result they had a very close relationship. It was unequivocally the most important relationship in terms of shaping the young Henry’s picture of what a royal wife and mother should be, and how she should behave. Much of their time was spent at the palace her father Edward IV had favoured, at Eltham, along the River Thames from London. It was here that Henry first met and impressed the scholar Erasmus, introduced to him by Thomas More. As king, Henry VIII invested a lot of money into Eltham and built a chapel there. He and Anne Boleyn visited on 24 November 1533 on their return from France where they had met King Francis at the famous ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’, near Balingnem. The relative peace that the country enjoyed under Henry VII can be attributed in part to his marriage to Elizabeth of York, which had effectively joined the warring Houses of York and Lancaster. That stability was threatened with the unexpected death of Arthur Prince of Wales in 1502. With only one male child, Elizabeth of York was expected to perform her royal duty once again; this time, though, there were to be tragic consequences. Elizabeth fell pregnant but, following the premature birth of a baby girl within the White Tower at the Tower of London, she died on 11 February 1503, her 37th birthday. Henry was aged 11: old enough to be fully aware of events, young enough to truly feel the loss of a mother. Some historians and writers have played down or even omitted to discuss the impact of Elizabeth’s death on Henry, potentially misunderstanding the strength of bond between mother and son. It is true that Henry had a ‘lady mistress’ who took care of him day-to-day, but we should not assume from this that he did not suffer the loss of his mother greatly. In 2012, an incredible discovery at the National Library of Wales revealed an illustrated manuscript containing a painting showing the 11-year-old Henry crying at the empty bedside of his dead mother. The painting indicates not only that Henry's grief was real but that it was recognised and accepted. The impact of losing his mother, with whom he had built such a strong bond during the many hours spent with her at Eltham Palace, is worth consideration when thinking about Henry’s subsequent relationships with women, wives in particular. Was he subconsciously, maybe even consciously, looking for the perfect wife to emulate his mother? Despite Eltham’s significance, only the great hall built by Edward IV, Henry’s Yorkist grandfather, survives. The palace fell into decline after the reign of James I and suffered grave damage when occupied by parliamentary troops during the Civil War in the 17th century. The ruined great hall, once splendid for court occasions, was even used as a cattle barn during the 18th century.

The Mary Rose

 The Mary Rose, raised from the seabed in 1982, was the flagship of Henry VIII’s navy and now sits in her permanent home within Portsmouth Historic Dockyard along with a myriad of artefacts brought up with her from the bottom of the Solent. She was built in around 1511, two years after Henry became king, and sank on 19 July 1545, two years before Henry died, thus her service spanned almost his entire reign. She is a physical representation of Henry’s navy and the people who served aboard her. Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and consequential break with Rome produced a real and unrelenting threat of invasion from Catholic countries loyal to the Pope. Henry spent a fortune on ships and a series of land-based coastal defences to protect England from attack. His fears were realised in July 1545 when a French invasion force intent on landing on the English mainland gathered off the Isle of Wight. Henry travelled to Portsmouth to inspect his fleet, which included the 34-year-old Mary Rose. On 19 July the wind turned in favour of the English and the Mary Rose went into battle with the rest of the fleet. There are a number of theories as to how the ship sank, one of which is that after firing at the French galleys she made a quick turn, at which point the wind caught her sails, causing her to bank so far over that water entered the gun ports which had not yet been closed. Whatever the cause, her demise was swift. Within minutes she was below the waves, taking the lives of the majority of her crew with her. From his vantage point on the battlements of Southsea Castle, where he was gathered with a land army, Henry saw all. He could hear the cries of the drowning men and exclaimed “Oh, my gentlemen! Oh, my gallant men!”


Waltham Abbey

Henry went on regular pilgrimages to see the miraculous black cross at Waltham Abbey, an Augustine monastery north of London. According to records, he was here in 1510; again when sweating sickness ravaged London in 1528; in July 1529 and August 1532, when he was accompanied by Anne Boleyn during their summer progress. The dissolution of the monasteries which, over four years, had altered the landscape, economy and social welfare system of the country, ended here in March 1540. A walk around the Abbey gardens today gives an impression of how vast the Abbey complex was and, from that, an idea of just how large scale the dissolution was both to individual abbeys and their communities. The presence of a screen, which separated the nave from the Canon’s building, allowed the local people to claim part of the Abbey as their parish church, and remains so to this day . Henry’s actions – breaking with Rome, destroying the monasteries and declaring himself as head of the Church in England – has misled many writers and educators into assuming Henry had protestant sympathies or indeed had become a Protestant. But as far as Henry was concerned there was still only one form of Christianity, what we know today as Catholicism. Henry’s sixth wife, Katherine Parr, “the survivor”, only narrowly avoided arrest when she became too bold in making her reformist religious views known. Fortunately for her she received word of her impending arrest and got to Henry first, successfully convincing him that she was merely putting forward alternative views in order to be instructed by him and benefit from his great learning and to distract him from his painfully ulcerated leg.


Windsor Castle

Among the splendour of the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world we find the final resting place of Henry VIII, who lies in St George’s Chapel under the Quire floor along with his third wife, Jane Seymour. They were unmarked up until the reign of William IV, who laid a marble slab to commemorate those buried there. What Henry would make of this we can only surmise, although we can be sure that he did not imagine this as his final resting place. He had taken possession of Cardinal Wolsey’s sarcophagus after his downfall and planned to transform it into an elaborate tomb depicting himself and his third wife, Jane Seymour. The tomb, however, was not completed in Henry’s lifetime, or during the lives of any of Henry’s children, and his body was never moved. Some have argued that Henry should now be moved and interred in a tomb more in keeping with his wishes. But the fact that this king, who had such a drastic and enduring impact, remains in a crowded and understated vault is significant. It is a fitting metaphor for his real legacy, compared to that which he expected to create. Unusually for a monarch, more than half of Henry’s last will and testament is dedicated to setting out the succession. Despite attempts by his son Edward IV to alter the succession by naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor (which as monarch he was entitled to do), Henry’s vision became reality, with all three of his children succeeding him in the order he had set out: Edward IV, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Windsor Castle. (© Lucian Milasan/Dreamstime.com)

 Philippa Brewell is a historical trip writer and blogs at britishhistorytours.com.

The real King Arthur and his Lancelot: Henry the Young King and William Marshal

History Extra

Lancelot fights for Guinevere in a medieval illumination. Was William Marshal also ensnared in a dangerous love triangle? © Topfoto
   

The legends of King Arthur, his leading warrior the mighty Lancelot and the tragic love triangle they formed with Queen Guinevere, retain their allure, though more than eight centuries have passed since they were first popularised. These tales remain touchstones of the Middle Ages, evoking romanticised images of a distant era, replete with knightly daring and courtly gallantry. Yet, for all our fascination with Arthurian myths, one probable inspiration for these stories has been all but forgotten.
In the late 12th century – just as medieval Europe was falling under the spell of early Arthurian ‘Romance’ literature – a real king was feted as the ultimate paragon of chivalry. He too was served by a faithful retainer, one renowned as the greatest knight of his generation. And, like Arthur and Lancelot, their story ended in tragedy amid accusations of adultery and betrayal.
Though history seldom remembers him now, Henry the Young King seemed assured of a glittering future when he was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on 14 June 1170. Just 15 years old, Henry was already tall and incredibly handsome – the golden child of his generation. As the eldest surviving son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, he stood to inherit medieval Europe’s most powerful realm, the Angevin empire, with lands stretching from the borders of Scotland in the north to the foothills of the Pyrenees in the south.
But though Young Henry had undergone the sacred and transformative ritual of coronation – becoming a king in name – he was denied real power for the remainder of his career. Crowned during the lifetime of his virile and overbearing father (in the vain hope of securing a peaceful succession), the Young King was expected to wait patiently in the wings, serving as an associate monarch.

Vexed king

As it was, Henry II (or the ‘Old King’, as he came to be known) lived for another 19 years, stubbornly refusing to apportion any region of the Angevin realm to his primary heir and, not surprisingly, Young Henry soon became vexed by this state of affairs.
The situation would have unsettled any ruling dynasty, but because Young Henry happened to belong to the most dysfunctional royal family in English history, it proved to be utterly ruinous. Thwarted by an imperious father on the one hand, yet encouraged to assert his rights by a scheming mother on the other, the Young King also had to contest with a viper’s brood of power-hungry siblings, including Richard the Lionheart and the future King John. In many respects Young Henry’s career proved to be a tragic waste. He led two failed rebellions against his father and ultimately suffered a squalid and agonising death in 1183, having contracted dysentery.
Historians have traditionally offered a withering assessment of his career, typically portraying him as a feckless dandy – the young, extravagant playboy who, once denied the chance to rule in his own right, frittered away his time in pursuit of vacuous chivalric glory. Dismissed as “shallow, vain, careless, empty-headed, incompetent, improvident and irresponsible”, the Young King remains a misunderstood and often overlooked figure.
A closer and more impartial study of Henry’s life reveals that this view is overly simplistic, at times even misrepresentative, and deeply shaded by hindsight. In fact, the best contemporary evidence indicates that the Young King was an able and politically engaged member of the Angevin dynasty, renowned in his own lifetime as a champion of the warrior class. This status brought Henry real political influence and marked him out as a model for contemporary authors of chivalric literature and Arthurian myth.
The course of Young Henry’s career and his connection to the cult of chivalry were heavily influenced by his close association with William Marshal – a man later described by the archbishop of Canterbury as “the greatest knight in all the world”. Born the younger son of a minor Anglo-Norman noble, William trained as a warrior and rose through the ranks, serving at the right hand of five English monarchs in the course of his long and eventful career.
Like Henry, Marshal was said to have been a fine figure of a man, but he was built first and foremost for war. Possessed with extraordinary physical endurance and vitality, and imbued with the raw strength to deliver shattering sword blows that resounded like a blacksmith’s hammer, he also became a peerless horseman, able to manoeuvre his mount with deft agility. These gifts, when married to an insatiable appetite for advancement, fuelled William’s meteoric rise. Later in life he would become Earl of Pembroke and regent of the realm. But in 1170 Marshal was still in his early 20s and a household knight serving in Eleanor of Aquitaine’s retinue.

_{A medieval woodcut shows men jousting, a highly perilous pastime at which William Marshal excelled. © Alamy}
After Henry the Young King’s coronation, Marshal was appointed as the boy’s tutor-in-arms – a promotion that was probably engineered by Queen Eleanor so that she could maintain a degree of contact with, and influence over, her eldest son. William soon became Young Henry’s leading retainer and close confidant. The pair developed a warm friendship and together they set out in the 1170s to make their mark on the world.
By this time, western Europe was in the grip of a craze for knightly tournaments. These contests were light years away from the mannered jousts of the later Middle Ages, being riotous, chaotic affairs, tantamount to large-scale war games played out by teams of mounted knights across great swathes of territory, often more than 30 miles wide.
They were not without their risks. There is no evidence that warriors used blunted weaponry – relying instead upon their armour to protect them from severe injury – and the gravest danger came from being unhorsed and trampled under-hoof in the midst of a heated melee. Henry’s younger brother Geoffrey died from wounds sustained in this manner and one of William Marshal’s sons would suffer a similar fate. But the great value of these events was that they offered noblemen the perfect opportunity to demonstrate their knightly qualities to their peers, enabling them to earn renown within a society obsessed with chivalric culture. Tournaments came to feature heavily in Arthurian Romances, with Lancelot depicted as the leading champion.

Feckless youths?

The most persistent accusation levelled by historians against the Young King and his knight William Marshal is that they wastefully immersed themselves in the world of the chivalric tournament. However, while it is true that they became leading devotees of the tourney circuit, this was hardly the all-consuming focus of their careers – their participation being chiefly confined to an intense, four-year period, between 1176 and 1180. Nor is it the case that these years were squandered. In fact, the successes they enjoyed on the tournament field transformed the prospects of both men.
Serving as the captain of Young Henry’s tournament team, William Marshal shot to fame using a combination of martial skill, steely resolve and canny tactics to score a tide of victories. William was rightly revered for his prowess, but there were also important practical and financial gains to be made. Most tournaments revolved around attempts to capture opposing knights, either by battering them into submission or by seizing control of their horses (one of William’s favourite tricks). Prisoners would then have to pay a ransom and perhaps also forfeit their equipment in return for release. Marshal bested some 500 warriors in these years and thus accrued a significant personal fortune. By 1180 he was in position to support a small retinue of knights of his own and had achieved such celebrity that he was on familiar terms with counts, dukes and kings.


_{Henry the Young King is crowned in 1170. © Bridgeman}

Exalted standing

Henry the Young King also stood to gain from his close involvement in the tournament circuit. As the patron of a leading team Henry participated in events but was generally shielded from the worst of the fracas by his retainers. For a man of his exalted social standing, there was less emphasis on individual prowess and more upon the chivalric quality of largesse – and in this regard, Henry was unmatched. At a time when leading nobles were judged on the size and splendour of their retinues, the Young King assembled one of the most impressive military households in all of Europe.
As a result, contemporaries compared Henry to Alexander the Great and Arthur, the great heroes of old, and hailed him as a ‘father of chivalry’ – a cult figure, worthy of reverence. Such ostentation came at a crippling cost but this display of status was not simply an exercise in idle frivolity, as most historians have assumed.
Tourneys were games of prowess, but they were played by many of the most powerful men in Europe – barons and magnates driven by a deepening fixation with knightly ideals. This lent Young Henry’s renown a potent edge because it inevitably brought with it a measure of influence beyond the confines of the tournament field. As a teenager, Henry had sought power through rebellion. In the late 1170s he made his name and affirmed his regal status in a different arena. These achievements could not be ignored by the Old King. Historians have often suggested that Henry II viewed his son’s lavish tournament career as merely wasteful and trivial. But by 1179 his attitude was unquestionably more positive.
On 1 November that year, the frail teenager Philip II was crowned and anointed as the next king of France in the royal city of Rheims. All of western Europe’s leading dynasties and noble houses attended this grand ceremony and to top it all a massive tournament was organised to celebrate Philip’s investiture. That autumn the close correlation between practical power and chivalric spectacle was laid bare.
With the creation of a new French king, the chess board of politics was about to be reordered and naturally all the key players were angling for influence and advantage. Leading figures such as Philip, Count of Flanders and Duke Hugh of Burgundy – both tournament enthusiasts – were present, eager to establish themselves as the young French monarch’s preferred mentor.
Henry II looked to his eldest son to represent the Angevin house, and so Young Henry went to Rheims alongside his illustrious champion, William Marshal.
Young Henry duly played a starring role in the coronation, carrying Philip’s crown in affirmation of his close connection to the new French monarch. After a round of feasting, Henry and William moved on to a large area of open terrain east of Paris, at Lagny-sur-Marne for the greatest tournament of the 12th century. There, as leading knights among some 3,000 participants, Young Henry and William revelled in a glorious festival of pageantry, awash with the colour of hundreds of unfurled banners. That day, according to one chronicler, “the entire field of combat was swarming with [warriors]”, so that “not an inch of ground could be seen”. It was a spectacle the likes of which had “never [been] seen before or since” – and Young Henry and William Marshal were its stars.
The contest at Lagny marked the apogee of William Marshal’s tournament career and the Young King’s dedication to the cult of chivalry. Having resuscitated his reputation, Young Henry sought to make a more direct re-entry into the world of power politics by snatching the duchy of Aquitaine from his brother Richard the Lionheart. But then, a shocking rumour reached his ears. One of his warriors was bedding Queen Marguerite, his wife. The man accused of this heinous crime was none other than William Marshal.

_{The effigy of William Marshal at London’s Temple Church. © Bridgeman}

Passionate affair

It is impossible to know whether there was any substance to this allegation. It appears to have been levelled by a disaffected faction in the Young King’s entourage and possibly prompted by jealously of Marshal’s glittering career. It is perhaps no coincidence that it was precisely in this period that the famed author of Arthurian literature, Chrétien de Troyes, composed his first story about Lancelot and his passionate affair with Queen Guinevere.
In all probability Young Henry did not believe William to be guilty or else he would have enacted a more severe punishment than mere exile. As it was, the shame surrounding Marshal was sufficient to require his banishment from court in late 1182. When the Young King began his second rebellion against his father in 1183 he did so without his leading knight and advisor by his side and the subsequent civil war did not go in his favour. Facing the combined might of the Old King and the Lionheart, Young Henry eventually relented and recalled William to his side.
Tragically, William Marshal only arrived in time to witness his lord’s descent into ill health, for the Young King contracted dysentery and died in agony at Martel, near Limoges in France, on 11 June 1183. On his deathbed Henry reportedly turned to “his most intimate friend” and bid William to carry his regal cloak to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in payment of his “debts to God”. It was a charge that William duly fulfilled.
Young King Henry received scourging press from most late 12th-century chroniclers. For these historians, writing during the reigns of the Old King and his successors, Henry was easy game – a wayward princeling who died young and left no great court historians to sing his praises. In their accounts he became little more than a mutinous traitor who “befouled the whole world with his treasons”.
Only a few of Young Henry’s closest contemporaries offered a more immediate impression of his achievements and character. The most heartfelt memorial was offered by the Young King’s own chaplain, who wrote that “it was a blow to all chivalry when he passed away in the very glow of youth” and concluded that “when Henry died heaven was hungry, so all the world went begging”.

The lives of the “great knight” and England’s heir

William Marshal
1147: Born as the younger son of a minor Anglo-Norman noble, John Marshal, and grows up in England’s West Country.
1170: William is appointed as Henry the Young King’s tutor-in-arms.
1179: He is permitted to raise his own banner and attends the great tournament at Lagny-sur-Marne.
1182: Accused of betraying Henry and bedding his wife, William is forced into exile.
1183: Returns to Young Henry’s side shortly before his death. William later sets out for the Holy Land to redeem Henry’s crusading vow.
1186: Comes back to Europe, enters King Henry II’s household and starts to accrue lands and wealth.
1189: Marriage to the heiress Isabel of Clare (arranged by Richard the Lionheart) brings William the lordship of Striguil (Chepstow). The couple have no less than 10 children.
1190–94: Serves as co-justiciar of England during King Richard I’s absence on crusade and period in captivity.
1215: William helps to negotiate the terms of Magna Carta and he appears as the first named nobleman in the document.
1216: After King John’s death, William supports the child Henry III’s claim to the crown and is appointed as ‘guardian of the realm’, thus becoming regent of England.
1217: Despite being 70 years old, William fights in the frontline at the battle of Lincoln and defeats the combined forces of the baronial rebels and the French.
1219: William resigns as regent, dies in peace shortly thereafter and is buried in London’s Temple Church.

Henry the Young King
1155: Born to King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. As eldest surviving son he is heir-apparent to the Angevin empire. His younger brother is Richard the Lionheart.
1160: Though barely five, Henry is married to the French king’s two-year-old daughter, Marguerite; both were rumoured to have bawled throughout the ceremony.
1170: Crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey during his father’s lifetime, but expected to serve as an associate monarch.
1173–74: Leads first rebellion against Henry II, in alliance with Louis VII of France and Philip of Flanders, but is thwarted by his father.
1176: Starts to frequent the northern French tournament circuit alongside William Marshal, quickly earning a reputation for lavish largesse.
1179: Attends Philip II of France’s coronation and the grand tournament at Lagny-sur-Marne.

1183: Second rebellion against Henry II’s regime leads to war in Aquitaine. Henry the Young King contracts dysentery and dies in agony at Martel, west central France.

Dr Thomas Asbridge is reader in medieval history at Queen Mary, University of London. In 2014, he presented the BBC Two documentary The Greatest Knight: William the Marshal.

History Trivia - King Henry III of England second coronation

May 17

1220 King Henry III of England Crowned for a second time. Henry, who had been crowned at age nine four years earlier, underwent a second coronation at Westminster.
 

History Trivia - Charles II proclaimed King of England

May 8

1660 Parliament proclaimed Charles II king of England, restoring the monarchy after more than a decade.

History Trivia - Battle of Dunbar

April 27

1296 Battle of Dunbar: The Scots were defeated by Edward I of England. This battle was the only significant field action in the campaign of 1296 when King Edward I of England had invaded Scotland to punish King John Balliol for his refusal to support English military action in France.

History Trivia - Edward the Confessor crowned King of England

April 3

1043 Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England. Elected by popular acclamation, Edward (known as "the Confessor" for his piety) had Norman sympathies and had supposedly named William the Conqueror his successor, before choosing Harold Godwinson on his death-bed. 

7 memorable moments in the history of Buckingham Palace

History Extra

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh wave from the famous balcony at Buckingham Palace after the Queen's coronation on 2 June 1953. (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

1703: Building begins at Buckingham Palace
The palace was originally built in 1703 as Buckingham House, a London home for the 3rd Earl of Mulgrave, John Sheffield. It became a royal residence when King George III purchased it in 1761 as a comfortable family home for his wife, Queen Charlotte. Fourteen of George and Charlotte’s 15 children were born there.

Buckingham House underwent a palatial transformation in the 1820s, when King George IV employed architect John Nash to give it a royal renovation. Queen Victoria was the first monarch to adopt Buckingham Palace as her official residence, moving there in 1837, within a year of becoming queen. She oversaw the last major construction work at the palace, adding the front wing in the 1840s to give her large family extra space.  

 

In 1883 electricity was installed in the ballroom, the largest room in the palace. Over the following four years electricity was installed throughout the palace, which now uses more than 40,000 lightbulbs. 

 

^{Buckingham House, 1746. Built in 1703, the house forms the architectural core of the present-day Buckingham Palace. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)}

 

1851: Queen Victoria makes the first public appearance on the balcony

The Buckingham Palace balcony is now iconic, having hosted several notable royal appearances over the years. 

 

Queen Victoria made the first recorded royal appearance on the balcony in 1851, when she greeted the public during celebrations for the opening of the Great Exhibition, a groundbreaking showcase of international manufacturing, masterminded by Prince Albert.

 

Appearances on the balcony are now a popular part of royal events. In 2002 Queen Elizabeth waved to crowds from the balcony as more than a million people flocked to Buckingham Palace to celebrate her Golden Jubilee. More than 200 million viewers around the world watched the evening’s ‘Party at the Palace’ concert on television.

 

At their wedding in 2011, Prince William and Kate Middleton also appeared on the famous balcony. The newlyweds shared a kiss, much to the delight of the crowds.

 

^{Catherine Middleton and Prince William kiss on the balcony at Buckingham Palace following their wedding at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011. (Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images)}

 

1841 and 1910: Edward VII is born and dies at Buckingham Palace

Edward VII is the only monarch to have been born and died at Buckingham Palace. 

 

Following the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on 10 February 1840, their second child [and eldest son], Edward was born at the palace on 9 November 1841. Known to his family as ‘Bertie’, Edward spent much of his childhood at the palace with his eight siblings.

 

In 1902 Edward underwent major surgery at Buckingham Palace. Close to death from appendicitis, he was successfully operated on in a room overlooking the garden. Later that year [following his recovery] he was crowned at Westminster Abbey after nearly 60 years as heir to the throne.

 

After years of excessive cigar and cigarette consumption, in 1910 Edward contracted a severe case of bronchitis. He died at Buckingham Palace on 6 May 1910 following a series of heart attacks, and was succeeded by his son George V.

 

Following a royal birth or death, a notice was attached to the railings of Buckingham Palace to alert members of the public. Even today, this traditional custom is upheld.

 

^{King Edward VII, who was born and died at Buckingham Palace. (Ernest H. Mills/Getty Images)}

 

1914: Suffragettes march on the palace

On 22 May 1914, Buckingham Palace found itself in the middle of the fight for women’s voting rights, as 20,000 suffragettes marched on the palace. Led by Emmeline Pankhurst, the women began processing towards the palace from Grosvenor Gardens, declaring their intention to deliver a petition to the king.  

 

The protest attracted sensationalist and unsympathetic press coverage. The Daily Mirror carried the headline “Mrs Pankhurst arrested at the gates of Buckingham Palace in trying to present a petition to the King”, surrounded by photographs of clashes between the protestors and police. It described “distressing scenes” in which a “body of militant suffragettes” led by Pankhurst “endeavoured to carry out their impossible scheme”, evading police and making it to the gates of the palace. 

 

The Telegraph, meanwhile, described a “serious fracas between the wild women and the police, in which the militants delivered a brief but furious attack on the constables”. 

 

When she reached the palace gates, Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested. The Telegraph suggested she “was able to offer little or no resistance, but shouting out that she had got to the palace gates, she was carried bodily by a chief inspector to a private motor which the police had in waiting”. Following her arrest, Pankhurst was taken to Holloway Prison. 

 

^{Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested outside Buckingham Palace in May 1914. (Jimmy Sime/Getty Images)}

 

1937: The Buckingham Palace Guide Company is formed

In 1937, the 11-year-old Princess Elizabeth [now Queen Elizabeth II] enrolled to be a Girl Guide. Her younger sister Princess Margaret, who was seven years old, also signed up as a Brownie. 

 

The Girl Guide Association had been formed in 1910 by Agnes Baden Powell, as an alternative girl’s organisation to scouting. As it was believed that the princesses should live as normal lives as possible, they were enrolled to join the popular organisation by their aunt, Princess Mary.

 

The 1st Buckingham Palace Company was then formed, which included some 20 Guides and 14 Brownies, made up of children of royal household members and Buckingham Palace employees. A summerhouse in the palace garden became the Guides’ headquarters, with the princesses reportedly cooking on campfires, pitching tents and earning badges like any other Guides. 

 

Following the outbreak of the Second World War the summerhouse headquarters was closed down due to the bomb threat and moved to the more rural setting of Windsor Castle. In 1952 Queen Elizabeth and her mother became joint patrons of the Girl Guides. 

 

^{Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II, right) and her younger sister Princess Margaret dressed as guides in 1943. They are watching the flight of a carrier pigeon they have just released, carrying a message to Chief Guide Lady Olave Baden-Powell. (Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)}

 

1940s: The palace is bombed 

The royal family remained at Buckingham Palace throughout the Second World War, despite Foreign Office advice to leave Britain. Queen Elizabeth [later the Queen Mother] declared: “The children will not leave unless I do. I shall not leave unless their father does, and the king will not leave the country in any circumstances, whatever”.

 

However, the decision to remain in Britain placed the royal family in significant danger – the palace received nine direct bomb hits during the course of the war and on 8 March 1941 PC Steve Robertson, a policeman on duty at the Palace, was killed by flying debris when a bomb hit. 

 

In a letter to her mother-in-law, Queen Mary, the queen recalled one particularly difficult night of bombing at the palace in 1940, when the palace chapel was destroyed. In it she recounts how she was “battling” to remove an eyelash from the king's eye when they heard the “unmistakable whirr-whirr of a German plane” and then the “scream of a bomb”. She recalled how “it all happened so quickly that we had only time to look foolishly at each other when the scream hurtled past us and exploded with a tremendous crash in the quadrangle”. 

 

Despite the palace bombings, the royal family remained defiant. “I am glad we have been bombed”, Queen Elizabeth declared in September 1940, “Now we can look the East End in the eye”.

 

^{King George VI and Queen Elizabeth survey the damage after the bombing of Buckingham Palace during the Second World War. (Fox Photos/Getty Images)}

 

1945: VE day celebrations

When peace was finally declared in Europe on 8 May 1945, Buckingham Palace became a focal point for VE Day celebrations. Winston Churchill appeared with the king, queen and the two royal princesses on the palace’s balcony before huge crowds. Throughout the course of the day the royal family made a total of eight appearances on the balcony to wave to those celebrating below. 

 

During their father’s final balcony appearance of the day the princesses Margaret and Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) secretly joined the cheering crowd below. Elizabeth later recalled: “We stood outside and shouted, ‘We want the king’… I think it was one of the most memorable nights of my life”.

 

King George VI also delivered a radio address to his nation, played on loud speakers in Trafalgar Square. He praised Britons’ resilience and honoured those who had lost their lives. “Let us remember those who will not come back” he declared, “let us remember the men in all the services, and the women in all the services, who have laid down their lives. We have come to the end of our tribulation and they are not with us at the moment of our rejoicing”.

 

^{British prime minister Winston Churchill with the royal family, waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace during VE Day celebrations. (Reg Speller/Getty Images)}

History Trivia - Prince Edward of England made Prince of Wales

February 7

1301 Edward, eldest son of Edward I was made the first English Prince of Wales, a tradition continued to this day.
 

History Trivia - Richard I of England ransomed

February 4

 1194 King Richard I of England was freed by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, after being ransomed. Richard did return to England but soon set sail for France where he died five years later.
 

History Trivia - Edward III crowned King of England

February 1

1327 Edward III was crowned King of England, but the country was ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.

History Trivia - Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn

January 25

1533 Henry VIII of England secretly married his second wife Anne Boleyn.

History Trivia - Canute I crowned King of England

January 6 

1017 Canute I crowned King of England. He was also King Canute II of Denmark and King Canute of Norway, and because of the empire he built in Britain and Scandinavia, he is sometimes known as Canute the Great. 

History Trivia - Dominican order formally sanctioned

December 22

69 Roman Emperor Vitellius was killed in a street battle in Rome by soldiers of Vespasian, who succeeded Vitellius as emperor. 

1135 Norman nobles recognize Stefanus van Blois (Stephen, grandson of William the Conqueror) as English king. His reign was plagued with civil war with his cousin the Empress Matilda whose son Henry II succeeded him upon his death.

1216 the Dominican order was formally sanctioned. Founded by St. Dominic, the Dominican order of mendicant friars emphasized scholarship as well as preaching. The organization received official sanction from Pope Honorius III

History Trivia -Knights of Rhodes surrender to Suleiman the Magnificent

December 20

 860 King Ethelbald of Wessex died   

1334 Benedict XII was elected pope. The third pope to reside at Avignon, Benedict attempted to reform the church and its religious orders. His pontificate saw the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. 

1522 Suleiman the Magnificent accepted the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who were allowed to evacuate. They eventually settled on Malta and became known as the Knights of Malta.

History Trivia - Edith of Wessex dies

December 19

1075 - Edith of Wessex, wife of Edward the Confessor of England, died. 

 1187 Clement III became Pope. The fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in the Third Crusade occurred during his pontificate. 

1551 The Dutch west coast was hit by a hurricane.

History Trivia - Henry VI of England crowned King of France

December 16

 1431 Henry VI of England was crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris. Though young Henry had been proclaimed king at age ten months, it was not until he was ten years old that he was officially crowned at Notre Dame Cathedral. 

1485 Catherine of Aragon, Spanish princess and first wife of Henry VIII was born. 

1631 Mount Vesuvius, Italy erupted, destroying 6 villages & killing 4,000.

Lavish banquet hall where Henry VIII entertained visiting royalty is discovered beneath playground

Ancient Origins

Archaeologists are excavating the ruins of a 480-year-old luxuriously decorated banquet house of King Henry VIII of England that was built next to a jousting field. Workers discovered the site of the long-lost building by accident when they were laying cables for a children’s playground in Surrey.
Archaeologists are discovering that the building’s decorations were as opulent as the palace, says IBTimes in an article about the find. The décor included lead leaves gilded with gold and green-glazed floor tiles, the article says.
"This is prime real estate in terms of Henry VIII's Hampton Court," Dan Jackson, the palace's curator of historic buildings, said.
The banquet hall was near one of the five royal Tiltyard Towers around a 6-acre site where jousting and pageants were held. The towers were built at what IBTimes calls lavish expense as a venue to entertain visiting royals, nobility and ambassadors. The towers, which date to 1534 - 1536, were among the first to be constructed in England. The towers were two to three stories high. From them guests watched mock battle scenes and jousting.
One of the Tiltyard Towers still stands at Hampton Court Palace. It was used for various purposes over the years, including as a herbarium and a guest house. English archaeologists undertook an examination and conservation program of the tower in 2006.

The remaining Tiltyard Tower at Hampton Court Palace, sitting behind what is now a café (public domain)

As time passed in days of yore, people stopped enjoying the pageants, mock battles and jousting, and gardens were built over the grounds and most of the towers. The exact location of the banquet house had been lost for 300 years.
Henry VIII himself took to his horse for jousting. He came close to death at a tournament at Greenwich Palace in January 1536 when he was thrown from his horse, which fell on him. Henry was wearing full armor and was out cold for two hours.

Field armor of Henry VIII of England, Italian, Milan or Brescia, about 1544 (Photo by Matthew G. Bisanz/Wikimedia Commons)

He recovered, but his jousting days ended. He had serious leg injuries in the form of ulcerations that plagued him for life, and the accident may have caused a brain injury that changed his personality, says a documentary produced by the History Channel.
The documentary says Henry, born in 1491, had been handsome and charming as a young man but changed and died in 1547 a “paranoid, sickly recluse.” Before he died, his eyesight was fading, he was unable to walk and he weighed nearly 400 pounds. Henry and his later wives were unable to conceive. One of the scholars in the documentary speculates that Henry may have had syphilis.

“Another mystery was, what kick-started those chronic personality changes he suffered in his 40s? Was this down to some rare hormonal disorder? Or was it his jousting injuries which were the cause of all his medical problems?” asks a Henry VIII biographer, Robert Hutchinson, in the video.
Henry VIII did have daughters, and a son and heir, Edward, with Jane Seymour. She died as a result of complications from childbirth. But he wanted to secure the succession by having more children, so he remarried. He went on to behead two of his wives and divorced others. A rhyme serves to help people remember these poor women’s fates:
King Henry VIII,

to six wives he was wedded.
one died, one survived,
two divorced, two beheaded.

A portrait of Henry VIII before he became fat, sick, paranoid and melancholy; during this period he was married to Catherine of Aragon for 24 years. He later divorced her, and she died under guard. (Wikimedia Commons)

Featured image: Toasting the revels: The court of Henry VIII, as depicted by the Italian artist Fortunino Matania. Credit: The Bridgeman Art Library. 
By: Mark Miller

History Trivia - Saint-Nicolas Flood wreaks havoc on Northern Dutch coast

December 6

1196 the Northern Dutch coast was flooded; known as the Saint-Nicolas Flood, resulted in widespread damage and death. 

1421 Henry VI was born. Henry VI was a child when he came to the throne on the death of his father Henry V. His weakness as a ruler and his occasional displays of mental instability exacerbated the Wars of the Roses (dynastic civil wars for the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York).