Henry II (r. 1154-1189)

Henry’s mother Matilda was embroiled in a civil war (known as The Anarchy) with her cousin, King Stephen, for much of the mid 12th century. When Henry inherited the throne in 1154, he proved himself to be a capable ruler, re-established royal authority and English domination of Wales, as well as ensuring his lands in France were under solid control. 

His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine further cemented his position in France: their marriage proved to be fruitful, producing 8 children in total. Henry is perhaps most famous for the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170: the culmination of years of tension as Henry tried to reform the relationship between church and state.  

Unusually, Henry crowned his eldest son Henry during his lifetime in order to ensure the succession. The Young Henry, as he is known, became increasingly frustrated at his father’s inability to give him any real power: in 1173, he, along with Eleanor of Aquitaine and several of his siblings, rebelled against Henry in an event known as The Great Revolt.

Troubled relationships between father and sons continued throughout the rest of Henry’s life as they vied for power and land.  

Engraving of Henry II by J. Smith. (Image credit: CC / New York Public Library).

Richard I (r. 1189-99)

The third son of Henry and Eleanor, it seemed initially unlikely that Richard would inherit: however, his elder brothers all predeceased their father, leaving Richard as heir. A strong and capable military leader, Richard spent most of his reign campaigning on the Third Crusade, winning notable victories against Saladin.  

Richard and Saladin. (Image credit: CC / British Library).

Whilst Richard has become a figure of mythic proportions, known by his epithet – the Lionheart, he was far from a dutiful or good king to his subjects back home, seeing England and his subjects primarily as a source of revenue.   

John (r.1199-1216)

Known as ‘Bad King John’, John’s reign was far from successful. He lost large quantities of English lands in Normandy, leading to the collapse of the Angevin Empire established by his father, Henry II. 

Attempts to regain these lands lasted for most of the rest of his reign, meaning these years were characterised by high taxes as well as military reforms and attempts to build continental alliances.  

On returning to England following another defeat in 1214, John was met by a revolt from his barons. Unhappy at the high taxes and a lack of consideration for their views, they raised an army and marched on London, Lincoln and Exeter.

John met the leaders at Runnymede, where he consented to sign Magna Carta: technically a peace treaty, it was also full of proposals for broader political reform.  

Despite this, neither side really attempted to stick to the bargain: the First Barons’ War consumed most of John’s subsequent reign. He died in 1216, probably from dysentery, having lost a significant part of his baggage in The Wash – one chronicler claims this baggage included the Crown Jewels. 

King John. (Image credit: CC / National Trust).

Henry III (r.1216-1272)

Henry inherited the crown as a minor, so for the early years of his reign he was under the guardianship of William Marshal – a powerful knight appointed by John. The first ten years of his reign was predominantly focused on ending the Barons’ War and restoring royal authority: Henry assumed formal control of his government in 1227.  

Instead of building on the relatively solid foundation laid down for him, Henry’s lax application of his constitutional rights and lack of discipline in court led to the gradual collapse of royal authority. 

His strongly anti-Jewish policies became increasingly disliked, the presence of the powerful Poitevin faction at court caused tensions, and Henry’s increasing obsession with obtaining the kingdom of Sicily all strained relations with his nobles: by 1258, he faced a revolt from his barons. 

Henry agreed to the Provisions of Oxford – an attempt to limit the ability of the king and leading nobles to abuse their power, and forcing Henry to hold triannual parliaments. These were reinforced by the Provisions of Westminster (1259), which Henry’s son and heir Edward helped push through, having allied himself with Simon de Montfort, a leading baron.  

A period of instability followed, in which power was held by several jostling factions eventually culminated in the Second Barons’ War, which saw Henry and Simon de Montfort, each backed by a number of barons, clash on the battlefield. After a decisive victory at the Battle of Evesham, Henry issued the Statute of Marlborough which removed most of the curtailments on his authority, whilst tightening them on nobles.  

Drawing of a stained glass window of Chartres Cathedral, depicting Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester. (Image credit: CC / Gallica Digital Library).

A keen patron of art and architecture, Henry spent large sums of money on royal palaces and castles, including those at Westminster, Windsor, Dover, Lincoln and The Tower of London. He was also extremely devout, regularly going on pilgrimages, attending Mass daily and giving generously to religious causes, particularly those involved in relieving poverty.  

Edward I (r.1272-1307)

Nicknamed Edward Longshanks, at 6’2″, Edward was unusually tall for his time, which many considered gave him a somewhat intimidating presence. Edward initiated war with Scotland which lasted long after his death, as well as a full scale conquest of Wales following a minor rebellion. 

His harsh attitudes towards these two countries has been criticised since his death, as has the fact that in 1290, he issued an Edict of Expulsion against the Jews in England at the time.  

However, Edward did initiate a range of reforms to common law, particularly surrounding feudal liberties, as well as reforming aspects of royal administration.

Parliament became a permanent fixture in Edward’s reign, mainly because it was needed to grant taxes. Expensive wars meant Edward needed a lot of these grants, enabling Parliament to become a fixture in a way it had not been previously.  

Thought to be an image of Edward I. (Image credit: CC / Westminster Abbey).

Edward II (r.1307-1327)

Edward II’s reign was plagued by failure. Crowned in 1307, he married Isabella of France in 1308 in an effort to end tensions between England and France.  

Edward’s reliance on male favourites, most notably Piers Gaveston, proved deeply unpopular at court: nobles demanded his banishment, and Edward’s refusal to do so fully led to a complete breakdown in relations between the king and his barons.  

Combined with heavy defeats in Scotland and famine, Edward quickly lost what little popularity he had. Edward’s new favourites, the Despensers, were as unpopular as Gaveston, and further exacerbated tensions as they attempted to strengthen their grip on power.

Edward’s wife Isabella began to work against him, going rogue on a diplomatic mission to France and returning with a small army in 1326, led by her lover, the exiled Roger Mortimer. Edward was forced to relinquish his crown to his young son Edward, and died shortly afterwards: he is generally believed to have been murdered.

Edward III (r.1327-77)

One of the most popular Plantagenet kings in his lifetime, Edward III reigned for fifty years, overseeing England’s transformation into a formidable military power and the development of Parliament. Crowned aged 14 following his father’s deposition, Edward began to rule personally in 1330, overthrowing and executing Mortimer.  

Edward III, from the 1430 Bruges Garter Book made by William Bruges. (Image credit: CC / Wikimedia).

In 1337, Edward declared himself the rightful heir to the French throne, beginning what is now known as the Hundred Years’ War. Costly and all-consuming initially, Edward and the English Army won significant victories at Crecy and Calais, as well as a major victory in Scotland (who at that time were allies of the French).

The Black Death struck shortly after that, severely reducing manpower as more men were needed for agricultural jobs back in England. The first chapter of the war was closed with the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360, where Edward renounced his claims to the throne.  

Edward’s later reign is generally perceived to be full of failures: international and domestic. Parliament’s influence grew as it was needed to grant taxation so often, and royal authority began to wane. Edward also created the Order of the Garter (which still exists today), reviving chivalry at his court as a way of cementing national identity for his nobles.  

Richard II (r.1377-1399)

Largely known to people through Shakespeare’s interpretation, Richard II’s deposition marked the start of one of the most turbulent periods in English history: the Wars of the Roses. Grandson of Edward III, Richard inherited the throne in 1377, aged 10, with a series of councillors to help guide him.

The Peasants’ Revolt (1381) saw Richard play a relatively major part for a boy of 14 as he met with rebels to initially agree to their demands. Although he granted clemency, he went back on his original agreements, and suppressed the rebellion relatively harshly.  

Miniature from La Prinse et mort du roy Richart (Book of the Capture and Death of King Richard II). (Image credit: CC / Virgil Master).

Many historians consider this to have been a pivotal moment in Richard’s understanding of kingship. He believed in absolute royal authority and his own prerogative: as a result, he attempted to lessen the overall power of the aristocracy whilst maintaining a small group of favourites on whom he became dependent.

Richard’s court was lavish and he was a keen patron of the arts: both of these things needed money to maintain, and high taxes particularly after the war with France was over, made him increasingly unpopular.  

1397-99 is known by many as Richard’s ‘tyranny’: Richard arrested and tried several men who he felt were a threat to his power, acting in a way which made his nobles nervous.

In 1398, he called the Parliament of Shrewsbury, which declared that no restraints could legally be put on the king. This proved too much for his nobles: when Henry Bolingbroke, Richard’s cousin, invaded England in 1399, he received a warm welcome – Richard was deposed and Henry crowned king.

The wars ended when Richard III, the last Yorkist king, was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 by Henry Tudor – founder of the house of Tudor.

Here are 30 facts about the Wars:

1. The seeds of war were sown as far back as 1399

That year 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 Plantagenet family, both of which thought they had the rightful claim.

On the one side there 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; his followers would come to be known as the Yorkists.

2. When Henry VI came to power he was in an incredible position…

Thanks to the military successes of his father, Henry V, Henry VI held vast swathes of France and was the only King of England to be crowned King of France and England.

3. …but his foreign policy soon proved disastrous

Over the course of his reign Henry gradually lost almost all England’s possessions in France.

It culminated in the disastrous defeat at Castillon in 1453 – the battle signalled the end of the Hundred Years War and left England with only Calais from all their French possessions.

The Battle of Castillon: 17 July 1543

4. King Henry VI had favourites who manipulated him and made him unpopular with others

The King’s simple mind and trusting nature left him fatally vulnerable to grasping favourites and unscrupulous ministers.

5. His mental health also affected his ability to rule

Henry VI was prone to bouts of insanity. Once he had suffered from a complete mental breakdown in 1453, from which he never fully recovered, his reign morphed from concerning to catastrophic.

He was certainly incapable of containing the mounting baronial rivalries that eventually culminated in out-and-out civil war.

6. One baronial rivalry outshone all others

This was the rivalry between Richard, 3rd Duke of York and Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset. York deemed Somerset responsible for the recent military failures in France.

Both nobles made several attempts to destroy each other as they vied for supremacy. In the end their rivalry was only settled through blood and battle.

7. The first battle of the civil war occurred on 22 May 1455 at St Albans

Troops commanded by Richard, Duke of York, resoundingly defeated a Lancastrian royal army commanded by the Duke of Somerset, who was killed in the fighting. King Henry VI was captured, leading to a subsequent parliament appointing Richard of York Lord Protector.

It was the day that launched the bloody, three decades long, Wars of the Roses.

8. A surprise attack paved the way for a Yorkist victory

It was a small force led by the Earl of Warwick that marked the turning point in the battle. They picked their way through small back lanes and rear gardens, then burst into the town’s market square where the Lancastrian forces were relaxing and chatting.

The Lancastrian defenders, realising they were outflanked, abandoned their barricades and fled the town.

A modern day procession as people celebrate the Battle of St Albans. Credit: Jason Rogers / Commons.

9. Henry VI was captured by Richard’s army at the Battle of St Albans

During the battle, Yorkist longbowmen rained arrows onto Henry’s bodyguard, killing Buckingham and several other influential Lancastrian nobles and wounding the king. Henry was later escorted back to London by York and Warwick.

10. An Act of Settlement in 1460 handed the line of succession to Henry VI’s cousin, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York

It recognised York’s strong hereditary claim to the throne and agreed that the crown would pass to him and his heirs after Henry’s death, thereby disinheriting Henry’s young son, Edward, Prince of Wales.

11. But Henry VI’s wife had something to say about it

Henry’s strong willed wife, Margaret of Anjou, refused to accept the act and continued fighting for the rights of her son.

12. Margaret of Anjou was famously bloodthirsty

After the Battle of Wakefield, she had the heads of York, Rutland and Salisbury impaled on spikes and displayed over Micklegate Bar, the western gate through the York city walls. York’s head had a paper crown as a mark of derision.

On another occasion, she allegedly asked her 7-year-old son Edward how their Yorkist prisoners should be put to death – he replied they should be beheaded.

Margaret of Anjou

13. Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460

The Battle of Wakefield (1460) was a calculated attempt  by the Lancastrians to eliminate Richard, Duke of York, who was a rival of Henry VI’s for the throne. 

Little is known about the action, but the Duke was successfully enticed out from the safety of Sandal Castle and ambushed. In the subsequent skirmish his forces were massacred, and both the Duke and his second eldest son were killed.

14. No one is sure why York sortied from Sandal Castle on 30 December

This inexplicable move resulted in his death. One theory says that some of the Lancastrian troops advanced openly towards Sandal Castle, while others hid in the surrounding woods. York may have been low on provisions and, believing that the Lancastrian force was no larger than his own, decided to go out and fight rather than withstand a siege.

Other accounts suggest that York was deceived by John Neville of Raby’s forces displaying false colours, which tricked him into thinking that the Earl of Warwick had arrived with aid.

Earl of Warwick submits to Margaret of Anjou

15. And there are a lot of rumours about how he was killed

He was either killed in battle or captured and immediately executed.

Some works support the folklore that he suffered a crippling wound to the knee and was unhorsed, and that he and his closest followers then fought to the death at the spot; others relate that he was taken prisoner, mocked by his captors and beheaded.

16. Richard Neville became known as the Kingmaker

Richard Neville, better known as the Earl of Warwick, was famously known as the Kingmaker for his actions in deposing two kings. He was the wealthiest and most powerful man in England, with his fingers in every pie. He would end up fighting on all sides before his death in battle, supporting whoever could further his own career.

Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (Variant). The inescutcheon of pretence showing the arms of the House of Holland, Earls of Kent, represents his claim to represent that family, derived from his maternal grandmother Eleanor Holland (1373-1405), one of the six daughters and eventual co-heiresses to their father Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent (1350/4-1397). Credit: Sodacan / Commons.

17. Yorkshire Yorkists?

The people in the county of Yorkshire were actually mostly on the Lancastrian side.

18. The biggest battle was…

The Battle of Towton, where 50,000-80,000 soldiers fought and an estimated 28,000 were killed. It was also the biggest battle ever fought on English soil. Allegedly, the number of casualties caused a nearby river to run with blood.

19. The Battle of Tewkesbury resulted in the violent death of Henry VI

After the decisive Yorkist victory against Queen Margaret’s Lancastrian force on 4 May 1471 at Tewkesbury, within three weeks the imprisoned Henry was killed in the Tower of London.

The execution was likely ordered by King Edward IV, son of Richard Duke of York.

20. A field on which part of the Battle of Tewkesbury was fought is to this day known as the “Bloody Meadow”

Fleeing members of the Lancastrian army attempted to cross the River Severn but most were cut down by the Yorkists before they could get there. The meadow in question – which leads down to the river – was the location of the slaughter.

21. The War of the Roses inspired Game of Thrones 

George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones’s author, was heavily inspired by the War of the Roses, with the noble north pitted against the cunning south. King Joffrey is Edward of Lancaster.

22. The rose was not the primary symbol for either house

In fact, both Lancasters and Yorks had their own coat of arms, which they displayed much more often than the alleged rose symbol. It was simply one of the many badges used for identification.

The white rose was an earlier symbol as well, because the red rose of Lancaster was apparently not in use until the late 1480s, that is not until the last years of the Wars.

Credit: Sodacan / Commons.

23. In fact, the symbol is taken directly from literature…

The term The Wars of the Roses only came into common use in the 19th century after the publication in 1829 of Anne of Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott.

Scott based the name on a scene in Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4), set in the gardens of the Temple Church, where a number of noblemen and a lawyer pick red or white roses to show their loyalty to the Lancastrian or Yorkist house.

24. Treachery happened all the time…

Some of the nobles treated the War of the Roses a bit like a game of musical chairs, and simply became friends with whoever was most likely to be in power in a given moment. The Earl of Warwick, for example, suddenly dropped his allegiance to York in 1470.

25. …but Edward IV had a relatively secure rule

Aside from his treacherous brother George, who was executed in 1478 for stirring up trouble again, Edward IV’s family and friends were loyal to him. Upon his death, in 1483, he named his brother, Richard, as Protector of England until his own sons came of age.

26. Though he did cause quite a stir when he got married

Despite the fact that Warwick was organising a match with the French, Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville – a woman whose family were gentry not noble, and who was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in England.

Edward IV and Elizabeth Grey

Image Credit: Landscape

27. It resulted in the famous case of the Princes in the Tower

Edward V, King of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York were the two sons of Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville surviving at the time of their father’s death in 1483.

When they were 12 and 9 years old they were taken to the Tower of London to be looked after by their uncle, the Lord Protector: Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

This was supposedly in preparation for Edward’s upcoming coronation. However, Richard took the throne for himself and the boys disappeared – the bones of two skeletons were found under a staircase in the tower in 1674, which many assume were the skeletons of the princes.

28. The last battle in the War of the Roses was the Battle of Bosworth Field

After the boys disappeared, many nobles turned on Richard. Some even decided to swear allegiance to Henry Tudor. He faced Richard on 22 August 1485 in the epic and decisive Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard III suffered a deathly blow to the head, and Henry Tudor was the undisputed winner.

The Battle of Bosworth Field.

29. The Tudor rose comes from the symbols of the war

The symbolic end to the Wars of the Roses was the adoption of a new emblem, the Tudor rose, white in the middle and red on the outside.

30. Two more smaller clashes occurred after Bosworth

During Henry VII’s reign, two pretenders to the English crown emerged to threaten his rule: Lambert Simnel in 1487 and Perkin Warbeck in the 1490s.

Simnel claimed to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick; meanwhile Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York – one of the two ‘Princes in the Tower’.

Simnel’s rebellion was quashed after Henry defeated the pretender’s forces at the Battle of Stoke Field on 16 June 1487. Some consider this battle, and not Bosworth, to be the final battle of the Wars of the Roses.

Eight years later, Warbeck’s supporters were similarly defeated in a small clash in the port town of Deal in Kent. The fighting took place on the steeply sloping beach and is the only time in history – apart from Julius Caesar’s first landing on the island in 55 BC – that English forces resisted an invader on Britain’s coastline.

Bampton’s aggressive conduct enraged the villagers and violent clashes ensued in which he barely escaped with his life. News quickly spread of this insurrection, and by 2 June both Essex and Kent were in full revolt.

Today known as the Peasants’ Revolt, the ensuing conflict spread as far as York and Somerset and culminated in the bloody storming of London. Led by Wat Tyler, this saw the killing of a number royal government officials and eventually Tyler himself, before Richard II was forced to address the rebels’ demands.

But what exactly forced the 14th century peasantry of England to breaking point?

1. The Black Death (1346-53)

The Black Death of 1346-53 ravaged the population of England by 40-60%, and those who survived found themselves in a radically different landscape.

Due to the significantly lower population, food prices decreased and the demand for labour skyrocketed. Workers could now afford to charge higher wages for their time and travel outside of their hometown for the best paid opportunities.

Many inherited land and property from their deceased family members and were now able to dress in finer clothes and eat better food usually reserved for the higher classes. The lines between the social hierarchies began to blur.

Miniature by Pierart dou Tielt depicting the people of Tournai bury victims of the Black Death, c.1353 (Image credit: Public domain)

Many were unable to comprehend that this was a socio-economic factor of the pandemic however, and viewed it as subordination by the peasant classes. Augustinian clergyman Henry Knighton wrote that:

‘If anyone wanted to hire them he had to submit to their demands, for either his fruit and standing corn would be lost or he had to pander to the arrogance and greed of the workers.’

Strife grew between the peasantry and the upper classes – a strife that would only heighten in the following decades as authorities attempted to batter them back down into subservience.

2. The Statute of Labourers (1351)

In 1349, Edward III laid out the Ordinance of Labourers that, after wide dissent, had to be  reinforced by Parliament 1351 with the Statute of Labourers. The statute attempted to set a maximum wage for labourers in order to halt the peasant classes’ demands for better pay and realign them with their accepted station. 

Rates were set at pre-plague levels, when an economic depression had forced wages lower that they would have ordinarily been, and it became a crime to refuse work or travel to other towns for higher pay.

Though the statute is thought to have been widely ignored by the workers, its instillation did little to help the unstable class divisions that continued to emerge, and caused much distaste amongst the peasantry. 

During this time, William Langland wrote in his famous poem Piers Ploughman: 

‘Working men curse the king and all his parliament…that makes such laws to keep the labourer down.’ 

3. The Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)

The Hundred Years’ War broke out in 1337 when Edward III began to press his claim on the French throne. Peasants in the south became increasingly involved in the war as the closest settlements to the French coast, with their towns attacked and their boats repossessed for use in the English navy.

From 1338-9, the English Channel naval campaign saw a series of raids on English towns, ships, and islands by the French navy, private raiders and even pirates.

Villages were burnt to the ground, with Portsmouth and Southhampton seeing significant damage, and areas of Essex and Kent also attacked. Many were killed or captured as slaves, often being left to the mercy of their attackers by the inefficient response of the government. 

Jean Froissart described one such raid in his Chronicles:

‘The French landed in Sussex near the borders of Kent, in a fairly large town of fisherman and sailors called Rye. They pillaged and plundered it and burnt it completely. Then they returned to their ships and went down the Channel to the coast of Hampshire’

Further, as the paid professional armies heavily featured the peasantry, the working class became increasingly politicised during the war. Many were trained to use longbows or had relatives who left to fight, and the constant taxation to fund the war effort left many resentful. Further dissatisfaction with their government ensued, particularly in the south-east whose shores had seen much destruction.

4. The poll tax

Despite initial successes, by the 1370s England was suffering huge losses in the Hundred Years’ War, with the country’s financial situation in dire straits. Garrisons stationed in France costed an exorbitant amount to maintain each year, while disruptions in the wool trade only exacerbated this.

In 1377, a new poll tax was introduced at the request of John of Gaunt. The tax demanded payment from 60% of the country’s population, a far higher amount than previous taxes, and stipulated that every lay person over the age of 14 years had to pay a groat (4d) to the Crown.

A second poll tax was raised in 1379, by the new king Richard II who was just 12 years old, followed by a third in 1381 as the war worsened.

This final poll tax was triple the first at 12d per person over the age of 15, and many evaded it by refusing to register. Parliament duly established a team of interrogators to patrol the villages in the south east where dissent was highest, with the aim of uncovering those who refused to pay.

5. Growing dissent in both rural and urban communities

In the years leading up to the rising, widespread protest against the government was already occurring in both rural and urban centres. Particularly in the southern counties of Kent, Essex and Sussex, general dissent was surfacing surrounding the practice of serfdom.

Medieval illustration of serfs harvesting wheat with reaping-hooks in Queen Mary’s Psalter (Image credit: Public domain)

Influenced by the preaching of John Ball, the ‘crack-brained priest of Kent’ as Froissart described him, much of the peasantry in the area began to acknowledge the unjust nature of their servitude and the unnaturalness of nobility. Ball would reportedly wait in the churchyards after Mass to preach to the villagers, famously asking:

‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?’

He encouraged people to take their qualms directly to the king, with word of the dissent soon reaching London. Conditions in the city were no better, with the expansion of the royal legal system enraging residents and John of Gaunt a particularly hated figure. London soon sent word back to the neighbouring counties expressing their support in the insurrection.

The catalyst at last came in Essex on 30 May 1381, when John Hampden went to collect Fobbing’s unpaid poll tax, and was met with violence.

Beaten down by years of servitude and government incompetency, the final poll tax and the harassment of their communities that followed was enough to push the peasantry of England into revolt.

With the south already poised for London, a mob of 60,000 headed for the capital, where just south of Greenwich John Ball reportedly addressed them:

‘I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.’

Though the revolt did not achieve its immediate aims, it is widely considered the first of a long line of protests by the English working class to demand equality and fair payment.

Though the revolt was defeated by the King’s forces, it was certainly the instigator of social change in Medieval England, and has been referenced by left-leaning historians and politicians ever since.

Just as the outbreak of World War One allowed the Russian revolution to happen, decades of war and plague changed the status quo in England to a degree where revolt was possible and widespread.

Aftermath of a devastating pandemic

The Black Death saw terrible waves of plague sweep Europe: England’s population was ravaged, with somewhere between 30 and 50% of the population dying.

As a result of this, the peasantry – who had previously been kept under a system of serfdom which greatly restricted their freedom – became more scarce and had more land available to them. Their labour had increased value, and they demanded higher wages. As a result, they had privileges that their fathers could never have dreamed of.

The nobility disliked the shifting of the status quo and tried to greatly restrict the goods that peasants could buy as well as other freedoms that they now enjoyed – but they could not undo the fundamental shift in class relations.

In addition, England and France had been engaged in the Hundred Years War since 1337, and most of the financial burden of the war fell upon the peasantry in the form of the hated poll tax.

Finally, the wise and popular King Edward III died in 1377, leaving the throne to the boy-king Richard II and his despised regent John of Gaunt, who had already almost been lynched by angry crowds in London.

Tensions boil over

The revolt is judged to have broken out in Essex on 30 May, when MP John Bampton arrived to investigate non-payment of poll tax. The south-east of England had always been its wealthiest region, and as a result there were very few unpaid serfs there and the peasants enjoyed a better quality of life than elsewhere.

It was therefore the hotbed of the many radicals who had emerged following the Black Death. On 1 June Bampton gathered the headmen of several Essex villages together to explain the shortfall, and they arrived with large crowds brandishing various weapons.

Edward III had armed the peasantry and insisted on longbow practice for the fight against the French, and these men were not to be messed with. When Bampton attempted to arrest one recalcitrant village leader he and his men were set upon and though the MP escaped at least three of his entourage were killed.

By 4 June the now-lit fires of revolt were spreading across Essex, and delegations were sent to the neighbouring counties of Kent and Suffolk asking them to join in.

In Kent in particular they needed little invitation, after an escaped serf called John Belling was imprisoned the local villages had already exploded with anger and stormed Rochester Castle, where he was being held.

An image from Froissart’s Chronicle of Richard II meeting the Peasants Revolt. Image credit: Bibliotheque Nationale de France / CC.

March to the capital

On 7 June they elected a leader called Wat Tyler at the town of Maidstone – a tough and charismatic man whose origins are mysterious but who appears to have fought in France as one of the renowned English longbowmen.

Now it had a leader with clear aims, the revolt gathered momentum and purpose. Tyler’s first move was marching on the castle-town of Canterbury, where the Archbishop was deposed, the jails emptied of prisoners and many of the King’s known supporters dragged out of their houses and murdered.

By 12 June the rebels from Kent, Essex Suffolk and Norfolk had been coordinated, and they had reached the outskirts of London in their thousands.

The rebels were loyal to the King, who had now taken refuge in the Tower of London, but demanded the abolition of serfdom and the downfall of the feudal system that kept them separated by many social rungs from their monarch.

The main targets of their hatred were the church leaders and the aristocracy, and Tyler’s friend – the radical cleric John Ball – addressed his men and coined the famous phrase

“when Adam delved and Eve span,  who then was the gentleman?”

The King’s options were limited at this stage. His armies were busy in Ireland, France and the Scottish border, and it would be difficult to put down the revolt by force.

Negotiations

Richard decided that he ought to meet the rebels, but the attempted talks failed when he lost heart and refused to get out of his boat onto the bank where their men were waiting.

After this, the mob decided that negotiations were worthless and marched through the open gates of London, where many of the locals joined them. There they repeated their antics in Canterbury on a far larger scale, and the Londoners attacked the houses of Flemish immigrants who they felt were taking all the best jobs.

Soon events were badly out of hand as important buildings were burned and ransacked, and Flemings and aristocrats were murdered and left to rot in the streets. Now under siege in the tower, the King finally met the rebels face-to-face at Mile End, accompanied by only a small bodyguard to show his peaceful intentions.

There he agreed to the abolition of serfdom, and charters confirming this were distributed across the country. The Tower fell to the rebels during the negotiations, and many of John of Gaunt’s hated men were publicly beheaded, though the King’s female family members were spared.

Satisfied with the decree over serfdom, most of the rebels from Essex went home at this point, but Tyler’s die hard group of Kentishmen remained and continued to burn loot and murder their way through the city.

The Smithfield meeting

Another meeting between the rebel leader and the King took place at Smithfield on 15 June and this time Richard brought a substantial force of armoured men with him, though it was still dwarfed by the force of thousands of grim-faced rebels facing him.

At this meeting Tyler treated the King with condescension and rudeness, and an argument between him and the Richard’s men got out of hand, leading to the Kentish man’s death in a sudden brawl with the Mayor of London and the King’s Squire.

A manuscript illustration depicting the the 1381 Peasants Revolt. Image credit: British Library / CC.

Violence almost ensued as the incensed rebel archers knocked their bows, but the fourteen-year-old King then showed exceptional personal bravery by exposing himself to their bows and demanding that they stand down. Unwilling to kill their King, the peasants backed down, and Tyler’s head was displayed on a pole in London.

The violence did not end there, but the most immediate threat did. Other revolts occurred in the east of England, the north and the west country, and though much looting (including that of Cambridge University) occurred, the King summoned an army  out of loyal men in London, and the remaining die-hard rebels were defeated in a pitched battle at North Walsham in late June.

Though the decree abolishing serfdom was repealed, the revolt did change the position of the peasants. The government was now wary of squeezing them for cash, and Poll Tax was abolished.

In practice, serfdom died quickly, and many serfs were allowed to purchase freedom from their Lords for a manageable price. Peasant opinions gained more weight, and in this sense the revolt can be judged to be a success.

Famine and plague

The 14th century was a terrible era to be alive: the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317 killed perhaps 10% of Northern Europe, and the Black Death, an even greater natural disaster, claimed between 1/3 and 1/2 of the continent’s population at the end of the 1340s and in later outbreaks in the 1360s.

The government of King Edward III of England (r. 1327-77) rushed out legislation in 1351 which fixed wages at pre-plague levels, with the result that workers were unable to benefit from the sudden shortage of labour. Edward’s ruinously expensive wars in France and Scotland had already bankrupted the country and left numerous Englishmen maimed and unable to work.

The poll tax

In 1380, the government of Edward III’s 13-year-old grandson and successor Richard II (r. 1377-99) unwittingly lit a fuse to a powder keg by instigating an unfair poll tax that fell most heavily on the poor.

Poll tax collectors in the early months of 1381 had extraordinary difficulties gathering the due payments and refused to collect taxes in London owing to their fear of inciting mass unrest, and in Essex on 30 May, two collectors were assaulted.

Fear and resentment boiled over, and the two main targets of hostility, blamed for the poll tax, were Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England, and Robert Hales, Treasurer of England.

Richard II’s powerful, wealthy and hated uncle John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, eldest surviving son of Edward III, was another prime target of rage and hatred, though fortunately for the Duke he was far away in Scotland in June 1381.

The revolt escalates

John Ball encourages Wat Tyler’s rebels.

The widespread though as yet unfocused rage found two leaders in Walter ‘Wat’ Tyler, who coordinated bands of protesters from Kent and Essex, and John Ball, a firebrand preacher who, according to the St Albans chronicler Thomas Walsingham, gave a sermon at Blackheath to 200,000 people (a gross exaggeration on Walsingham’s part) which included the famous line,

‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’.

The rebels began to make a series of demands which were, for the 14th century, radical: the abolition of serfdom, and a man’s right to work for whom he wished at the wages he wished. Their slogan was ‘King Richard and the True Commons’, and what they had in mind was a benevolent monarchy, with the nobility to be abolished.

Very soon after the assault of 30 May 1381, people all over Essex and Kent began committing acts of disobedience and protest, destroyed property belonging to tax collectors, office-holders and local gentry, and burned legal documents. A huge group of people gathered and marched towards London; the Essex rebels gathered at Mile End and others at Blackheath around Trinity Sunday 9 June.

On 11 June, the young King Richard’s advisers decided that he should seek refuge in the fortified Tower of London. Contemporary monkish chroniclers demonised the rebels marching towards London and talked about them in dehumanising language: supposedly they were ‘riff-raff’ with ‘rough, filthy hands’, ‘bare-legged rascals’ and ‘wastrels’ who were guilty of ‘wickedness’.

Storming the Tower

On 13 June, the young king met the rebels’ leaders at Blackheath but was soon forced to retreat, and tried again at Mile End the following day, where they presented their demands to him.

In Richard II’s absence, a mob broke into the Tower of London, where the widely loathed Simon Sudbury and Robert Hales, and John of Gaunt’s fourteen-year-old son and heir Henry of Lancaster (the future King Henry IV), had sought refuge.

Sudbury and Hales were dragged outside and summarily beheaded; Henry of Lancaster was saved by a man named John Ferrour. Outside the Tower, at least 150 foreigners working in London, predominantly Flemish weavers, were also killed and their goods stolen. Unable to lay their hands on the detested John of Gaunt in person, the rebels invaded and destroyed his sumptuous palace of the Savoy next to the Thames, supposedly leaving barely one stone on top of another.

Even in the north of England, meanwhile, Gaunt’s second, Spanish wife Constanza of Castile was in danger, and had to seek refuge at Gaunt’s Yorkshire castle of Knaresborough.

The rebellion crumbles

Richard II met the rebels for the third time at Smithfield on 15 June 1381. William Walworth, Mayor of London, stabbed the rebels’ leader Wat Tyler in Richard’s presence, apparently because it appeared as though he was assaulting the king or had spoken rudely to him.

The 14-year-old king bravely saved the situation by riding towards the rebels, crying out ‘I will be your king, your captain and your leader!’ This bold strategy worked, and chronicler Thomas Walsingham says that the rebels ‘were dispersed’ and ‘fled in all directions like wandering sheep’. Within weeks, order was restored throughout the country.

The Merciless Parliament of Richard II.

In November 1381, Richard II told parliament that he would willingly free the serfs if parliament allowed him to do so, and it seems that the adolescent king intended to grant the rebels’ demands, but he was still well underage and not acting under his own agency.

Chronicler Thomas Walsingham puts a famous, though improbable, speech in Richard’s mouth to the effect that

‘Serfs you are and serfs you will remain, and you will remain in bondage, not as before but incomparably harsher.’

Executions, including that of the preacher John Ball, and imprisonments soon followed the Great Uprising, and it would be an extremely long time before such radical demands were voiced again.

14th century historian Kathryn Warner is a biographer of Edward II, Isabella of France, Hugh Despenser the Younger and Richard II. Her book, Richard II: A True King’s Fall, will be published in paperback form by Amberley Publishing on 15 August 2019

However, Edward III’s death came after that of his son – Edward the Black Prince – who had died in June 1376. The Black Prince’s eldest son had died at the age of five from the Bubonic Plague, and so his younger son Richard was crowned King of England. Richard II was just 10 years old at the time of his coronation.

Regency and crisis

A late 16th-century portrait of John of Gaunt.

Richard’s reign was first overseen by his uncle, John of Gaunt – the third son of Edward III. But by the 1380s England was falling into civil strife, reeling from the effects of the Black Death and the Hundred Years’ War.

The first political crisis came in the form of the Peasants Revolt in 1381, with rebellions from Essex and Kent marching on London. While Richard, who was aged just 14 at the time, did well to suppress the rebellion, it is likely that the challenge to his divine authority as King made him more autocratic later in his reign – something that would lead to his downfall.

Richard also became an ostentatious young king, growing the size of the royal court and focusing on art and culture rather than military matters. He also had a habit of offending many nobles with his choice of close associates, particularly that Robert De Vere, who he made Duke of Ireland in 1486.

Taking matters into their own hands

In 1387, a group of nobles known as the Lords Appellant aimed to purge the King’s Court of his favourites. They defeated de Vere in a battle at Radcot Bridge that December, then occupied London. They then undertook the ‘Merciless Parliament’, in which many of Richard II’s court were convicted of treason and sentenced to death.

By Spring 1389, the Appellant’s power had begun to wane, and Richard formally resumed responsibility for government in May. John of Gaunt also returned from his campaigns in Spain the following November, which brought stability.

Through the 1390s, Richard began to strengthen his hand through a truce with France and a sharp fall in taxation. He also led a substantial force into Ireland in 1394-95, and the Irish Lords submitted to his authority.

But Richard also suffered a major personal setback in 1394 when his beloved wife Anne died of Bubonic Plague, sending him into a period of prolonged mourning. His character also became increasingly erratic, with higher spending on his court and a strange habit of sitting on his throne after dinner, staring at people rather than talking to them.

Downfall

It appears that Richard II never had closure on the challenge to his royal prerogative set by the Lords Appellant, and in July 1397 he decided to take revenge through execution, exile and harsh imprisonment of the main players.

Richard’s key action in his demise was exiling John of Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke, to France for ten years for his part in the Lords Appellant rebellion. Just six months into this exile, John of Gaunt died.

Richard could have pardoned Bolingbroke and allowed him to attend his father’s funeral. Instead, he cut off Bolingbroke’s inheritance and exiled him for life.

16th-century imaginary painting of Henry Bolingbroke – later Henry IV.

Richard then turned his attention to Ireland, where several Lords were in open rebellion against his crown. Just four weeks after he had set sail across the Irish Sea, Bolingbroke was returning to Britain having brokered an alliance with Louis, Duke of Orleans, who was acting as the Prince Regent of France.

He convened with powerful northern magnates and grew an army that enabled him to not only reclaim his inheritance, but also depose Richard from the throne. Bolingbroke received his coronation as Henry VI on 13 October 1399. Richard, meanwhile, died in jail – possibly of self-inflicted starvation – at the beginning of 1400. He died without an heir.

The effect of Richard’s deposition was to split the Plantagenet line for the throne between the House of Lancaster (John of Gaunt) and the House of York (Lionel of Antwerp, Edward III’s 2nd son, and Edmund of Langley his 4th).

It had placed a usurper on the throne, and Henry would not himself have an easy ride as King – facing open rebellion and internecine warfare during his reign.

What caused the conflict?

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 struggled to keep a firm grip on the crown and not all of them succeeded. Edward II, for example, was ousted by his wife and replaced by his son Edward III.

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; 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 problematic 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.

Thanks to the military successes of his father, Henry V, England held vast swathes of France and Henry VI 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 Castillon called an end to the Hundred Years War and left England with only Calais from all their French possessions.

The English nobility was incensed by the loss of power and French land, and factional tensions broke out. Mounting pressures on Henry led to a major breakdown in 1453. 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 Protector of the Realm, naming many of his close associates in important positions. However, on Christmas Day 1444 the king recovered, and he set about undoing York’s appointments. His fatal error was to exclude York and his faction, supported by the Earl of Warwick, from a council to be held in Leicester in May 1455.

The two sides met in the Battle of St Albans. It was only a small encounter, 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.