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Chester - Lancaster

The Middle Ages

	HOUSE OF LANCASTER 1399 - 1461
TIME LINE 1399 - 1461

The manner in which the Duke of Lancaster acquired the crown rendered his reign extremely turbulent Henry IV was elected by Parliament, and relied on Parliamentary support, Henry also owed much to the help of the Church, and he repaid this debt during his reign the clergy of England first began the practice of burning heretics ( that is, of those who thought otherwise than the Church directed ) under the act de haeretico comburendo, passed in the second year of his reign.The act was chiefly directed against the Lollards, as the followers of Wickliffe now came to he called. Wycliffe had preached that all authority should be based on righteousness, and had shown that the authority of the Pope had not always such a foundation. His followers continued to point out abuses in the Church: they were reformers before the days of Protestantism..

In spite of his concessions to Parliament and to the Church, his administration quelled every insurrection, he had to meet at least three rebellions.the most important - that of the Percies of Northumberland, Owen Glendower, and Douglas of Scotland - who where crushed by the battle of Shrewsbury (1403). Henry Percy, known as " Hotspur ," who was slain in 1403 his father, the Earl of Northumberland, who was killed in 1408; and Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, who was beheaded in 1405. The Percies of Northumberland had helped Henry in 1399, but they were disappointed with their reward, and their quarrel with the king began with claims against him for money said to be due to them. Before he died in 1413, Henry had made his position secure .

Leaving his crown to his son, Henry V., who revived the claim of Edward III. to the throne of France his greatest feats were performed in a foreign war, by which England made no permanent gains, and which had disastrous results in many ways. In 1415, he invaded that country at the head of 30,000 men he took Harfleur, which was useful as a base of operations. The disjointed councils of the French rendered their country an easy prey; the victory of Agincourt was gained in 1415; Between 1417 and 1419 he conquered Normandy. The party of the Duke of Burgundy was at feud with that of the Duke of Orleans. In 1419 the Orleanists pretended to be willing to end the quarrel, and a meeting between Burgundy and the Dauphin, who was under control of the Orleanists, was arranged to take place on a bridge at Montereau, near Pads. There Burgundy was treacherously murdered. After this, his son Philip was ready to offer the English any terms they wished, in order to keep the Dauphin ( the tide of the eldest son of the King of France The name comes from the dolphins in the family crest of the rulers of Dauphine, a province in the south-east, which was handed over to the French king for his son in 1349 ) from becoming King of France. He agreed to accept Henry as regent for the mad king, Charles VI, to give him the king's daughter as his wife, and promised that, if Henry had a son, that son should succeed to the throne of France instead of the Dauphin. But the Dauphin and the party of the Duke of Orleans naturally did not accept the arrangement, and there was more fighting. A very prominent part was taken on the French side by a Scots force commanded by the Earl of Douglas, who had been captured at Homildon and at Shrewsbury. after a second campaign peace was concluded at Troyes in 1420, by which Henry received the hand of Katherine, daughter of Charles VI., was appointed regent of France during the reign of his father-in-law, and declared heir to the throne on his death. In 1421 Henry's brother, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, was defeated and killed at Beauge. This led to Henry's third expedition. Henry drove back the Dauphin's party to the south of the Loire ; but, won his victories at the cost of his own health. He died in 1422, leaving to his infant son, only eight months old, the crowns of England and of France .

The interest of Henry's reign at home centres in the Church. Henry was a good churchman, and he showed himself hostile to the Reformers or Lollards. One of their leaders, Sir John Oldcastle, escaped from prison, and attempted to gather forces at Charing Cross in order to attack the king at Westminster (1414). But Henry was warned of the plot; the rebels were at once dispersed, and thirty-seven of them were executed. Oldcastle himself was captured and hanged in 1417.
During the minority of the infant Henry VI, Henry V's work was continued by his two brothers. The Duke of Bedford was Regent in France, and the Duke of Gloucester was the most important member of the Council of Regency in England. Bedford was a very able man and a good soldier. He defeated the French and Scots at Verneuil, where the Earl of Douglas was slain.

The turning. point in the war was the raising of the siege of Orleans in 1429 by a peasant girl of sixteen, Joan of Arc, who believed, and made others believe, that she was inspired by voices from heaven. She had the Dauphin crowned at Rheims a few weeks later, but her success did not endure. The next year she was captured by the Burgundians, who handed her over to the English for a money payment: and in 1431 she was burned as a witch. Almost all the judges who condemned her were French; and none of her own party made the least effort to save her.

In 1435 the English were deserted by their ally, Philip of Burgundy, and they also lost their own leader, the Duke of Bedford, whose death left the House of Lancaster without any able leader. Richard, Duke of York, maintained the English hold on Normandy for ten years. In 1444 Henry made a truce, gave up Maine to France, and married the Princess Margaret of Anjou.
The English foolishly went to war again in 1449 and, after the crushing defeat of Formigny in April 1450, they were driven out of Normandy, their possessions in the north of France Calais was all that was left. The French continued their successes, and in 1453, after the battle of Castillon, the English were at last expelled from Gascony, which they had held from the time of Henry II. some three hundred years

The infant son of Henry became king of England ( as Henry VI.) and France at the age of nine months. England during the reign of Henry VI. was subjected, in the first place, to all the confusion incident to a long minority, and afterwards to all the misery of a civil war. Henry VI was a good but feeble man and most unfitted to be king in troubled times, although he is to be remembered favourably for his services to education in founding Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. Henry allowed himself to be managed by any one who had the courage to assume the conduct of his affairs, and the influence of his wife, Margaret of Anjou, a woman of uncommon capacity, was of no advantage either to himself or the realm. The King's Council, which should have come to the rescue of the king , was distracted by the feuds of the nobles. Throughout the country powerful barons engaged in selfish quarrels were able to defy the law by the help of the "retainers" whom they had enlisted for service in the French wars. In France (1422 - 53) the English forces lost ground, and were finally expelled by the celebrated Joan of Arc, Calais alone being retained.

In the Summer of 1450, after the disaster of Formigny in April, the people could stand the misrule no longer. A Kentish mob, led by an adventurer called Jack Cade, marched on London, and murdered the Treasurer, Lord Say.: the rebels dispersed on promise of being pardoned, but an excuse was found for breaking the promise and many rioters were hanged. The rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450 was suppressed, only to be succeeded by more serious trouble. Richard of York, returned from Ireland to lead the opposition in its demand for stronger and better government. Richard, duke of York, who was the lawful heir to the throne, had been so long usurped by the house of Lancaster. His claim was founded on his descent from the third son of Edward III., Lionel, duke of Clarence, who was his great-great-grandfather on the mother's side, while Henry was the great-grandson on the father's side of John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward III. Richard of York was also grandson on the father's side of Edmund, fifth son of Edward III.

In 1453, the year of the loss of Gascony, two domestic events of some importance took place Henry had the first of the fits of insanity which visited him repeatedly from this time. During these fits a regent was required, but only so long as the fits lasted. Thus Parliament could appoint Richard of York to govern while Henry was insane; but, as soon as Henry was well again, Richard would be dismissed. This was a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, for neither Richard nor Henry's friends could feel any security against an attack by the other side, which might condemn them as traitors. Secondly a son was born to Henry. This meant that the House of Lancaster was not going to die out, and that Richard of York could no longer expect to succeed peacefully to the throne on the death of Henry. When he began to feel that he might never have the right, as king, to remedy the abuses existing in England, Richard became more eager to suppress the evils as Henry's minister. But he was not allowed to do this.

In 1455 Richard was a rebel and for the next five years, there was fighting .The civil war which resulted, was called the Wars of the Roses, from the fact that a red rose was the badge of the house of Lancaster and a white one that of the house of York, lasted for thirty years, from the first battle of St. Albans, May -22, 1455, to the battle of Bosworth, Aug. 22, 1485, Henry VI was twice driven from the throne (in 1461 and 1471) by Edward of York, whose father had previously been killed in battle in 1460. Edward of York reigned as Edward IV. from 1461 till his death in 1483, with a brief interval in 1471; and was succeeded by two other sovereigns of the house of York, first his son Edward V., who reigned for eleven weeks in 1483; and then by his brother Richard III.., who reigned from 1483 till 1485, when he was defeated and slain on Bosworth field by Henry Tudor of the House of Lancaster, who then became Henry VII.

Continues