Warner - Blood roses: the Houses of Lancaster and York before the Wars of the Roses

First published 2018

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Kathryn Warner, 2018

The right of Kathryn Warner to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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ISBN 978 0 7509 9020 2

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I n the middle of the fifteenth century, two branches of the English royal family began a decades-long series of conflicts known to posterity as the Wars of the Roses. They were the Houses of Lancaster and York, and Blood Roses tells their story before they became deadly rivals. The symbol of the House of York was a white rose, and that of the House of Lancaster a red rose, hence the modern name for the series of wars between them and the title of the present book.

The House of Lancaster was founded in 1267, when Henry III created the earldom of Lancaster for his second son Edmund, and the House of York in 1385 when Richard II bestowed the new dukedom of York on his uncle, also Edmund. The book opens in 1245 with the birth of Edmund of Lancaster, first Earl of Lancaster, and closes in 1400 with the accession of the first Lancastrian King of England, Henry IV, and the murder of his cousin and predecessor, Richard II. One of Richard II and Henry IVs first cousins was Edward, second Duke of York, whose heir was his nephew Richard, third Duke of York and later the Yorkist claimant to the throne as the senior descendant of Edward IIIs second son. Henry IV, his son Henry V and grandson Henry VI were descendants of Edwards third son, and the decades of war between the two rival branches of the royal family were ultimately caused by the question of whether the descendants of Edward IIIs second son in the female line should take precedence over the descendants of his third son in the male line.

Edmund of Lancaster (b. 1245): fourth child and second son of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence; first Earl of Lancaster and founder of the House of Lancaster; also Earl of Leicester and Steward of England

Henry III (b. 1207) and Eleanor of Provence (b. c. 1223): King and Queen of England; Edmunds parents

Aveline Forz (b. 1259), Countess of Aumale in her own right, heir to the earldom of Devon: daughter of William Forz, Earl of Aumale (d. 1260), and Isabella Redvers, Countess of Devon (b. 1237); marries Edmund of Lancaster in 1269

Blanche of Artois (b. c. 1245/48), Dowager Queen of Navarre, Countess of Lancaster: marries Edmund as his second wife in c. late 1275, and the mother of his children; niece of Louis IX, King of France, and widow of Enrique I, King of Navarre (d. 1274)

Robert, Count of Artois (121650), son of Louis VIII of France and brother of Louis IX, and Mathilde of Brabant (122488): parents of Blanche of Artois; grandparents of Edmunds children

Jeanne I, Queen Regnant of Navarre, Queen Consort of France (b. 1273): only child of Enrique I and Blanche of Artois; stepdaughter of Edmund of Lancaster; marries Philip IV of France

Thomas of Lancaster (b. 1277/78): eldest child and heir of Edmund and Blanche; half-brother of Queen Jeanne; second Earl of Lancaster

Henry of Lancaster (b. 1280/81): second child of Edmund and Blanche; heir of his childless brother Thomas and ancestor of all the later Lancasters; third Earl of Lancaster

John of Lancaster (b. before May 1286): obscure third child of Edmund and Blanche; spends almost all his life in France

Edward I, King of England (b. 1239): eldest child of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence, and his fathers successor on the throne; Edmund of Lancasters brother

Margaret (b. 1240), married to King Alexander III of Scotland, Beatrice (b. 1242), married to Duke John I of Brittanys eldest son John, and Katherine (b. 1253, dies young): Edmund and Edwards sisters

Leonor of Castile, Queen of England (b. c. 1241): daughter of Fernando III, King of Castile and Leon in Spain, and his second wife Jeanne of Ponthieu; marries Edward in 1254; Edmunds sister-in-law

Richard of Cornwall (b. 1209), Earl of Cornwall, elected King of the Romans (i.e. Germany) in 1257: brother of Henry III, and Edmund of Lancasters uncle

Henry of Almain (b. 1235) and Edmund of Cornwall (b. 1249): sons of Richard of Cornwall; Edmunds first cousins