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| | | From: Greensleeves (Original Message) | Sent: 4/11/2008 12:08 AM |
Having just immersed myself in a War of the Roses novel, thoughts sprung to mind about the entire reason for the wars & the men involved. Henry VI was basically an idiot ruled by his strong-willed wife, Margaret of Anjou. Richard Duke of York was his nearest kinsman on the right side of the blanket. He stepped forward after Jack Cade's Rebellion & the murder of Suffolk in the guise of "reformer" of Henry's government, & was unsuccessful for a time. After emerging victorious at First St Albans, he became Protector of the Realm, NOT king, while Henry's brain was on vacation. He even had Henry's person in his possession for a time (though by then Edward of Lancaster had been born), & basically was put into the same position as Henry of Bolingbroke was after being banished by Richard II, when he was forced out of England after Ludford Bridge. His invading forces were successful at Northampton & he regained physical possession of the king. Why wasn't his bid for the throne successful? Why did he not have the support of his peers in his efforts to remove a weak & ineffectual monarch from the throne? All he could manage was to be named Henry's heir presumptive for his efforts.....that & the paper crown he received after Wakefield. Yet after Towton, his 18-year-old son Edward was wildly acclaimed as King of England even though Henry still lived, had a legitimate male heir, & hadn't abdicated in his favor. Why was the time right for Edward, & not Richard?  |
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Mark hit the nail on the head - being in posession of the capital was half the battle won. But it was more than just being in posession, it also was being popular with the Londoners. Margurite d'Anjou was absolutely hated by the London folk, Edward was loved. Margurite also didn't help her cause by having foreign mercenaries in her army. Richard III also suffered from being considered a Northerner, and when ruling, greatly favored those men he trusted from his days as Lord of the North, and this was one more thing the London crowd had against him. You can also make this assertion when looking at the beginnings of the French & Russion revolutions. The rulers were deposed, mainly by the populace of their capital city, at least at the beginning. (I'm generalizing, of course, but it is an interesting parallel to me.) Henry IV was quite correct in saying, "Paris is worth a mass." |
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Since Margaret established her rival Court at Coventry, would this be the origin of the phrase "sent to Coventry", meaning "banished"?  I'm always thinking  I wonder if it had to do with the desecration of York's & Rutland's corpses, as well as the scorched earth policy Margaret chose to pursue? I mean, I know brutality to one's enemies was nothing new, but York, being named heir by an Act of Parliament, was tantamount to an anointed king, & one just didn't DO such things to royal personages. Even Richard II & Edward II were quietly disposed of & buried with honors (as was Henry VI later) as opposed to publicly humiliated in death with paper crowns & heads on spikes. Could the nobles have been jerked out of complacency by that, & made more amenable to Edward's accession? Could York's death actually have smoothed the way for his son to succeed where he'd failed? |
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Funny how "anointed king" & "divine right" carried so much weight back then. Henry VI was so much worse a king than either Edward II or Richard II in my opinion, as his reign was so much longer & such a mess on all fronts, both foreign & domestic, with the son of the hero of Agincourt losing everything except the Calais pale to France & his bossy French wife leading him by the nose at home. York was proven during his tenure in Ireland to be a strong military leader, & more importantly, he'd retained his marbles whereas Henry never had many to lose to begin with ROFL I think he complacently expected to be acclaimed as the natural replacement for Henry & was gobsmacked when that didn't happen. I don't recall him ever ASKING to be made king in Henry's stead. Maybe his hesitancy in taking that step was part of the problem. Edward IV never bothered to inquire, he just lunged for it & took it. |
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