Common Myths of the Wars of the Roses: Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the ‘Kingmaker’? Part 4

by Derek Birks

This is the final part of my exploration into the notion that Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, merits the epithet of “kingmaker”. [N.B. Links to the previous 3 parts can be found at the end.]

In the winter of 1469-70, despite an apparent rapprochement with the king, Warwick was contemplating open rebellion. Apart from capitulation, it was his only option: he must replace Edward IV with his own son in law, George, Duke of Clarence.

So, in March 1470, Warwick created a crisis by backing Lord Welles in a local feud with one of the king’s household men, Sir Thomas Burgh. At first, the king was unaware of the involvement of Warwick and Clarence, but when he defeated Welles, he discovered plenty of evidence. Though he summoned the earl and the duke to explain, they refused to come and gathered their forces in the midlands. Warwick hoped for support from his brother, John Neville, Earl of Northumberland, and from Lord Thomas Stanley, the most influential lord in the north-west. Both refused to join him and, without them, he knew he was doomed.

Fleeing south, Warwick and Clarence collected their wives and managed – just – to evade the king’s pursuing army at Dartmouth. From there, after attempting to gather more ships and men at Southampton, they sailed to Calais. But King Edward had already written to Calais and the ships were denied entry, though Warwick’s heavily pregnant daughter Isabel was going into labour and subsequently lost her child.

Warwick had little choice but to head for France and hope for a warm welcome. Another attempt at kingmaking had ended in abject failure.

Warwick’s ships continued along the channel, indulging in some gratuitous piracy against Flemish ships on the way. The earl might have seen this as a windfall, or perhaps he reckoned that action against the Burgundians would ease his entry to a French port. My guess is that he thought it couldn’t hurt his reputation with the French king, Louis XI, when he asked for his protection.

Condemned in England as a traitor, Warwick now faced an ignominious end to his illustrious career, but remarkably, in a matter of months, he managed to resurrect his kingmaking ambitions. How did such an unlikely reversal of fortune come about?

Even before this latest disaster, Warwick surely realised that Clarence was a weak reed so, if he really wanted a change of monarch, he needed a better candidate. One of Warwick’s few remaining assets was his daughter, Anne, and now whoever she married would need to bring something special to the family – preferably a touch of royalty. He needed someone whose name alone would attract men to his banner, which brings us to one of the most interesting volte-faces in English history: Warwick’s pact with his most bitter enemy, Margaret of Anjou.

It is a measure of Warwick’s utter desperation that he was willing to fling aside previous loyalties to mount one last attempt at achieving real power.

Source gallica.bnf.fr / National Library of France

England already had a spare king. The unfortunate Henry VI had been a prisoner of Edward IV since July 1465, but his queen, Margaret of Anjou, had never given up hope of restoring not only her husband but more importantly her son, Edward of Westminster.

If Warwick had ever considered the possibility of reconciliation with Queen Margaret, he must have viewed it as a last resort. Well, in May 1470, the last resort had been reached. Yet, how could the former queen be persuaded to agree to a pact with the man she regarded as the architect of her family’s demise? 

Whilst it is true that Margaret would need a lot of persuading, by spring 1470 with no resources left to her, even the indomitable Margaret was low on optimism. 

Louis XI, known as ‘the universal spider’, was an expert manipulator of people. He knew from Warwick’s diplomatic missions that the earl favoured a French alliance – a policy over which he fell out with King Edward who instead allied himself to Burgundy, France’s enemy. 

This was an alliance King Louis was desperate to break. Thus, between May and July 1470, he brokered negotiations between Warwick and Margaret. He was very persuasive and both parties recognised that it was their last chance. Margaret swallowed her bile and came to terms, doing her best to humiliate the earl in the process; and Warwick, always a better diplomat than soldier, soaked it up on his knees.

At first it was probably just one of many irons in the fire for ‘the spider’, but once it seemed that it might actually happen, he provided money, ships and men – the lifeblood of invasion without which Warwick could have gone nowhere!

One could devote a dozen posts to the subsequent events but since my focus is on the kingmaking, I shall simply note that, against all odds, Warwick succeeded in putting together a coalition of Edward’s enemies, including not only Queen Margaret but the renegade lords: Jasper Tudor – King Henry’s half-brother and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford – a diehard Lancastrian.

Nevertheless, as always, success in England would depend upon the actions of a few key men: his brother John Neville, recently stripped of the earldom of Northumberland; Lord Thomas Stanley and, not least, the Duke of Clarence himself. How would all these individuals react in the crisis that Warwick created?

When Warwick landed in the south-west in September 1470, he proclaimed that he was restoring the rightful king, Henry VI. However dishonest one might feel now that this claim was, there is no doubt that it resonated with some at the time. Bear in mind also that, at this point Edward IV had no male heir whereas Henry VI did. However unlikely it seemed, Warwick had put together what appeared to be an attractive package.

King Edward was in the north stamping out Neville-backed risings, but still confident he could defeat Warwick. However, one by one, his leading nobles joined the rebellion: notably Lord Stanley and the Earl of Shrewsbury - but also crucially, and at the very last minute, Warwick’s brother, John Neville – still smarting from the loss of his earldom. Since he had always remained loyal to Edward, it was a body blow to the king. With Warwick advancing from the south and John Neville close by in the north, the king could only disband his army and flee to his Burgundian ally, Duke Charles. Meanwhile, his pregnant wife, Elizabeth Woodville, took sanctuary with her daughters at Westminster – not for the first, or last, time!

Victorious, Warwick headed for the capital to free a bemused Henry VI and await the return of Queen Margaret and her son, Edward – recently married to Anne Neville. Nevertheless, he faced some tricky problems ahead in managing a hastily-engineered coalition which amounted to an alliance of his enemies. Once Queen Margaret returned, along with some of his most bitter foes, such as Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, he must have feared what would happen. All that though lay in the future, because Queen Margaret was reluctant to take the leap of faith and return to England, beset by her own doubts about the wisdom of trusting Warwick.

Thus, at the heart of Warwick’s alliance lay animosity and mistrust. 

His friends too were nervous: some supporters, notably Stanley and Shrewsbury, received little reward for their vital support. His brother John, risking all to support him, must have been uneasy about his rival in the north, Henry Percy, recently restored to the earldom of Northumberland by Edward IV. If these men harboured doubts about what they had done, those with no love at all for Warwick were just biding their time until Queen Margaret arrived. If enough pressure was applied, would the coalition simply splinter?

The sudden return of Edward IV in March 1471 provided the first test for the new regime. Edward landed with perhaps 500 men, professed loyalty to Henry VI and claimed that he wanted only his dukedom of York. With hindsight of course this seems pretty hard to believe, but at the time it created confusion at a critical moment. Edward’s boldness paralysed his enemies, for though both Northumberland and John Neville could have stopped him in his tracks, neither did.

Battle of Barnet via Wikimedia Commons

Even so, Edward gathered only modest support before he reached the midlands. After all, who would risk all by supporting him? Well, as it turned out, his errant brother, George, Duke of Clarence would. Clarence was the ‘spare thumb’ of Warwick’s regime and was even more worried about his future than Warwick himself. Though the earl might have foreseen it, Clarence’s sudden defection to Edward, taking all his adherents with him, changed everything.

Edward IV hurried to London where he returned the old king to the Tower and prepared to meet Warwick head on. At the resulting battle of Barnet in April, several key advantages lay with Warwick: better artillery and two reliable commanders in his brother, John, and the Earl of Oxford. However, since it was fought in a fog, the outcome might just as well have been settled by the toss of a coin. Yet perhaps it was a fitting end to the chaotic years of plotting and in-fighting from 1469-71.

Warwick not only lost at Barnet, but he was killed, so his kingmaking exploits ended there. Only hours afterwards, Queen Margaret and her son landed at Weymouth. King Edward’s troubles did not end at Barnet, but Warwick’s ambitions did.

Like all his kingmaking attempts, the last was fatally flawed. You could argue that he was unlucky and that, had he won at Barnet, his achievement would have endured. But it was not just bad luck. His last hurrah was built upon a creaking foundation and, in his desperation, Warwick ignored vital flaws - not least the very real problem of what to do with Clarence. Clarence, as they say, ‘voted with his feet’.

If ever there was a tragic figure in English history, it is Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. One of the great men of his age, he promised much, but was destroyed by his own pride and ambition. He was not the only English nobleman to perish in that way during the medieval period, but he was certainly one of the most notable.

For me, there is no occasion when Warwick justifies the name “kingmaker”, for he made no-one king. In every case, other factors were more important than the role of Warwick himself and even the readeption of Henry VI proved so fragile that it barely lasted a few anxious months. The image of Warwick, the kingmaker, belongs only in the pages of historical fiction.

To read the earlier 3 parts of this theme, click on the links below:

Part 1;   Part 2;   Part 3 

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Derek Birks was born in Hampshire in England but spent his teenage years in Auckland, New Zealand, where he still has strong family ties.

For many years he taught history in a secondary school but took early retirement to concentrate on writing. Apart from his writing, he spends his time gardening, travelling, walking and taking part in archaeological digs at a Roman villa. Derek is interested in a wide range of historical themes but his particular favourite is the late medieval period. He writes action-packed fiction which is rooted in accurate history.

His debut historical novel was Feud, which is set in the period of the Wars of the Roses. Feud is the first of a now complete four-book series, entitled Rebels & Brothers, which follows the fortunes of the fictional Elder family from 1459 to 1471.

A new series, The Craft of Kings, picks up the story of the Elders in 1481 in its first book, Scars from the Past. In February 2018, the violent events of 1483 are played out in the sequel, The Blood of Princes.

Website: www.derekbirks.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Feud_writer

Amazon author sites: amazon.co.uk; amazon.com

Lambert Simnel and the Blind Poet

by Matt Lewis

One of the most intriguing and confusing stories I read about the possible survival of the Princes in the Tower comes from Bernard Andre, the blind French friar-poet who would act as tutor to Prince Arthur Tudor and possibly to Henry VIII too. It epitomises the lack of conviction that runs through almost all of the contemporary and near-contemporary sources about the precise fate of the sons of Edward IV.

When writing about the Lambert Simnel Affair of 1487, two years into Henry VII’s reign, André provides an account that is quite shocking, yet which just might make sense of the whole muddled business. Andre begins his explanation of the events by describing how ‘the cruel murder of King Edward the Fourth’s sons was yet vexing the people’. On the surface, this is an explicit assertion that both of the boys were dead and is presumably meant to be understood to implicate Richard III. He had earlier written of Richard that ‘After the tyrant, safe in his London stronghold, slew the lords he knew were faithful to his brother, he ordered that his unprotected nephews secretly be dispatched with the sword.’ Referring to news that a coronation of this supposed King Edward of the House of York had taken place in Dublin, André does not refer to the boy as Edward, Earl of Warwick, as the official Tudor version of events has it. The poet specifically states that ‘word came back that the second son of Edward had been crowned king in Ireland’. This second son would have been Richard, Duke of York, yet everywhere else it is made clear that the boy was named Edward. If he was a son of Edward IV named Edward, then he can only have been claiming to be Edward V.

The story doesn’t end there. André continues to describe the questioning of numerous messengers sent to Ireland to discover the boy's identity. Eventually, one person was sent to conclusively answer the question of who this boy really was. André has frustratingly left a blank space where the name should be, but it is possible it was Roger Machado, a herald trusted by both Edward IV and Henry VII. Whoever he was, André tells us that he ‘claimed that he would easily recognise him if he were who he claimed to be’. On this man’s return, André laments that ‘the boy had already been tutored with evil cunning by persons who were familiar with the days of Edward, and he readily answered all the herald’s questions’. So, we are told, a herald who knew Edward IV’s sons was sent to identify the boy in Dublin and returned unable to say he wasn’t Edward IV’s son. He didn’t say that the lad looked nothing like either of the princes. All he could say was that all of his questions were answered satisfactorily, a shocking development that André put down to quick and clever trickery.

In summing up, André confirms that ‘To make a long story short, through the deceptive tutelage of his advisors, he was finally accepted as Edward’s son by many prudent men, and so strong was this belief that many did not even hesitate to die for him’. André does not describe this boy as claiming to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of George, Duke of Clarence, but as claiming to be a son of Edward IV named Edward. It’s a brief passage, but it rings so many alarm bells. What if the whole story of an Oxford boy named Lambert Simnel impersonating Edward, Earl of Warwick was a smokescreen? Henry had an Edward, an heir of the House of York, in his custody, so putting out that the boy in Ireland was claiming to be someone imprisoned in the Tower would undermine his attempts to unseat Henry. Warwick was produced at St Paul’s for questioning by former members of the Yorkist court to prove that he really was a prisoner. What if that story was a pretence to whip support from beneath the boy in Ireland by painting his claims as a demonstrable lie, a joke even?

If we allow for a moment that the boy in Dublin might have been claiming to be Edward V, it makes sense of many other snippets of detail. Polydore Vergil, writing twenty years later, described the boy in Ireland as seeking to restore or re-establish himself, using the Latin verb ‘restituere’ to define his efforts. It would be an odd word to apply to Warwick, who had never held the throne in order to be able to restore himself to it. Given Edward V’s lack of a coronation, the desire to crown him in Dublin might also be significant. There is open confusion about the age of the boy later captured at the Battle of Stoke Field, and one account contained within The Heralds’ Memoir refers to the capture of the boy by Robert Bellingham and gives his name as John. Adrien de But even claimed that the boy escaped the field and was taken to Calais by Edmund de la Pole, then Earl of Suffolk, though de But does identify the boy as the ‘young Duke of Clarence’, referring to Warwick’s father’s title.

There are other interesting connections too. The sudden fall from grace of Elizabeth Woodville and the arrest of Thomas Grey, for example. The official Tudor version of the dowager queen’s removal from public life and her loss of her property was Henry’s outrage that she had endangered her daughters, including his wife, by releasing them to Richard III in 1484. Odd to become so suddenly scandalised three years after the fact and over a year into his own reign. Thomas Grey was supposedly told that if he really were loyal to Henry, then he wouldn’t mind a spell in the Tower to prove it. The timing of both events is highly suggestive that it was related to the emergence of the threat in Ireland. Elizabeth Woodville and Thomas Grey would have absolutely nothing to gain by supporting Edward, Earl of Warwick. Elizabeth was implicated in Warwick’s father’s fall and execution. If anything, placing him on the throne would make the Woodville position weaker. The only thing that can have been preferable to her daughter on the throne beside Henry VII for Elizabeth Woodville would have been one of her sons on it.

John de la Pole’s involvement is equally hard to fathom if the Lambert Simnel Affair had been a plot to place Warwick on the throne. Contrary to what has become popular opinion, Richard III never appointed an heir after the death of his only legitimate son in 1484. Some have claimed Warwick was designated heir, whilst other identify John, Earl of Lincoln as receiving that honour. Some even believe Warwick was initially appointed only to be replaced by Lincoln. None of these is true. Richard III left no instruction regarding who should succeed him, not least because he was planning to remarry and would have hoped for another son and heir. Lincoln would, by most measures, have been Richard III’s heir presumptive until a son arrived to replace him. Warwick was a male line descendant of the House of York, but his father’s attainder legally barred him from the succession. Undoing that impediment would create the sticky and awkward question of his senior claim that Richard himself possessed.

Lincoln therefore held his own claim, senior to that of Warwick, which he appears to have ignored. With Henry VII’s removal of Titulus Regius from the statute books, the illegitimacy of Edward IV’s children was reversed. If one or both were still alive, his sons would now possess the most convincing legitimate claim to the throne for the House of York. Warwick had no affinity of his own, having been orphaned at a young age and kept away from any kind of power as a child. Lincoln didn’t really have a swell of support, but he had a legitimate claim unhampered by attainder. The only Yorkist claim better than Lincoln’s was that of the sons of Edward IV. If Lincoln overlooked his own suit in 1487, it only makes sense that he did so for one of the Princes in the Tower.

The fate of the Princes in the Tower ultimately remains a mystery. However, it is a mystery clouded by later Tudor writers and by the unquestioning acceptance of what they wrote. Returning to the source material is critical to stripping away these layers of myth and misdirection, and in this case, it throws up some interesting questions. If you think about it with an open mind and push aside your preconceptions, the Lambert Simnel Affair makes an awful lot more sense as an uprising in favour of Edward V than it does as an attempt to place an imposter Earl of Warwick on the throne. Of course, Henry VII had a vested interest in denying the continued existence of two boys with a better and more popular claim to his crown than he had. Maybe that’s why he ordered that all of the records of the Irish Parliament held in 1487 should be burned. Maybe they referred to something he could never afford to have see the light of day. Maybe they referred to an attempt to return King Edward V to the throne of England. Maybe Henry VII has succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of history.

Pictures Copyright Matt Lewis

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Matthew Lewis is the author of The Survival of the Princes in the Tower published by The History Press and available from Amazon and other outlets.

Common Myths of the Wars of the Roses or All you thought you knew about the Wars of the Roses, but didn’t… Episode 2

By Derek Birks

Wars of the Roses Myth #3 – Was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, really a ‘Kingmaker’? 

Part 1…

A month or two ago, I had a bit of a rant on Facebook about the common myths which persist about many aspects of the Wars of the Roses period. I vowed to do something about it, so here’s my second offering which seeks to explode the myth that Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, justified the epithet of “kingmaker”.

History likes important people to have nicknames: Alfred the Great, Ethelred the Unready, William the Conqueror, Edward ‘Longshanks’, or the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, ‘Good Queen Bess’ or ‘Gloriana’, ‘Bloody’ Mary and ‘Bluff’ King Hal. Such nicknames will be familiar but these names are not about history, they are about legend. They are useful handles for us to use to identify a particular figure and they have become part of our collective memory. Unfortunately, they are often wholly, or partly, inaccurate – and frequently based upon the opinions of a few influential early historians.

These nicknames are thus the judgement of one society or culture upon another that came before - and they sometimes come with a fierce perspective! Often it’s worth finding out, if you can, who first used the term and why.

So when was the name ‘Kingmaker’ first used about the Earl of Warwick?

Well, Shakespeare – who else? – gives us a place to start with the character of Warwick in his play Henry VI Part 3. [Please note: Shakespeare wrote fiction!]
In Act 2, scene 3, Warwick is described by the bard as: “thou setter up and plucker down of kings.”

Courtesy of Wikimedia

But the term ‘kingmaker’ actually predates Shakespeare. A Scottish philosopher and intellectual, John Major (or Mair), wrote in 1521 of Warwick in his History of Greater Britain: ‘Of him, it was said that he made kings and at his pleasure cast them down’ and Major used the Latin phrase ‘regum creator’ to describe the earl.

The first known English reference is: ‘That brave Kingmaker, Warwick’ which appears in Samuel Daniel’s poem, The History of the Civil War written in the reign of Elizabeth I.

However, it was not a term in common use for several hundred years until the eighteenth century historian, David Hume, made it more well-known. And of course, for good or ill, the epithet stuck fast.

I have no trouble with using such a tag as an easy handle for recognition purposes. People mostly have some clue to whom you are referring if you say Warwick, the ‘Kingmaker’, to distinguish him from all other Earls of Warwick that existed before or since – and there have been many! That’s fair enough, but when it comes to whether the term is justified, then that’s another matter entirely. 

There are probably three distinct occasions when it has been claimed that the Earl of Warwick was a kingmaker:

1) for Richard, Duke of York, in 1455 (or 1460 – take your pick!)

2) for Edward, Earl of March, in 1461

3) for Henry VI upon his readeption in 1470.

Like most things in the Wars of the Roses, these claims are controversial, but the short answer is that Warwick didn’t actually make anyone king!

In Part 1, I shall deal with the myth that he intended to replace Henry VI with Richard, Duke of York. 

Just how powerful and influential was Warwick?
Warwick had immense wealth – he was a ‘billionaire’ for his time by virtue of his massive land holdings which were the fruits of a succession of advantageous Neville marriages. His large family had intermarried with many other noble families and he could thus build alliances to gain the support of other powerful men.

Warwick from the Rous Rolls via Wikimedia

His wealth gave him a sizeable retinue of men at arms, archers, etc. from these vast estates. He was keen to use the latest technology in warfare such as cannons and firearms - and he understood the importance of such new weapons. In the field he was a courageous warrior, capable of inspiring great loyalty amongst his supporters. Unlike many, he understood the value of sea power and was something of a pioneer in its use.

As well as his martial prowess, he had the charm of a smooth-talking diplomat who was able to win many to his banner. Add to that the drive and ruthless determination to succeed and you have a man capable of achieving a great deal.

The historian, Michael Hicks, in his recent authoritative book, Warwick the Kingmaker, concludes: “For twenty years he shaped events, his own career, and indeed history itself.”

So Warwick probably had the means to 'make' a king, but did he try to put the Duke of  York on  the throne?

The Duke of York possessed an ancient claim to the throne and he was, in the absence of an heir to Henry VI up to 1453, the heir presumptive – the man most likely to succeed. Nevertheless in the early 1450s Richard of York felt slighted and ill-treated, perhaps with some justification, by Henry VI’s regime. York ended up with almost no major political allies. Then, during the period 1452 to 1455, he began to form an alliance with the powerful Neville family. 

Was the alliance with York the work of Warwick? 

Perhaps, but only in part, since his father, the ageing Earl of Salisbury, whose sister, Cicely Neville, was married to York, was the true architect, just as he was the architect of the marriage years earlier that gave Warwick himself such wealth.

How then did Warwick come to support Richard of York against King Henry VI?
Warwick believed that, as a key figure in the realm, he should position himself and his family as close to the centre of power as possible. Since the source of all patronage and advancement was the king, Warwick expected to serve the king in a major capacity and be amply rewarded for doing so. Nothing unusual about that since it was the aspiration of most noblemen in England.

Unfortunately for Warwick, he, and the Neville family in general, had influential rivals at court, notably Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. They were also embroiled in a bitter feud with the Percy family in their own backyard in the north of England. The usual way to eclipse one’s enemies was to harness more power and wealth from the king, for example: grants of more land, appointment to important offices of state or lucrative customs contracts. Such things were the bread and butter of all noble families at that time. The problem was that there was only so much largesse that a king had to give. A prudent king might spread it around a little to create some balance amongst his most powerful subjects, but sadly, Henry VI was not so discriminating.

Thus, by the mid-1450s, the Earl of Warwick, despite all his power and wealth, did not have the pre-eminent position in the state that he coveted. But on two occasions in the 1450s, Warwick was given a glimpse of an alternative reality – a world where England was ruled by a Protector of the Realm because of the king’s temporary incapacity. That protector was Richard, Duke of York and York did a fair job of ruling. He also rewarded his friends, such as the Nevilles, and punished his enemies, such as Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

York gave Warwick the prominent seat at the table of state which he wanted. But, after the king’s recovery, York had to relinquish his role of protector with the result that the York-Neville faction was once again starved of influence over the king and thus out of power. For a time they tried persuasion but then in 1455, at the first Battle of St Albans, they resorted to force. 

So, was St Albans in 1455 the first act of the ‘kingmaker’ to replace Henry VI? 

Definitely not and any such suggestion is pure fantasy. What Warwick wanted to do in 1455 was forcibly remove the king’s closest advisers such as Somerset. It was no surprise that the chief casualties at St Albans were the leading noblemen against York and Warwick: dead men can’t rule.

York and Warwick also wanted to limit the influence of the Queen, Margaret of Anjou, who was fiercely supportive of her husband and wanted to protect the legacy of her recently born male heir.

But St. Albans was a dangerous gamble that sent shock waves through the English nobility. Because some prominent men were killed, several new and bitter feuds were started which would last for decades. The use of violence was condemned by many, and if York was testing the strength of commitment to Henry VI, he found that, despite his brief and bloody victory, the vast majority of nobles and others saw Henry VI as their lawful king, anointed by God and thus to be obeyed.

Even York’s own supporters, including the Earl of Warwick, accepted that this was so.

When in 1460, York aimed for the throne, Warwick seemed as surprised as most other lords - few of whom showed any enthusiasm for the idea. The best they would accept was the so-called Act of Accord, whereby Henry would live out his life as king but then York would succeed him. 

If Warwick played any part at all in this whole episode it was a conciliatory one. 

After all, it did not help Warwick’s aim of political power to become embroiled in a bloody civil war, the outcome of which was by no means certain. A desperate man might do that but Warwick was not so desperate - at least not yet...

Nevertheless, the Act of Accord disinherited the king’s legitimate male offspring and Queen Margaret, for one, was unlikely ever to accept that. Her opposition to York and the Nevilles, once born out of suspicion about their motives, became implacable enmity. And she was not going to give up. Marshalling the loyal nobles, who were still the overwhelming majority, she conjured up, at the Battle of Wakefield in late December 1460, the one thing which could put an end to the struggle: the deaths of both Richard, Duke of York and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury – Warwick’s father.

Warwick had never intended Richard, Duke of York, to actually take the throne from Henry VI, yet the would-be king and Warwick’s father were now dead and, as a result, the York-Neville alliance lay in tatters. York’s death was a body blow because Warwick had invested so much in the duke’s political success. Not only was Warwick out of power, but he was now at risk of losing everything he had. 

Thus early in 1461, Warwick had to decide how he would deal with the fallout from the disaster at Wakefield. But that’s the second part of the myth – and a whole other story…

If you want to find Episode 1 of Wars of the Roses Myths which is about King Henry VI, click here.

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Derek Birks was born in Hampshire in England but spent his teenage years in Auckland, New Zealand, where he still has strong family ties.

For many years he taught history in a secondary school but took early retirement to concentrate on writing. Apart from his writing, he spends his time gardening, travelling, walking and taking part in archaeological digs at a Roman villa.

Derek is interested in a wide range of historical themes but his particular favourite is the late medieval period. He writes action-packed fiction which is rooted in accurate history.
His debut historical novel was Feud, which is set in the period of the Wars of the Roses. Feud is the first of a now complete four-book series, entitled Rebels & Brothers, which follows the fortunes of the fictional Elder family from 1459 to 1471.
A new series, The Craft of Kings, picks up the story of the Elders in 1481 in its first book, Scars From The Past. Later this year, the violent events of 1483 are played out in the sequel, The Blood of Princes.

Website: www.derekbirks.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Feud_writer

Amazon author sites: amazon.co.uk; amazon.com