page_title: Wars of the Roses
section_title: Richard III
hierarchical_section_title: Wars of the Roses / Later stages / Richard III
caption_attribution_description: "The Princes in the Tower"
context_page_description: The Wars of the Roses were a series of English civil wars for control of the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the House of Lancaster, represented by a red rose, and the House of York, represented by a white rose. Eventually, the wars eliminated the male lines of both families. The conflict lasted through many sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1487, but there was related fighting before and after this period between the parties. The power struggle ignited around social and financial troubles following the Hundred Years' War, unfolding the structural problems of bastard feudalism, combined with the mental infirmity and weak rule of King Henry VI which revived interest in the House of York's claim to the throne by Richard of York. Historians disagree on which of these factors was the main reason for the wars.
  With Richard of York's death in 1460, the claim transferred to his heir, Edward. After a series of Yorkist victories from January–February 1461, Edward claimed the throne on 4 March 1461, and the last serious Lancastrian resistance ended at the decisive Battle of Towton.
context_section_description: The restoration of Edward IV in 1471 is sometimes seen as marking the end of the Wars of the Roses proper. Peace was restored for the remainder of Edward's reign. His youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Edward's lifelong companion and supporter, William Hastings, were generously rewarded for their loyalty, becoming effectively governors of the north and midlands respectively. George of Clarence became increasingly estranged from Edward and was executed in 1478 for association with convicted traitors.
  When Edward died suddenly in 1483, political and dynastic turmoil erupted again. Many of the nobles still resented the influence of the queen's Woodville relatives (her brother, Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers and her son by her first marriage, Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset), and regarded them as power-hungry upstarts ('parvenus'). At the time of Edward's premature death, his heir, Edward V, was only 12 years old and had been brought up under the stewardship of Earl Rivers at Ludlow Castle.
  On his deathbed, Edward had named his surviving brother Richard of Gloucester as Protector of England. Richard had been in the north when Edward died. Hastings, who also held the office of Lord Chamberlain, sent word to him to bring a strong force to London to counter any force the Woodvilles might muster. The Duke of Buckingham also declared his support for Richard.
  Richard and Buckingham overtook Earl Rivers, who was escorting the young Edward V to London, at Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire on 29 April. Although they dined with Rivers amicably, they took him prisoner the next day and declared to Edward that they had done so to forestall a conspiracy by the Woodvilles against his life. Rivers and his nephew Richard Grey were sent to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire and executed there at the end of June.
  Edward entered London in the custody of Richard on 4 May and was lodged in the Tower of London. Elizabeth Woodville had already gone hastily into the sanctuary at Westminster with her remaining children, although preparations were being made for Edward V to be crowned on 22 June, at which point Richard's authority as Protector would end. On 13 June, Richard held a full meeting of the Council, at which he accused Hastings and others of conspiracy against him. Hastings was executed without trial later in the day.
  Thomas Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, then persuaded Elizabeth Woodville to allow her younger son, the 9-year-old Richard, Duke of York, to join Edward in the Tower. Having secured the boys, Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells then alleged that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been illegal and that the two boys were therefore illegitimate. Richard then claimed the crown as King Richard III. The two imprisoned boys, known as the "Princes in the Tower", disappeared and are assumed to have been murdered. There was never a trial or judicial inquest on the matter. Perkin Warbeck claimed he was the younger of the Princes from 1490 and was recognised as such by Richard's sister, the Duchess of Burgundy.
  Having been crowned in a lavish ceremony on 6 July, Richard then proceeded on a tour of the Midlands and the north of England, dispensing generous bounties and charters and naming his son as the Prince of Wales.
caption: Princes in the Tower, painted by John Everett Millais
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