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Concept
Battle of Tewkesbury
Summary
The Battle of Tewkesbury, which took place on 4 May 1471, was one of the most decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses in England. King Edward IV and his forces loyal to the House of York completely defeated those of the rival House of Lancaster. The Lancastrian heir to the throne, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, and many prominent Lancastrian nobles were killed during the battle or executed. The Lancastrian king, Henry VI, who was a prisoner in the Tower of London, died shortly after the battle, perhaps murdered. Tewkesbury restored political stability to England until the death of Edward IV in 1483.
The term Wars of the Roses refers to the informal heraldic badges of the two rival houses of Lancaster and York, which had been contending for the English throne since the late 1450s. In 1461 the Yorkist claimant, Edward, Earl of March, was proclaimed King Edward IV and defeated the supporters of the weak, intermittently insane Lancastrian King Henry VI at the Battle of Towton. Lancastrian revolts in the far north of England were defeated in 1464, and the fugitive King Henry was captured and imprisoned the next year. His wife, Margaret of Anjou, and their 13-year-old son Edward of Westminster were exiled and impoverished in France. Edward IV's hold on the throne appeared to be secure, at least temporarily.
Edward owed his victory in large measure to the support of his cousin, the powerful 16th Earl of Warwick. They became estranged when Edward spurned the French diplomatic marriage that Warwick was seeking for him and instead married Elizabeth Woodville, widow of an obscure Lancastrian gentleman, in secret in 1464. When the marriage became public knowledge, Edward placed many of his new queen's family in powerful positions that Warwick had hoped to control. Edward, meanwhile, reversed Warwick's policy of friendship with France by marrying his sister Margaret to Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy. The embittered Warwick secured the support of Edward IV's brother George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, for a coup in exchange for Warwick's promise to crown Clarence king.
Official source
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