Red Rose or White? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Red Rose

Some background would be appropriate here. The first Lancastrian king was Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV when he usurped the throne from Richard II, his cousin, in 1399. This set up the dissent among their respective descendants that was to come to a climax in the War of the Roses between 1455 and 1487. (Disclaimer: the events of this war were far too complex to treat thoroughly in a quiz, so a lot of the intricate details of exactly why everyone thought they were in the right will be omitted, and just the big picture outlined.)

At the start of the conflict, Henry VI was on the throne, having inherited it from his father, Henry V, in 1422. The fact that he was only 8 months old at the time created a bit of a power struggle, and his assuming active control in 1437 only allowed him to demonstrate his ineffectiveness as a leader. His reign saw the conclusion of the Hundred Years War in 1453, with the almost total loss of English possessions in the European mainland. Unsurprisingly, this led to domestic unrest, and he suffered a serious breakdown in 1453 which led to a three-way power struggle within the royal family. Richard, 3rd Duke of York (Richard Plantagenet) and Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset (cousin to both Henry and Richard) contended with each other to assume control, while Queen Margaret attempted to retain royal control while her husband was incapacitated.

Henry VI was deposed in 1461 by the man who then became Edward IV, restored to the throne in 1470 by Richard Neville, deposed again by Edward in 1471 and imprisoned. He died in the Tower of London a few months later, possibly at the order of the king, possibly by that good old villain (as depicted by Shakespeare), the Duke of Gloucester who was later to be crowned as Richard III.

Answer: Red Rose

Margaret married Henry VI in 1445, when she was 15 and he was 23. Their marriage was probably politically intended to establish a basis for reclaiming at least some of the territory that had been lost in the Hundred Years War. The subsequent negotiations led to the loss of Maine (and later the rest of Normandy), while his claim to succession in Anjou was dismissed. His mental state, already fragile, crumbled further, so by the time their son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was born in 1453 he was completely incapacitated. Then, and at subsequent times when he collapsed, she took control of affairs of state. The appointment as Lord Protector of Richard of York, who had a credible claim to the throne, made her consider him as a powerful enemy. Although he had previously been a trusted advisor to the king, she became convinced that he was responsible for her personal unpopularity, part of his plot to become king.

In 1455 the queen called a Great Council (an assembly of nobles and church leaders gathered when called to discuss affairs of state) which banned Richard of York (and his supporters) from participation. This was the trigger for the ensuing war that was to end only with the ascension of Henry VII in 1485. The 1471 Battle of Tewkesbury saw the Lancastrians defeated, and her son Edward of Westminster killed; she was taken prisoner by the Yorkists before being ransomed by her French cousin, Louis XI and spending the rest of her life in France, dependent on him.

Answer: Red Rose

Humphrey was the youngest son of Henry iV, making him the uncle of Henry VI. He was a member of the regency council that operated during the minority of Henry VI, from 1422 to 1437. He was one of the two figures who dominated the council, along with his half-uncle Henry Beaufort, because the nominal head (John, Duke of Bedford) spent most of his time in his French territories. Following John's death in 1435, Humphrey and Henry both laid claim to the top job.Although he was not technically involved in the War of the Roses, having died in 1447, his role in the regency, especially the escalation of familial quarrels, was a significant contributor to the instability that was to result in active fighting a few years after his death.

Answer: Red Rose

Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was the only son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. Born in 1453, he was only 17 when he died in the Battle of Tewkesbury. In 1460, when Henry was captured at the Battle of Monmouth, the victorious Duke of York allowed the king to retain his throne, but only after Parliament passed the Act of Accord, which disinherited Edward and nominated the Richard or his heirs as the rightful inheritors of the throne.

Edward accompanied his mother in a flight to Scotland, whence she launched an attack intended to regain full control;despite several successes, they eventually retreated to Scotland and then took refuge in France. After several years of maintaining a court in exile, Margaret decided to align herself with Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (whose loyalty was not, at that time, with the Yorkists) and Edward married Anne Neville in 1470.

This was the year in which Richard Neville orchestrated the return of Henry VI to the throne. By the time Margaret and Edward returned to England in 1471, however, Neville had died in the Battle of Barnett, and their quest was doomed. Their small force met with the troops of Edward IV at the Battle of Tewkesbury, and Prince Edward died during that battle. His widow married Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was later to become Richard III.

Answer: White Rose

If I had listed his title, Duke of York, it would have been pretty obvious which side he was on. It his claim to the throne, raised when Henry VI was not capable of ruling, that was the ostensible point of contention. He was a descendant of two of Edward III's sons: his father from Edmund of Langley, the fourth son, and his mother from Lionel of Antwerp, the second son. The House of Lancaster were all descended from John of Gaunt, the third son. So considering only males, the Lancastrians (and therefore Henry VI and his son) were more direct, but allowing a female in the link gave Richard, the third Duke of York, a closer claim.

Richard's claim to the throne, however, was not the only factor leading to active war - his personal conflict with both Margaret of Anjou and Edmund Beaufort, the king's cousin and a fellow regent whose close relationship with the queen led to speculation that her child might have been fathered by Beaufort rather than Henry. Richard, while acting as Lord Protector, had Beaufort imprisoned, but Henry's recovery in late 1454 saw Richard lose his position and Beaufort released. Determined to regain control, Richard raised an army that met the king's forces (literally) in the town of St Albans, considered the first battle of the War of the Roses. The king was captured, and Richard appointed Lord Protector.

Richard 'agreed' to allow Henry to retain the throne, on the condition that he would be king following Henry's death. Unfortunately for him, he was killed in the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, along with his oldest son Edmund. Two of his surviving sons (Edward and Richard) continued to fight for their place on the throne.

Answer: White Rose

Richard's second son was 18 when his father and older brother died in the Battle of Wakefield in December of 1460. He took over command of the army, earning victories at Mortimer's Cross and Towton, following which he declared himself to be king since Henry and Margaret had left the country for the safety of Scotland. As battles continued, Edward IV was king until 1470, when a rebellion led by Richard Neville and Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence, put Henry back on the throne. Edward gathered support on the continent, returning to gain victory in the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury in 1471. Shortly after he resumed the throne, Henry VI was found dead in the Tower of London. Since his son had died at Tewkesbury, it was all over bar the shouting - until Edward died in 1483.

Edward IV died of a gastric complaint, possibly poisoning, possibly some unspecified disease. His will named his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to be Lord Protector following his death, until his twelve-year-old son could reach majority.

Answer: White Rose

Edward was born in 1470, during the time when his father was overseas gathering support to return and claim the throne back from Henry VI. He was made Prince of Wales when his father regained the throne in 1471, and became King Edward V when his father died in 1483. He technically ruled for around ten weeks (9 April to ~25 June), but was never crowned, and it was actually his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was in control.

Edward and his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, known as the Princes in the Tower, were imprisoned in the Tower of London by their uncle. Parliament then passed an act called 'Titulus Regius', which declared that the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid. This made their children illegitimate, and ineligible to inherit the throne. Richard then became Richard III, and his nephews conveniently disappeared from their royal apartments in the Tower of London. Their sister, Elizabeth of York, survived, and was later to become the wife of Henry VII, whose ascent to the throne marked the end of the War of the Roses.

Answer: White Rose

When Edward IV ascended the throne in 1461, his younger brother Richard was made Duke of Gloucester. In 1472 he married Anne Neville, the widow of Henry VI's son Edward of Westminster (and the daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, who had died in the 1471 Battle of Barnet, fighting on the Lancastrian side). Their marriage might have been seen as uniting the claims of the two factions, but Warwick's vacillation between them meant that succession was still in dispute. Nevertheless, Yorkists were on the throne.

Richard was made Lord Protector during the brief reign of Edward V, who he arranged to have declared illegitimate before his convenient disappearance while in custody. Shakespeare, clearly hoping to gain the approval of Elizabeth I, whose grandfather had deposed Richard, portrayed him as both physically and morally defective. He was almost certainly nowhere near as depraved as the portrayal, and probably no worse than those around him - it was not a time of political nicety.

Richard III reigned from 26 June 1483 until 22 August 1485, during which time there were tow major rebellions against him. The first, in 1483, was led by supporters of Edward IV (former allies), and successfully put down. The second was led by Henry Tudor, supported by French forces and a number of the Yorkists who had been involved in the earlier uprising, who invaded in 1485. Richard was defeated, and slain, in the encounter commonly called the Battle of Bosworth Field. This effectively ended the War of the Roses.

Answer: Both/Neither

Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, 6th Earl of Salisbury KG, has been nicknamed Warwick the Kingmaker, because of his role in getting first Edward IV (House of York) then Henry VI (House of Lancaster) in place as king. His loyalties appear to have been with the best source of personal power and wealth, rather than to a specific cause! Historical records show him to have been popular, despite the vagaries of his behaviour; it was this popularity with the common people that helped make his voice powerful in political disputes.

He inherited the title of Earl of Salisbury from his father, and gained the title of Earl of Warwick through his marriage to Lady Anne Beauchamp, claiming the title as his by marriage when she inherited it. (His sister Cecily married Anne's brother Henry; you cannot wonder that disputes over inheritance seemed to be so common.) By the 1450s, Neville was a powerful figure in English politics, and a supporter of Henry VI. A property (read money and power) dispute with Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, caused him to change to being a supporter of Richard of York. He and his men fought with Richard of York at the Battle of St Albans, usually recognised as the first battle of the War of the Roses. Move #1, from Lancaster to York.

When Richard of York and Neville's father both died while rebelling against Henry VI, Neville lent his support to the cause of Richard's son, who was to become Edward IV. This was to lead to the period of his most influence. However, he fell out with Edward over foreign policy and Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, and (after several years of rumoured alliance with Lancastrians) attempted to get George, Duke of Clarence, placed on the throne in his brother's place in 1469. So far, still with York.

Determined to displace Edward IV, Neville reconciled with Margaret of Anjou, and together they orchestrated the restoration of Henry VI to the throne in October of 1470. Move #2, from York back to
Lancaster.

Neville was not to enjoy the successful restoration for long, as Edward had no intention of going away. In April of 1471 Neville died at the Battle of Barnet, fighting for Lancastrian forces against Edward. So he started and finished in the Lancastrian camp, but spent s significant part of his time working for and with the Yorkists.

Answer: Both/Neither

While Henry Tudor could claim Lancastrian ancestry, he did not claim the English throne on that basis, but as the victor in battle against the reigning king, Richard III. He thus became the last king (to the present) to gain the throne in battle, a claim he was forced to defend two years later at the Battle of Stoke Field, putting a definitive stop to the internecine struggles known as the War of the Roses.

Henry's father, Edmund Tudor, died (fighting for Henry VI) three months before his birth, so he was raised by relatives - all part of the Plantagenet network, some Lancastrians and some Yorkists. When Edward IV took the throne in 1471, Henry and his supporters went into exile in Brittany, gathering support from Scottish and French supporters, as well as English who opposed Edward for any of various reasons. In 1483 he pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter and heir presumptive following the presumed death of her brothers. This helped gain the support of disaffected Yorkists, and his mother (a second cousin of Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III) was actively pushing for him to claim the throne.

In 1485 Henry's forces landed in Wales, whence he crossed England gathering troops as he went. His men were still definitely outnumbered when they met Richard's near the Leicestershire town of Market Bosworth, but he won the battle and declared himself King of England (effective as from the day before the battle, making those who fought for Richard technically guilty of treason, a neat move). His 1486 marriage to Elizabeth of York definitively brought the two Plantagenet lines together in their children, and he became known as the first Tudor monarch.

The York insignia of a white rose and the Lancaster insignia of a red rose were combined to form the Tudor rose, which had a white centre and a red surround.