The Norman and Plantagenet Kings

The Hundred Years War

Same People…Different Topic

Because William the Conqueror had been a powerful leader in French Normandy, he claimed both England, as well as much of France as his kingdom. Later English kings maintained their right to rule parts of France.

This created a great deal of resentment for both the French people, as well as their kings, who wanted control of their lands back.

In A.D. 1152 King Henry II of England married Eleanor of

Aquitaine. Eleanor was the heiress to much of the lands in the southwest of France.

This gave King Henry II control over more of France than the French king had.

In A.D. 1328 when the king of France died without leaving a direct heir the situation became dangerous.

King Edward III of England was the grandson of the former French King.

As such, he was the rightful successor to the French throne.

This gave the King Edward III the right to rule both England and France from a single throne.

Edward III Plantagenet

The Hundred Years War

The French were not ready to be ruled by an English King.

Feelings between the English and French were too bitter.

A Frenchman by the name of Philip of Valois who was the nephew of the former king of France began preparations for war with England.

A war that would last from A.D. 1337 until A.D. 1453.

The Hundred Years War

After more than one hundred years of fighting, the French were eventually able to declare victory over the English.

The One Hundred Years War greatly strengthened France, while weakening England.

Following the war, England would enter a period of turmoil and civil war

The War of the Roses

that would last for another 30 years.

The War of the Roses

Following the Hundred Years War, England found itself in turmoil.

The war had seriously weakened the monarchy, and drained much of the nation’s treasury. The nation was ruled by the house of Lancaster,

which bore the emblem of a red rose.

The Duke of York, whose family bore the emblem of a white rose saw the kings weakened state as an opportunity to seize power, and establish himself as king.

The War of the Roses

By the reign of the

relatively weak Henry VI ,

civil war broke out between

rival claimants to the throne, dating back to the sons of Edward III.

The Lancastrian dynasty descended from John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III, whose son Henry

deposed the unpopular Richard II.  Yorkist claimants such as the Duke of York

asserted their legitimate claim to the throne through Edward III's second surviving son,Edmund of

Langley, but through a female line.

Causes

The Wars of the Roses therefore tested whether the succession should keep to the male line or could pass through females.

Captured and briefly restored, Henry VI

was recaptured and put to death in 1461, and the Yorkist faction led by Edward IV gained the throne

Princes in the Tower

The Yorkist conquest of the Lancastrians in 1461 did not put an end to the Wars of the Roses, which rumbled on until the start of the sixteenth century. Family disloyalty in the form of Richard III's betrayal of his nephews, the young King Edward V and his brother, was part of his downfall.

2 of Edward IV sons – Edward (Would be Edward V) and Richard were locked up in the Tower of London since the end of May 1483 by their Uncle Richard. 

–In mid-July, Richard had his nephews declared illegitimate,

–which meant that neither boy would be able to become king,

–and arranged to have himself crowned Richard III

House of Tudor

Henry Tudor, a claimant to the throne of Lancastrian descent, defeated Richard III in battle and Richard was killed.

Henry was crowned Henry VII

With the marriage of Henry to Elizabeth the sister of the young Princes in the Tower,

reconciliation was finally achieved between the warring houses of Lancaster and York in the form of the new Tudor dynasty,

which combined their respective red and white emblems to produce the Tudor rose.