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The Sibling Rivalry That Wrecked an Empire, and Other Self-Destructive Royal Family Episodes

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2020 33 min

Wars of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field — The Wars of the Roses, during which the Plantagenet Dynasty destroyed itself. Encyclopedia Britannica

The Battle of Barnet, in which Warwick the Kingamer was killed. Imgur

24. Edward IV Had the Worst Kid Brother

Warwick the Kingmaker was instrumental in securing victory for the Yorkists, who crushed the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton in 1461. Henry VI was deposed and imprisoned, and his place was taken by the slain Duke of York’s son, crowned as Edward IV. The new king was a great warrior, but was uninterested in government, so Warwick governed the realm on his behalf.

The relationship soured because of Edward’s impulsive marriage to a commoner. That ruined years of painstaking negotiations by Warwick for a treaty between England and France, which was to have been sealed by Edward’s marriage to a French princess. Things came to a head in 1470 when Warwick, aided by King Edward’s younger brother, George, First Duke of Clarence – who had married Warwick’s daughter and thus became his son-in-law – deposed Edward. The Yorkist king fled England, while the deposed Lancastrian Henry VI was released from imprisonment, dusted off, and restored to the English throne.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.