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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

23. Henry VI’s Relatives Get Rid of Him

Warwick the Kingmaker’s triumph was short-lived: Edward IV returned to England in 1471, and raised a counter-rebellion. At a critical moment, Warwick was betrayed by his son-in-law, George, Duke of Clarence, who had a change of heart and defected back to his brother, Edward. The two sides met in the Battle of Barnet in April of 1471, a Lancastrian defeat in which the Kingmaker was killed.

Another and final Yorkist victory at the Battle of Tewkesbury the following month confirmed Edward IV’s restoration to the throne. The unfortunate Henry VI was quietly murdered to eliminate the possibility of further trouble from Lancastrian loyalists. And to be thorough, Henry VI’s only son, the teenaged Henry of Lancaster, was also killed.

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.