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Tolkien vs. Disney and Other Major Historic Feuds

Khalid Elhassan August 20, 2021 37 min

Wars of the Roses family tree. The History of England

12. The Kingmaker Who Supercharged the Plantagenet Family Feud

The exiled Henry Bolingbroke did not stay in exile for long. He returned a few months after his banishment, raised a rebellion, and proceeded to defeat and depose his cousin. King Richard II was captured and quietly murdered. Bolingbroke had himself crowned as King Henry IV and founded the Lancastrian branch of the House of Plantagenet. The Lancastrians ruled England until the crown was disputed by the Yorkists – a Plantagenet branch descended from John of Gaunt’s younger brother Edmund, Duke of York – in the Wars of the Roses.

The deposed Richard II in prison, after he came out on the losing end of a feud with his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. Wikimedia

A key figure in the Wars of the Roses was Richard Neville, the 16^th Earl of Warwick (1428 – 1471). Neville, the son of the powerful 5^th Earl of Salisbury, also named Richard Neville, was a powerful nobleman in his own right. He demonstrated that he was a capable military commander during the intra-familial feud that erupted between the Yorkist and Lancastrian branches of the House of Plantagenet. He began the conflict on the Yorkist side, but then switched his support to the Lancastrians, and his role in the dethronement and enthronement of two kings got him nicknamed “The Kingmaker“.

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.