They did, however, have to wrestle with the Vikings to retain control of their lands during that period, and were sometimes forced to concede power to Danish kings – including Canute (aka Cnut), who ruled an empire in England, Denmark and Norway.

The Anglo-Saxon era ended with William of Normandy’s triumph at the battle of Hastings in 1066, which ushered in a new era of Norman rule.

Here are 20 facts about this fascinating historical period:

1. The Anglo-Saxons were immigrants 

Around 410, Roman rule in Britain faltered, leaving a power vacuum that was filled by incomers arriving from northern Germany and southern Scandinavia.

As soon as Roman power began to wane, the Roman defences to the north (such as Hadrian’s wall) started to degrade, and in AD 367 the Picts smashed through them.

Hoard of Anglo-Saxon rings found in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Credit: portableantiquities / Commons.

Gildas, a 6th century monk, says that Saxon war tribes were hired to defend Britain when the Roman army left. So the Anglo-Saxons were originally invited immigrants.

Bede, a monk from Northumbria writing some centuries later, says that they were from some of the most powerful and warlike tribes in Germany.

2. But some of them took control by murdering their hosts

A man called Vortigern was appointed to lead the British, and he was probably the person who recruited the Saxons.

But at a conference between the nobles of the Britons and Anglo-Saxons [likely in AD 472, although some sources say AD 463] the Anglo-Saxons produced concealed knives and murdered the British.

Vortigern was left alive, but he had to cede large parts of the southeast. He essentially became ruler in name alone.

3. The Anglo-Saxons were made up of different tribes

Bede names 3 of these tribes: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. But there were probably many other peoples who set out for Britain in the early 5th century.

Batavians, Franks and Frisians are known to have made the sea crossing to the stricken province of ‘Britannia’.

4. They didn’t just stick to the southeast of England

The Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other incomers burst out of the southeast in the mid-5th century and set southern Britain ablaze.

Gildas, our closest witness, says that a new British leader emerged from the onslaught, called Ambrosius Aurelianus.

Anglo-Saxons were often buried with everything they would need after death. In this case the dead woman’s family thought she would need her cow on the other side.

5. There was a mighty battle between the Saxons and the Britons

A great battle took place, supposedly sometime around AD 500, at a place called Mons Badonicus or Mount Badon, probably somewhere in the southwest of today’s England.

The Saxons were resoundingly defeated by the Britons. A later Welsh source says that the victor was ‘Arthur’ but it was written down hundreds of years after the event, when it may have become influenced by folklore.

6.  But Gildas might have spoken of Arthur in code…

Gildas does not mention Arthur, but there are theories as to the reason why.

One is that Gildas did refer to him in a sort of acrostic code, which reveals him to be a chieftain from Gwent called Cuneglas.

Gildas called Cuneglas ‘the bear’, and Arthur means ‘bear’. Nevertheless, for the time being the Anglo-Saxon advance had been checked by someone, possibly Arthur.

7. England wasn’t one country at this point

‘England’ as a country did not come into existence for hundreds of years after the Anglo-Saxons arrived.

Instead, seven major kingdoms were carved out of conquered areas: Northumbria, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Kent, Wessex and Mercia.

All these nations were fiercely independent, and – although they shared similar languages, pagan religions, and socioeconomic and cultural ties – they were absolutely loyal to their own kings and deeply distrusting of each other.

8. They didn’t call themselves the Anglo-Saxons

The term seems to have been first used in the 8th century to distinguish Germanic-speaking peoples who lived in Britain from those on the continent.

In 786, George, bishop of Ostia, travelled to England to attend a church meeting, and he reported to the Pope that he had been to ‘Angul Saxnia’.

9. One of the most fearsome warrior-kings was Penda

Penda, who was from Mercia and ruled from AD 626 until 655, killed many of his rivals with his own hands.

As one of the last pagan Anglo-Saxon kings, he offered up the body of one of them, King Oswald of Northumbria, to Woden.

Penda ransacked many of the other Anglo-Saxon realms, amassing exquisite treasures as tribute and the discarded war-gear of fallen warriors on the battlefields.

10. The Anglo-Saxon period witnessed the growth of Christianity in England

Religion changed a lot throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Many people were initially pagans and worshipped different gods who oversaw different things people did – for instance, Wade was the god of the sea, and Tiw was the god of war.

This cross found in a Anglo-Saxon grave shows how important Christianity had become to the Saxons by Alfred’s time.

In c.596, a monk named Augustine arrived on England’s shores; Pope Gregory the Great had sent him on a Christian mission to convert Britain’s Anglo-Saxons.

Upon his arrival Augustine founded a church in Canterbury, becoming the settlement’s first Archbishop in 597. Gradually, Augustine helped Christianity gained a foothold in the southeast, baptising the local monarch in 601. It marked only the beginning.

Today we consider Saint Augustine the founder of the English Church: ‘the Apostle to the English.’

11. An African refugee helped reform the English church

Some Anglo-Saxon monarchs converted to Christianity because the church had proclaimed the Christian God would deliver them victory in battles. When this failed to happen, however, some Anglo-Saxon kings turned their back on the religion.

The two men chosen to keep them wedded to Christianity were an elderly Greek named Theodore of Tarsus and a younger man, Hadrian ‘the African’, a Berber refugee from north Africa.

After more than a year (and many adventures) they arrived, and set to work to reform the English church. They would stay for the rest of their lives.

12. One of the most well-known kings from Mercia was Offa, and remnants of his reign exist today

He declared himself the first ‘king of the English’ because he won battles involving kings in the surrounding kingdoms, but their dominance didn’t really last after Offa died.

Offa is most remembered for Offa’s Dyke along the border between England and Wales – it was a 150-mile barrier that gave the Mercians protection if they were about to be invaded.

A reconstruction of a typical Anglo-Saxon structure.

13. Alfred the Great is one of England’s most important kings

Alfred, king of Wessex, stood strong against Viking threat and thereby paved the way for the future unity of England, which was brought to fruition under his son and grandsons.

By the mid-10th century, the England we are familiar with was ruled as one country for the first time.

14. But he had a crippling disability

As he grew up, Alfred was constantly troubled by illness, including irritating and painful piles – a real problem in an age where a prince was constantly in the saddle.

Asser, the Welshman who became his biographer, relates that Alfred suffered from another painful illness that is not specified.

Some people believe it was Crohn’s Disease, others that it may have been a sexually transmitted disease, or even severe depression.

18th century portrait of Alfred by Samuel Woodforde.

15. Corfe witnessed a horrible Anglo-Saxon regicide…

In July 975 the eldest son of King Edgar, Edward, was crowned king. But Edward’s step-mother, Elfrida (or ‘Aelfthryth’), wanted Aethelred, her own son, to be king – at any cost.

One day in 978, Edward decided to pay Elfrida and Aethelred a visit in their residence at Corfe in Dorset.

But as Edward stooped to accept a drink upon arrival, the grooms grabbed his bridle and stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach.

There are several theories to who was behind the murder: Edward’s step-mother, Edward’s step-brother or Aelfhere, a leading Ealdorman

16. …and his body was only buried properly in 1984

Edward managed to ride away but bled to death, and was hastily buried by the conspirators.

Edward’s body was exhumed and reburied at Shaftesbury Abbey in AD 979. During the dissolution of the monasteries the grave was lost, but in 1931 it was rediscovered.

Edward’s bones were kept in a bank vault until 1984, when at last he was laid to rest.

Normans burn Anglo-Saxon buildings in the Bayeux Tapestry

17. England was ‘ethnically cleansed’

During Aethelred’s disastrous reign, he looked to make the Danes – who were by now respectable Christian citizens, who had been settled in the country for generations – into scapegoats.

On 13 November 1002, secret orders were sent out to slaughter all the Danes, and massacres occurred all over southern England.

18. And it partially led to the Anglo-Saxon’s downfall

One of the Danes killed in this wicked pogrom was the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, the mighty king of Denmark.

From that time on the Danish armies were resolved to conquer England and eliminate Ethelred. This was the beginning of the end for Anglo-Saxon England.

19. Much of what we know about the Anglo-Saxons comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great (r. 871–899).

Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were independently updated.

The Chronicle is the single most important historical source for the period. Much of the information given in the Chronicle is not recorded elsewhere. The manuscripts are also vital for our understanding of the history of the English language.

20. There are lots of archaeological sites of interest related to the Anglo-Saxons that have also helped us to learn about them

One famous example is Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, which is the site of two 6th and early 7th-century cemeteries.

The various financial agreements could be paid in coins, a certain amount of raw precious metal, or even in land and livestock.

One cemetery contained an undisturbed ship-burial, including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance.

Anglo-Saxons also minted their own coins, which helps archaeologists know when they were used. The coins changed depending on the region where they were made, who was king, or even what important event had just happened.

The wars ended when Richard III, the last Yorkist king, was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 by Henry Tudor – founder of the house of Tudor.

Here are 30 facts about the Wars:

1. The seeds of war were sown as far back as 1399

That year Richard II was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke who would go on to be the Henry IV. This created two competing lines of the Plantagenet family, both of which thought they had the rightful claim.

On the one side there were the descendants of Henry IV – known as the Lancastrians – and on the other the heirs of Richard II. In the 1450s, the leader of this family was Richard of York; his followers would come to be known as the Yorkists.

2. When Henry VI came to power he was in an incredible position…

Thanks to the military successes of his father, Henry V, Henry VI held vast swathes of France and was the only King of England to be crowned King of France and England.

3. …but his foreign policy soon proved disastrous

Over the course of his reign Henry gradually lost almost all England’s possessions in France.

It culminated in the disastrous defeat at Castillon in 1453 – the battle signalled the end of the Hundred Years War and left England with only Calais from all their French possessions.

The Battle of Castillon: 17 July 1543

4. King Henry VI had favourites who manipulated him and made him unpopular with others

The King’s simple mind and trusting nature left him fatally vulnerable to grasping favourites and unscrupulous ministers.

5. His mental health also affected his ability to rule

Henry VI was prone to bouts of insanity. Once he had suffered from a complete mental breakdown in 1453, from which he never fully recovered, his reign morphed from concerning to catastrophic.

He was certainly incapable of containing the mounting baronial rivalries that eventually culminated in out-and-out civil war.

6. One baronial rivalry outshone all others

This was the rivalry between Richard, 3rd Duke of York and Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset. York deemed Somerset responsible for the recent military failures in France.

Both nobles made several attempts to destroy each other as they vied for supremacy. In the end their rivalry was only settled through blood and battle.

7. The first battle of the civil war occurred on 22 May 1455 at St Albans

Troops commanded by Richard, Duke of York, resoundingly defeated a Lancastrian royal army commanded by the Duke of Somerset, who was killed in the fighting. King Henry VI was captured, leading to a subsequent parliament appointing Richard of York Lord Protector.

It was the day that launched the bloody, three decades long, Wars of the Roses.

8. A surprise attack paved the way for a Yorkist victory

It was a small force led by the Earl of Warwick that marked the turning point in the battle. They picked their way through small back lanes and rear gardens, then burst into the town’s market square where the Lancastrian forces were relaxing and chatting.

The Lancastrian defenders, realising they were outflanked, abandoned their barricades and fled the town.

A modern day procession as people celebrate the Battle of St Albans. Credit: Jason Rogers / Commons.

9. Henry VI was captured by Richard’s army at the Battle of St Albans

During the battle, Yorkist longbowmen rained arrows onto Henry’s bodyguard, killing Buckingham and several other influential Lancastrian nobles and wounding the king. Henry was later escorted back to London by York and Warwick.

10. An Act of Settlement in 1460 handed the line of succession to Henry VI’s cousin, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York

It recognised York’s strong hereditary claim to the throne and agreed that the crown would pass to him and his heirs after Henry’s death, thereby disinheriting Henry’s young son, Edward, Prince of Wales.

11. But Henry VI’s wife had something to say about it

Henry’s strong willed wife, Margaret of Anjou, refused to accept the act and continued fighting for the rights of her son.

12. Margaret of Anjou was famously bloodthirsty

After the Battle of Wakefield, she had the heads of York, Rutland and Salisbury impaled on spikes and displayed over Micklegate Bar, the western gate through the York city walls. York’s head had a paper crown as a mark of derision.

On another occasion, she allegedly asked her 7-year-old son Edward how their Yorkist prisoners should be put to death – he replied they should be beheaded.

Margaret of Anjou

13. Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460

The Battle of Wakefield (1460) was a calculated attempt  by the Lancastrians to eliminate Richard, Duke of York, who was a rival of Henry VI’s for the throne. 

Little is known about the action, but the Duke was successfully enticed out from the safety of Sandal Castle and ambushed. In the subsequent skirmish his forces were massacred, and both the Duke and his second eldest son were killed.

14. No one is sure why York sortied from Sandal Castle on 30 December

This inexplicable move resulted in his death. One theory says that some of the Lancastrian troops advanced openly towards Sandal Castle, while others hid in the surrounding woods. York may have been low on provisions and, believing that the Lancastrian force was no larger than his own, decided to go out and fight rather than withstand a siege.

Other accounts suggest that York was deceived by John Neville of Raby’s forces displaying false colours, which tricked him into thinking that the Earl of Warwick had arrived with aid.

Earl of Warwick submits to Margaret of Anjou

15. And there are a lot of rumours about how he was killed

He was either killed in battle or captured and immediately executed.

Some works support the folklore that he suffered a crippling wound to the knee and was unhorsed, and that he and his closest followers then fought to the death at the spot; others relate that he was taken prisoner, mocked by his captors and beheaded.

16. Richard Neville became known as the Kingmaker

Richard Neville, better known as the Earl of Warwick, was famously known as the Kingmaker for his actions in deposing two kings. He was the wealthiest and most powerful man in England, with his fingers in every pie. He would end up fighting on all sides before his death in battle, supporting whoever could further his own career.

Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (Variant). The inescutcheon of pretence showing the arms of the House of Holland, Earls of Kent, represents his claim to represent that family, derived from his maternal grandmother Eleanor Holland (1373-1405), one of the six daughters and eventual co-heiresses to their father Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent (1350/4-1397). Credit: Sodacan / Commons.

17. Yorkshire Yorkists?

The people in the county of Yorkshire were actually mostly on the Lancastrian side.

18. The biggest battle was…

The Battle of Towton, where 50,000-80,000 soldiers fought and an estimated 28,000 were killed. It was also the biggest battle ever fought on English soil. Allegedly, the number of casualties caused a nearby river to run with blood.

19. The Battle of Tewkesbury resulted in the violent death of Henry VI

After the decisive Yorkist victory against Queen Margaret’s Lancastrian force on 4 May 1471 at Tewkesbury, within three weeks the imprisoned Henry was killed in the Tower of London.

The execution was likely ordered by King Edward IV, son of Richard Duke of York.

20. A field on which part of the Battle of Tewkesbury was fought is to this day known as the “Bloody Meadow”

Fleeing members of the Lancastrian army attempted to cross the River Severn but most were cut down by the Yorkists before they could get there. The meadow in question – which leads down to the river – was the location of the slaughter.

21. The War of the Roses inspired Game of Thrones 

George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones’s author, was heavily inspired by the War of the Roses, with the noble north pitted against the cunning south. King Joffrey is Edward of Lancaster.

22. The rose was not the primary symbol for either house

In fact, both Lancasters and Yorks had their own coat of arms, which they displayed much more often than the alleged rose symbol. It was simply one of the many badges used for identification.

The white rose was an earlier symbol as well, because the red rose of Lancaster was apparently not in use until the late 1480s, that is not until the last years of the Wars.

Credit: Sodacan / Commons.

23. In fact, the symbol is taken directly from literature…

The term The Wars of the Roses only came into common use in the 19th century after the publication in 1829 of Anne of Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott.

Scott based the name on a scene in Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4), set in the gardens of the Temple Church, where a number of noblemen and a lawyer pick red or white roses to show their loyalty to the Lancastrian or Yorkist house.

24. Treachery happened all the time…

Some of the nobles treated the War of the Roses a bit like a game of musical chairs, and simply became friends with whoever was most likely to be in power in a given moment. The Earl of Warwick, for example, suddenly dropped his allegiance to York in 1470.

25. …but Edward IV had a relatively secure rule

Aside from his treacherous brother George, who was executed in 1478 for stirring up trouble again, Edward IV’s family and friends were loyal to him. Upon his death, in 1483, he named his brother, Richard, as Protector of England until his own sons came of age.

26. Though he did cause quite a stir when he got married

Despite the fact that Warwick was organising a match with the French, Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville – a woman whose family were gentry not noble, and who was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in England.

Edward IV and Elizabeth Grey

Image Credit: Landscape

27. It resulted in the famous case of the Princes in the Tower

Edward V, King of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York were the two sons of Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville surviving at the time of their father’s death in 1483.

When they were 12 and 9 years old they were taken to the Tower of London to be looked after by their uncle, the Lord Protector: Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

This was supposedly in preparation for Edward’s upcoming coronation. However, Richard took the throne for himself and the boys disappeared – the bones of two skeletons were found under a staircase in the tower in 1674, which many assume were the skeletons of the princes.

28. The last battle in the War of the Roses was the Battle of Bosworth Field

After the boys disappeared, many nobles turned on Richard. Some even decided to swear allegiance to Henry Tudor. He faced Richard on 22 August 1485 in the epic and decisive Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard III suffered a deathly blow to the head, and Henry Tudor was the undisputed winner.

The Battle of Bosworth Field.

29. The Tudor rose comes from the symbols of the war

The symbolic end to the Wars of the Roses was the adoption of a new emblem, the Tudor rose, white in the middle and red on the outside.

30. Two more smaller clashes occurred after Bosworth

During Henry VII’s reign, two pretenders to the English crown emerged to threaten his rule: Lambert Simnel in 1487 and Perkin Warbeck in the 1490s.

Simnel claimed to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick; meanwhile Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York – one of the two ‘Princes in the Tower’.

Simnel’s rebellion was quashed after Henry defeated the pretender’s forces at the Battle of Stoke Field on 16 June 1487. Some consider this battle, and not Bosworth, to be the final battle of the Wars of the Roses.

Eight years later, Warbeck’s supporters were similarly defeated in a small clash in the port town of Deal in Kent. The fighting took place on the steeply sloping beach and is the only time in history – apart from Julius Caesar’s first landing on the island in 55 BC – that English forces resisted an invader on Britain’s coastline.

He was the last king of England to win his throne on the field of battle.

Henry VII’s reign was characterised by his success at restoring the power and stability of the English monarchy after the civil war, as well as his talent for replenishing the fortunes of an effectively bankrupt exchequer.

Here are 10 facts about this fascinating king:

1. His claim to the throne came through his mother

Henry’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was an intelligent and learned woman, said to be the heir of John of Gaunt after the extinction of Henry V’s line.

But this was debatable, as her descent was through Gaunt and his third wife, Katherine Swynford, who had been Gaunt’s mistress for around 25 years; when they married in 1396, they already had 4 children, including Henry’s great-grandfather John Beaufort. Henry’s claim was therefore quite tenuous: it was through a woman, and by illegitimate descent.

John of Gaunt

2. He spent much of his early life under protection or in exile

His father, Edmund Tudor, was captured by the Yorkists and died in prison 3 months before Henry’s birth, and his mother was only 13 when he was born. She fled to Wales, and found the protection of Henry’s uncle Jasper Tudor.

When Edward IV became king and Jasper Tudor went into exile, the Yorkist William Herbert assumed their guardianship. Then Herbert was executed by Warwick when he restored Henry VI in 1470, and Jasper Tudor brought Henry to court.

But when the Yorkist Edward IV regained the throne, Henry fled with other Lancastrians to Brittany. He was nearly captured and handed over to the Edward IV on one occasion, but managed to escape to the court of France – who backed his expedition to England and his bid for the throne.

3. He secured his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and niece of Richard III

He did not marry Elizabeth until after his coronation, which underlined that he ruled in his own right. However he hoped the marriage would satisfy some of the less extreme Yorkists and lead to their acceptance of a Tudor king.

The marriage took place on 18th January 1486 at Westminster Abbey. They would go on to have a large family, with 4 children – including the future Henry VIII – surviving to adulthood.

Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII and daughter of Edward IV.

4. The Tudor rose was born

The emblem of a white and red rose was adopted as one of the king’s badges, meant to symbolise the union of the Houses of Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose).

5. But there were numerous rivals to the throne

Henry secured the chief male surviving Yorkist claimant to the throne, the young Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, whom he imprisoned in the Tower.

But he was also threatened by pretenders: Lambert Simnel, who posed as the young Earl of Warwick, and Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower.

Eventually Warbeck was hanged and Warwick was beheaded. Simnel was kept as a servant in the kitchens at court.

6. He was a big fan of taxes

Henry VII improved tax collection by introducing ruthlessly efficient systems, such as a catch-22 method for nobles: those nobles who spent little must have saved much and so presumably could afford the increased taxes; on the other hand, the nobles who spent a lot obviously had the means to pay increased taxes.

Two of his most hated tax collectors, Sir Richard Empson and Sir Edmund Dudley, would be charged with treason and executed by King Henry VIII in 1510.

Henry VII (centre) with his advisors Sir Richard Empson and Sir Edmund Dudley

7. Sometimes wasn’t quite truthful about where the money went

Henry VII was notoriously parsimonious and skilled at extracting money from his subjects for a variety of pretexts, such as war with France or war with Scotland. But the money often ended up in the king’s personal coffers, rather than finding its way to its stated purpose.

8. He married his first son, Arthur, to Catherine of Aragon

And thereby ensured a good relationship with Ferdinand and Isabella of the powerful House of Trastamara. But when Arthur died, a mere 6 months after he married Catherine, Ferdinand – who had never gotten on well with Henry VII – asked for Catherine’s dowry back.

Portrait of Catherine of Aragon

9. Arthur’s death partially led to his mother’s demise

Henry and Elizabeth were prostrate with grief at the loss of their eldest son, and aware that the survival of their dynasty rested on their one surviving boy, Henry. They decided to try for another son to secure the succession.

Elizabeth quickly became pregnant, but she was unwell throughout the pregnancy and – a mere 9 days after giving birth to a daughter, Catherine – died of an infection on her 37th birthday. Their daughter lived for only 1 day.

10. Then Henry tried to marry Catherine of Aragon himself

After Arthur and Elizabeth died, Henry suggested he should marry the pretty, redheaded Catherine himself in order to keep hold of her substantial dowry. The proposal was met with an icy response from Catherine’s mother, Isabella. Finally an agreement was reached that Catherine should marry the young Henry, the heir to the throne – the future King Henry VIII.

Scene at deathbed of Henry VII at Richmond Palace (1509) drawn contemporaneously from witness accounts by the courtier Sir Thomas Wriothesley (d.1534) who wrote an account of the proceedings BL Add.MS 45131, f.54

After 30 years of political manipulation, horrific carnage and brief periods of peace, the wars ended and a new royal dynasty emerged: the Tudors.

Here are 16 key figures from the wars:

1. Henry VI

All was not well in King Henry’s court. He had little interest in politics and was a weak ruler, and also suffered from mental instability that plunged the kingship into turmoil.

This incited rampant lawlessness throughout his realm and opened the door for power-hungry nobles and kingmakers to plot behind his back.

King Henry VI

2. Margaret of Anjou

Henry VI’s wife Margaret was a noble and strong-willed Frenchwoman whose ambition and political savvy overshadowed her husband’s. She was determined to secure a Lancastrian throne for her son, Edward.

3. Richard, Duke of York

Richard of York—as great-grandson of King Edward III—had a strong competing claim on the English throne.

His conflicts with Margaret of Anjou and other members of Henry’s court, as well as his competing claim on the throne, were a leading factor in the political upheaval.

Richard eventually attempted to take the throne, but was dissuaded, although it was agreed that he would become king on Henry’s death. But within a few weeks of securing this agreement, he died in battle at Wakefield.

4. Edmund Beaufort

Edmund Beaufort was an English nobleman and Lancastrian leader whose quarrel with Richard, Duke of York was infamous. In the he 1430s obtained control—with William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk— of the government of the weak king Henry VI.

But he was later imprisoned when Richard, Duke of York became ‘Lord Protector’, before dying at the Battle of St Albans.

5. Edmund, Earl of Rutland

He was the fifth child and second surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville. #

By the laws of primogeniture, Edmund’s father, Richard of York had a good claim to the English throne, being descended from the second surviving son of Edward III, giving him a slightly better claim to the throne than the reigning king, Henry VI, who descended from Edward’s third son.

He was killed aged just 17 at the Battle of Wakefield, possibly murdered by the Lancastrian Lord Clifford who sought revenge for the death of his own father at St Albans five years earlier..

6. Edward IV

He was the first Yorkist King of England. The first half of his rule was marred by the violence associated with the Wars of the Roses, but he overcame the Lancastrian challenge to the throne at Tewkesbury in 1471 to reign in peace until his sudden death.

7. Richard III

The alleged remains of Richard III.

Richard III was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

He is the Machiavellian, hunchbacked protagonist of Richard III, one of William Shakespeare’s history plays – famous for supposedly murdering the two Princes in the Tower.

8. George, Duke of Clarence

He was the third surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the brother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III.

Though a member of the House of York, he switched sides to support the Lancastrians, before reverting to the Yorkists. He was later convicted of treason against his brother, Edward IV, and was executed (allegedly by being drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine).

9. Edward, Earl of Lancaster

Edward of Lancaster was the only son of King Henry VI of England and Margaret of Anjou. He was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury, making him the only heir apparent to the English throne to die in battle.

10. Richard Neville

Known as Warwick the Kingmaker, Neville was an English nobleman, administrator, and military commander. The eldest son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, Warwick was the wealthiest and most powerful English peer of his age, with political connections that went beyond the country’s borders.

Originally on the Yorkist side but later switching to the Lancastrian side, he was instrumental in the deposition of two kings, which led to his epithet of “Kingmaker”.

11. Elizabeth Woodville

Elizabeth was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483. Her second marriage, to Edward IV, was a cause célèbre of the day, thanks to Elizabeth’s great beauty and lack of great estates.

Edward was the first king of England since the Norman Conquest to marry one of his subjects, and Elizabeth was the first such consort to be crowned queen.

Her marriage greatly enriched her siblings and children, but their advancement incurred the hostility of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, ‘The Kingmaker’, and his various alliances with the most senior figures in the increasingly divided royal family.

Edward IV and Elizabeth Grey

Image Credit: Landscape

12. Isabel Neville

In 1469 Isabel’s power-hungry father, Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, defected from King Edward IV after his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. Instead of ruling England through Edward, he planned a marriage for Isabel to Edward’s brother George Duke of Clarence.

George also saw benefit in the union, as the Neville family was extremely wealthy. The marriage took place in secret in Calais, as part of the rebellion of George and Warwick against Edward IV.

13. Anne Neville

Anne Neville was an English queen, the daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. She became Princess of Wales as the wife of Edward of Westminster and then Queen of England as the wife of King Richard III.

A watercolour recreation of the Wars of the Roses.

14. Elizabeth of York

Elizabeth of York was the eldest daughter of the Yorkist king Edward IV, sister of the princes in the Tower, and niece of Richard III.

Her marriage to Henry VII was hugely popular – the union of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster was seen as bringing peace after years of dynastic war.

15. Margaret Beaufort

Margaret Beaufort was the mother of King Henry VII and paternal grandmother of King Henry VIII of England. She was the influential matriarch of the House of Tudor.

16. Henry VII

Henry VII was the King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 to his death on 21 April 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor.

17. Jasper Tudor

Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, Earl of Pembroke, was the uncle of King Henry VII of England and a leading architect of his nephew’s successful accession to the throne in 1485. He was from the noble Tudor family of Penmynydd in North Wales.

The English Civil War was also the time when a popular press emerged to record and report on the dramatic events to an increasingly literate public, one that was hungry for news.

1. The power of print

The proliferation of the printing press during the political crisis of the 1640’s combined to make the English Civil War one of the first propaganda wars in history.  Between 1640 and 1660 more than 30,000 publications were printed in London alone.

Many of these were written in plain English for the first time and were sold on the streets for as little as a penny making them available to the common people – it was political and religious propaganda on a grand scale.

The Parliamentarians had the immediate advantage in that they held London, the country’s major printing centre.

The Royalists were initially reluctant to appeal to the commons because they felt they would not gather much support that way. Eventually a Royalist satirical paper, Mercurius Aulicus, was established. It was published weekly in Oxford and enjoyed some success, though never on the scale of the London papers.

2. Attacks on religion

The first surge in propaganda were the multiple publications upon which the good people of England choked over their breakfast, as they reported in graphic detail the atrocities supposedly committed on Protestants by Irish Catholics during the rebellion of 1641.

The  image below of the ‘puritans’ nightmare’ is a typical example of how religion would come to dominate political propaganda. It depicts a 3-headed beast whose body is half-Royalist, half-armed papist. In the background the cities of the kingdom are burning.

‘The Puritan’s Nightmare’, a woodcut from a broadsheet (circa 1643).

3. Personal attacks

Often slander was more effective than general ideological attacks.

Marchamont Nedham would switch sides between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians multiple times, but he did pave the way for personal attacks being used as propaganda. Following King Charles I’s defeat at the Battle of Naseby in 1645, Nedham published letters that he had retrieved from a captured Royalist baggage train, which included the private correspondence between Charles and his wife, Henrietta Maria.

The letters appeared to show the King was a weak man bewitched by his Catholic queen, and were a powerful propaganda tool.

Charles I and Henrietta of France, his wife.

4. Satirical attacks

Popular histories of the English Civil War of 1642-46 make frequent reference to a dog named ‘Boy’, which belonged to King Charles’s nephew Prince Rupert. The authors of these histories confidently state that Boy was believed by the Parliamentarians to be a ‘dog-witch’ in league with the devil.

Frontispiece of the Parliamentarian pamphlet ‘A true relation of Prince Rupert’s barbarous cruelty against the towne of Burmingham’ (1643).

However, research by Professor Mark Stoyle has revealed that the idea the Parliamentarians were petrified of Boy was an invention of the Royalists: an early example of wartime propaganda.

‘Boy’ was originally a Parliamentarian attempt to hint that Rupert possessed occult powers, but the plan backfired when Royalists took up their enemies’ claims, exaggerated them and,

‘used them to their own advantage in order to portray the Parliamentarians as gullible fools’,

as Professor Stoyle says.

But from her very first breath to the day she breathed her last, Elizabeth was surrounded by enemies who threatened her crown and her life.

A Seymour plot

Throughout her childhood and teenage years, Elizabeth was accused of being involved with a series of dangerous allegations that could have resulted in her imprisonment, or even her execution.

The Princess Elizabeth as a young teenager. Image credit: RCT / CC.

Image Credit: Royal Collections Trust / CC

When her 9-year-old half-brother Edward ascended to the throne, Elizabeth joined the Chelsea household of her stepmother Katherine Parr and Katherine’s new husband, Thomas Seymour.

While she was there, Seymour – approaching 40 but good looking and charming – engaged in romps and horseplay with the 14-year-old Elizabeth. These included entering her bedroom in his nightgown and slapping her on the bottom. Rather than confronting her husband, Parr joined in.

But eventually Parr discovered Elizabeth and Thomas in an embrace. Elizabeth left the Seymour house the very next day.

The south front of Hatfield House in the early 20th century. Image credit: Public Domain.

In 1548 Katherine died in childbirth. Seymour was subsequently executed for plotting to marry Elizabeth without the council’s consent, kidnap Edward VI and become de facto king.

Elizabeth was questioned to find out whether she was involved in the treasonous plot, but denied all charges.  Her stubbornness exasperated her interrogator, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who reported, “I do see it in her face that she is guilty”.

The Wyatt plot

Elizabeth’s life during Mary’s reign began well, but there were irreconcilable differences between them, particularly their differing faiths.

Then in 1554, just 4 short years before she came to the throne, a terrified Elizabeth was being smuggled through Traitors’ Gate at the Tower of London, implicated in an unsuccessful rebellion against her newly crowned half-sister Mary I.

Mary’s plan to marry Prince Phillip of Spain had sparked the unsuccessful Wyatt rebellion and Elizabeth was once again interrogated about her desire for the crown. When the rebels were captured for questioning, it became known that one of their plans was to have Elizabeth marry Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, to ensure an English succession to the throne.

She fervently protested her innocence, and Wyatt himself maintained – even under torture – that Elizabeth was blameless. But Simon Renard, the Queen’s adviser, did not believe her, and counselled Mary to bring her to trial. Elizabeth was not put on trial, but on 18 March she was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Held in her mother’s former apartments, Elizabeth was comfortable but under severe psychological strain. Eventually lack of evidence meant she was released into house arrest in Woodstock, Oxfordshire on 19 May – the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution.

Mary’s final years

In September 1554 Mary stopped menstruating, gained weight and felt nauseous in the mornings. Almost the entirety of her court, including her doctors, believed her to be pregnant. Elizabeth was no longer seen as a significant threat when Mary had become pregnant.

In the last week of April 1555 Elizabeth was released from house arrest and called to court as a witness to the birth, which was expected imminently. Despite the pregnancy being revealed as false Elizabeth remained at court until October, apparently restored to favour.

But Mary’s rule disintegrated after another false pregnancy. Elizabeth refused to marry the Catholic Duke of Savoy, who would have secured a Catholic succession and preserved the Habsburg interest in England. As tensions over Mary’s succession arose once again, Elizabeth spent these years fearing for her safety while earnestly trying to preserve her independence.

By 1558 a weak and frail Mary knew that Elizabeth would soon succeed her to the throne. After Elizabeth, the most powerful claim to the throne resided in the name of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had not long before married Francois, the French heir to the throne and enemy of Spain. Thus, although Elizabeth was not Catholic, it was in Spain’s best interest to secure her accession to the throne, in order to prevent the French from obtaining it.

By October Elizabeth was already making plans for her government whilst at Hatfield and in November Mary recognised Elizabeth as her heir.

Portrait of Mary Tudor by Antonius Mor. Image credit: Museo del Prado / CC. 

Image Credit: Public domain

End of the rocky road

Mary I died on 17 November 1558 and the crown was finally Elizabeth’s. She had survived and was finally Queen of England, crowned on 14 Jan 1559.

Elizabeth I was crowned by Owen Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, because the more senior prelates did not recognise her as the Sovereign, and, apart from the archbishopric of Canterbury, no less than 8 sees were vacant.

Of the remainder, Bishop White of Winchester had been confined to his house by royal command for his sermon at Cardinal Pole’s funeral; and the Queen had an especial enmity toward Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London. With a touch of irony, she had ordered Bonner to lend his richest vestments to Oglethorpe for the coronation.

Here are ten facts about this significant battle:

1. No one is sure why York sortied from Sandal Castle on 30 December

One theory says that some of the Lancastrian troops advanced openly towards Sandal Castle, while others hid in the surrounding woods. York may have been low on provisions and, believing that the Lancastrian force was no larger than his own, decided to go out and fight rather than withstand a siege.

Other accounts suggest that York was deceived by John Neville of Raby’s forces displaying false colours, which tricked him into thinking that the Earl of Warwick had arrived with aid.

A view of the Motte and Barbican at Sandal Castle. Credit: Abcdef123456 / Commons.

2. There are a lot of rumours about how the Duke was killed

He was either killed in battle or captured and immediately executed.

Some works support the folklore that he suffered a crippling wound to the knee and was unhorsed, and that he and his closest followers then fought to the death at the spot; others relate that he was taken prisoner, mocked by his captors and beheaded.

3. His son also died in the fighting

York’s seventeen-year-old son Rutland, who had fought by his father’s side, fled to escape over Wakefield Bridge, but he was overtaken and killed – probably by Clifford in revenge for his father’s death at St Albans.

Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (Variant). The inescutcheon of pretence showing the arms of the House of Holland, Earls of Kent, represents his claim to represent that family, derived from his maternal grandmother Eleanor Holland (1373-1405), one of the six daughters and eventual co-heiresses to their father Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent (1350/4-1397). Credit: Sodacan / Commons.

4. The Earl of Salisbury was also killed at Wakefield

The Earl of Salisbury was a key supporter of the Yorkists, and was made Lord Chancellor by Richard, Duke of York in 1455. After the Yorkist defeat at Warwick, Salisbury escaped the battlefield but was captured during the night.

Upon discovery, the now traitor to the realm was taken to the Lancastrian camp. Although the Lancastrian nobles might have been prepared to allow Salisbury to ransom himself due to his large wealth, he was dragged out of Pontefract Castle and beheaded by local commoners, to whom he had been a harsh overlord.

5. There is no accurate record of the number of casualties

… but it is thought that the Lancastrians lost around 200 men, while the Yorkist dead numbered around 700 to 2,500.

6. Margaret of Anjou used the bodies of the dead to send a strong message

She had the heads of York, Rutland and Salisbury impaled on spikes and displayed over Micklegate Bar, the western gate through the York city walls. York’s head had a paper crown as a mark of derision, and a sign that said “Let York overlook the town of York”.

7. The victorious army was famous for plundering

The northern Lancastrian army which had been victorious at Wakefield was reinforced by Scots and borderers eager for plunder, and marched south.

They defeated Warwick’s army at the Second Battle of St Albans and recaptured the feeble-minded King Henry, who had been abandoned on the battlefield for the third time.

However, they were refused entry to London because of their reputation for plundering.

8. The battle didn’t bring about the end of the war

Despite York’s death, his eldest son, Edward, defeated the Welsh Lancastrians at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross and was proclaimed King Edward IV of England.

The Lancastrians withdrew to the north, but they were hotly pursued and subsequently defeated by Edward and Warwick at the bloody Battle of Towton in Warwickshire.

9. The battle is said to be the source of a popular mnemonic

‘Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain’ stands for the sequence of hues commonly described as making up a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Richard of York memorial inscription. Credit: Commons / SMJ.

10. There is a Victorian monument to the Duke of York’s death

A few hundred yards from the gatehouse to Sandal Castle, there stands a Victorian monument on the site where traditionally the Duke was said to have been killed.

It replaces an older monument set up by Edward IV to the memory of his father, which was destroyed by Parliamentary forces during the Civil War.

But by the time he died in 1547, the athletic boy whose cloth and hair was spun with gold had become an obese, temperamental monster. His reputation was that of a brute whose hands were soaked with the blood of the executions he ordered.

Below are some key moments in Henry’s reign that mark the king’s descent into a paranoid, megalomaniac.

The road to Rome

Henry will be forever remembered for his marriages. Six, by far the most of any English king. He sought glory and immortality. His awareness of his dynasty and legacy grew more and more pronounced as he grew older.

In 1509, Henry married his first wife Catherine of Aragon, who was the widow of his older brother Arthur. While they had a lengthy marriage by Henry’s later standards, Catherine had tremendous difficulty bearing children. She went through the trauma of having six pregnancies, but only one child – Mary – survived into adulthood.

Catherine had not borne the male heir that Henry believed would secure his dynasty. The Tudors had only won the crown in 1485 after 30 years of political instability during the Wars of the Roses. Henry became plagued with doubts that marrying his elder brother’s wife had damned him before God.

Convinced that his marriage was unlawful and driven by lust towards one of Catherine’s ladies in waiting, the stylish courtier Anne Boleyn – Henry sought an annulment. He asked Pope Clement VII for this in 1527, and he fully expected the Pope to agree. Henry’s sister, Margaret, had just had her marriage annulled by the Pope in March of that same year.

But, in May, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had captured Rome and held the Pope as a prisoner. Charles was Catherine’s nephew. At exactly the moment Henry asked for an annulment, Catherine’s relative held the Pope as a prisoner.

Henry came to realise that if the papacy wouldn’t bend to his wishes, he would have to break with Rome itself and establish his own church. What happened next would alter the course of British history forever.

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, possibly by Titian. Image credit: Royal Collection / CC.

The English Reformation

Beginning in 1529, Henry upended England’s religion through the English Reformation. No longer would he bow his head to the Pope in Rome. He embraced a faith in which there was no international church and the divinely appointed sovereign was a kingdom’s link between man and God.

Henry ordered the dissolution of the monasteries: religious establishments that were powerhouses of prayer for the dead, and controlled huge wealth and tracts of land. Between 1536 and 1540 over 800 abbeys, nunneries and monasteries were ruthlessly dissolved. Cromwell’s inspectors produced evidence of ‘manifest sin, vicious carnal and abominable sin’. Their riches and lands were seized, roofs stripped of lead, monks and nuns turned out and pensioned off.

It was around this time, in the late 1530s, that the handsome, musical, intelligent, man who succeeded the throne grew vicious, capricious, and unpredictable.

Some have blamed this on a serious jousting accident in January 1536. He was thrown from his horse and was crushed by it. Studies have also concluded that it caused a brain injury that may have led to his erratic behaviour. 

Henry’s blood-soaked hands

Henry wrought a revolution, but was vision for the future faced resistance. Rebellions, plots, foreign invasions came to dominate the king’s thinking. Ever more convinced that he was the sole true interpreter of divine will, Henry’s megalomania – and paranoia – grew. He became a tyrant.

While he had got his way and married Anne Boleyn in 1533, her failure to give birth to a male heir and increasing strife with the King led to her downfall. In 1536, with Henry seeking a way out of the unhappy marriage, she was tried for treason and adultery and beheaded.

By August 1540, Henry had married for the fifth time to Catherine Howard. His third wife, Jane Seymour, had died from complications in childbirth, while his marriage to Anne of Cleves was unconsummated and annulled after just six months. But Henry’s fifth marriage lasted just two years before Catherine Howard met the same fate as Anne Boleyn and was executed for treason.

Henry was just as unsparing with his enemies. Chancellors and Chief Minsters found themselves at the executioners’ block when they fell out of favour.

Thomas More, who had served as Lord High Chancellor, opposed the Reformation, and refused to acknowledge the annulment of Catherine’s of Aragon’s marriage. In July 1535 he was beheaded.

In 1537, Henry had mercilessly executed the leaders of the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, an uprising about the King’s religious reformation. The removal of the monasteries had suddenly altered the religious life of many communities and stripped them of a source of employment and welfare.

In 1539, the Act of Proclamations attempted to bolster his royal power. From now on he could rule by decree, his personal edicts having equal force to acts of Parliament.

Thomas Cromwell, one of More’s opponents and an architect of the Reformation also fell out of favour and was decapitated five years later. While Henry later regretted Cromwell’s execution, he still sanctioned it, without trial, on 28 July 1540 – the same day he married Catherine Howard.

Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein. Image credit: The Frick Collection / CC.

Terror and poverty

Treason had already been extended to punish those uttering disloyal words. Many would die horribly as a result. Laws were also passed against witchcraft and sodomy, which led to hundreds of innocent people being persecuted over the next two hundred years.

Late in his reign, his lavish lifestyle, the epic corruption of the selling off of church lands, and his aggressive foreign policy had brought his kingdom to the point of bankruptcy. He fraudulently replaced gold coins with copper ones in The Great Debasement in his final years.

By the day of Henry’s death in January 1547, some of those watching his mute, terrified grab at Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s hand must have been relieved their corpulent king was breathing his last.

But it’s Henry VIII’s challenging, dictatorial gaze that lingers longest in the mind. This, we believe, is Henry VIII. But history tells a different story.

In fact, Henry’s lavish artwork, architecture and festivities often belied a precarious reign.

Obsessed with how he would be viewed by posterity, Henry recognised the power of propaganda – and used it to full effect.

Coronation

Along with his queen, Catherine of Aragon, Henry was crowned on Midsummer’s Day – a day when the boundaries between natural and supernatural dissolved, and any beautiful thing was meant to be made possible.

The streets of London were decorated with tapestries and hung with cloth of gold, symbolising the majesty of the reign to follow.

The Field Of The Cloth Of Gold

In June 1520, Henry VIII and Francis I hosted a kind of medieval Olympics, the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in an attempt to strengthen the bond between the two countries.

The event got its unusual name from the luxurious materials used for the tents and pavilions, while a palace was specifically built for the occasion by 6000 men from England and Flanders. The framework was of timber specially imported from the Netherlands, two enormous fountains were filled with free flowing beer and wine, and the windows were made of real glass.

Even Henry’s armour made a powerful statement. The Tonley armour featured etched decorations including figures of St George, the Virgin and Child, and Tudor Roses – enshrining Henry in his own pantheon.

The reputation of the Field of the Cloth of Gold spread throughout Europe, not simply as a vastly expensive exercise in image building, but as regal glory in action.

Palaces

When Henry seized the wealth that had been amassed by the Catholic Church, he became possibly the richest monarch in English history. He decided to lavish some of this extraordinary wealth on palaces and treasures – the ultimate status symbols.

His most famous residence, Hampton Court Palace, was devoted to pleasure, celebration and ostentatious displays. When it was finished in 1540, it was the most magnificent and sophisticated palace in England. The King rebuilt his own rooms in the palace at least half a dozen times throughout his reign.

The 1537 Portrait

Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait was painted for one such palace: the Palace of Whitehall, a sprawling labyrinth of courtyards and offices stretching over 23 acres. It was the largest royal residence in Europe.

Holbein painted Henry, along with his current queen, Jane Seymour, and his parents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, for a mural that was to hang in the privy chamber, the very heart of Whitehall. Various copies were made at the king’s order or for sycophantic courtiers; some remain in important private houses to this day.

The portrait refuted every standard of decorum. The lavishness and boldness was considered vulgar by European aristocracy, where arbiters of Renaissance taste demanded that royals never be depicted full face. Research has shown that Holbein originally painted three-quarters of Henry’s face; the change must have been at Henry’s own request.

The portrait declares that Henry was a warrior king who had vanquished his combatants, a monarch who was more from the realm of legend than reality.

He stands front and centre of his dynastic heritage, proudly proclaiming both his virility and his legacy. But the Latin inscription in the middle of the picture describes the achievements of the first two Tudors and proclaims the son the better man.

In reality, the portrait was painted in the months following the most disastrous year of Henry’s reign. In the previous autumn, rebellion surged across the northern half of the kingdom. Heavy taxation and forced religious changes had led to dangerous and widespread revolt. Moreover, in 1536 he had been in a bad accident that many had feared would result in his death.

Had Henry died leaving no male heir, he would have plunged England back into the throes of contested leadership. After 27 years on the throne, he had undertaken little of note beyond failed military expeditions that had almost bankrupted the treasury.

But his masterful handling of propaganda ensures that the physical image of Henry that stays with us today is of his decadence – even if he is also rightly remembered for his bloodthirsty cruelty.

For the two middle decades of that century he was the arbiter of English politics, not hesitating to set up and put down kings – having seized the crown for the Yorkist king Edward IV in 1461, he later restored to power the deposed Lancastrian monarch Henry VI.

He was a skilled diplomat and adroit politician, unafraid to go to whatever lengths necessary to secure his power.

Here are ten facts about this fascinating man:

1. His marriage made him very powerful

Whilst still a boy, Richard Neville was betrothed to Anne, daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. When her brother’s daughter died in 1449, Anne – as the only sister – brought her husband the title and chief share of the Warwick estates. This made Richard Neville the most important earl, both in power and position.

A modern day procession as people celebrate the Battle of St Albans. Credit: Jason Rogers / Commons.

2. He was the star fighter in the Battle of St Albans

During the Battle of St Albans, it was Warwick who noticed that the royalist numbers were scanty enough to struggle to man the south-eastern front.

With his retainers, he charged through the houses on Holwell Street – bursting open several back doors – and ran into the main thoroughfare of the town shouting “A Warwick! A Warwick!”. The royalists were overcome and the battle was won.

3. He became Captain of Calais as a reward

In return for his valiant efforts at St Albans, Warwick was awarded the title Captain of Calais. This was an important office and it was due to his position there that he was able to consolidate his strength over the next 5 years.

4. In 1459 he tried to invade England

When a renewal of war was imminent, Warwick came over to England with trained soldiers under Sir Andrew Trollope. But Trollope deserted Warwick at Ludlow, and left the Yorkists helpless. Warwick, his father, the young Edward of York, and three followers fled from Barnstaple to Calais via a small fishing vessel.

5. He took the King prisoner

In 1460 Warwick, Salisbury and Edward of York crossed from Calais to Sandwich and entered London. Then Warwick marched north. He defeated the Lancastrians at Northampton on 10 July and took the King prisoner.

A watercolour recreation of the Wars of the Roses.

6. He made a key decision that resulted in Edward IV’s coronation

In the battles that followed between Lancastrian and Yorkist forces, it seemed the Lancastrians were gaining the upper hand.

But Warwick met Edward of York in Oxfordshire, brought him in triumph to London and had him proclaimed King Edward IV.

7. But then he fell out with Edward IV

After 4 years, rifts started to be exposed in Warwick’s relationship with the king, such as when he slighted Warwick’s marriage proposal and married Elizabeth Woodville in secret. In revenge, he went over to Calais, where his daughter Isabel and Edward’s brother Clarence were married in secret and against Edward’s wishes.

Painting of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville

8. He took hold of the throne and then lost it

When Edward went north to quash a rebellion, Warwick invaded. The king, outmarched and outnumbered, yielded himself prisoner.

Warwick seemed content that he had secured Edward’s submission, but in March 1470 a rebellion in Lincolnshire gave Edward an opportunity to gather an army of his own. The King alleged he had found evidence of Warwick’s complicity, so he fled to France in surprise.

9. He paired up with Margaret of Anjou and got hold of the throne again

With some help from Louis XI, Warwick was reconciled with Margaret of Anjou and agreed to marry his second daughter to her son. In September, Warwick, Clarence and Lancastrian forces landed at Dartmouth.

Edward fled overseas, and for 6 months Warwick rules as Lieutenant for Henry VI, who was restored from prison in the Tower to a nominal throne.

Margaret of Anjou / CC: Talbot Master

10. But Clarence stabbed him in the back

But the Lancastrian restoration was despised by Clarence, who began to plot behind Warwick’s back. When Edward landed at Ravenspur in 1471, Clarence joined him.

Warwick was outmanoeuvred, then defeated and slain at Barnet on 14 April. But his daughter, Anne, would go on to marry Richard of Gloucester, the future Richard III.