Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century, fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: Lancaster and York. The wars extinguished the male lines of the two dynasties, leading to the Tudor family inheriting the Lancastrian claim. Following the war, the Houses of Tudor and York were united, creating a new royal dynasty, thereby resolving the rival claims.

The conflict had its roots in the wake of the Hundred Years’ War and its emergent socio-economic troubles, which weakened the prestige of the English monarchy,[i] unfolding structural problems of bastard feudalism and the powerful duchies created by Edward III,[8] and the mental infirmity and weak rule of Henry VI, which revived interest in the Yorkist claim to the throne by Richard of York. Historians disagree over which of these factors were the main catalyst for the wars