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England—Plantagenet Kings(1154 to 1485)Accession of Henry II — War of the RosesSUMMARY
The dynasty of the Plantagenet kings was long and eventful. Henry Plantagenet (II) came to the throne in 1154, and the last Plantagenet, Richard III, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, over three hundred years later. In the meantime, great changes overtook England. In the early years of the Plantagenet dynasty, the Barons revolted against the John of England and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which guaranteeing certain rights to the towns and nobles. Later, they forced the king to call a Parliament, or group of nobles to advise him in ruling the kingdom. Later, the Plantagenets were involved in two long and ruinous wars. The first was the Hundred Years War with France, which went well for England at first but in the end proved disastrous. The second was the War of the Roses, a frightful civil war between rival claimants to the throne that nearly wiped out the entire Plantagenet line. Henry Plantagenet, the founder of the Plantagenet line, was the grandson of Henry I of England, and the great-grandson of William II of England. He inherited the throne through his mother, and had to fight to make good his claim. He had married another very powerful monarch, Eleanor of Aquitaine, heir to the duchy of Aquitaine, so between the two, they eventually controlled much of France as well as all of England. Henry spent much of his reign in various wars, consolidating his power. He had four sons, two of which became King. The elder son, Richard I of England, is best known as a crusader. He spent almost his entire reign away from England, leaving the country in the hands of his devious brother John of England. John was one of the worst kings that England had ever had, and managed to lose most of the land in France that he had inherited from his parents, but was forced by Archbishop Langton, and all of his Barons to sign the Magna Carta. John�s son Henry III of England, supposedly ruled for 56 years, but for much of that time the government was in the hands of his brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, who orchestrated a Parliament composed of nobles who had the power to enforce some of the rights granted to the people by the Magna Carta. When Henry III�s son Edward I of England came to the throne the people rejoiced because they finally had a king who was half Saxon, and spoke the English language instead of French, which had been the language of the ruling class since the Norman Conquest. He proved to be a competent king, and brought Wales, Ireland, and Scotland under his sway. His hold on Ireland was never strong though, and shortly after his death, Scotland decisively won its independence from England at the Battle of Bannockburn. The son of Edward I was a no-account king with very unpopular favorites. He was deposed in favor of his young son Edward III of England, who ruled for fifty years, and got England involved in the Hundred Years War with France. There were several important battles in the hundred years war, the first two being Crecy and Poitiers. England won both battles against great odds, but never succeeded in making good Edward III�s claim to the French throne. The eldest son of Edward III was the Edward the Black Prince, a great warrior who was very popular with the people, but who never became king because he died before the long-lived Edward III. The crown then passed to the Black Prince�s son Richard II of England, who was unpopular, and was eventually deposed, in favor of his cousin Henry Bolingbroke (IV). Unfortunately Henry IV was not necessarily the next in line for the throne, but his selection was not resisted because his father John of Gaunt had been regent during most of Richard II�s reign. The issue was not pressed for two generations, it later because the cause of a great civil war. The Son of Henry Bolingbroke was Henry V of England, famous for his victory over the French at Agincourt. Henry V reopened the hundred years war, and came close to gaining the French crown, but he died young, only a few years after his great victory. He left a young son, Henry VI of England, who was a peace-loving, and studious man, but a weak leader. When the French rallied under Joan of Arc and reclaimed all of the land England had won, an end was brought to the hundred year war, but the king became extremely unpopular, and his cousin, the Duke of York, made a claim for the throne. The Yorkish claim was based on the denial of Henry Bolingbroke's claim, three generations back and led to the disastrous, War of the Roses, in which the Lancaster line (Henry VI), and the York line (Edward IV of England), vied for the throne. The plots turns and reverses of this war are difficult to follow but the main contenders were not the monarch themselves, but rather, the Earl of Warwick, cousin to the Duke of York, and Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI. The war proved bitter and deadly, and many great nobles lost their lives. It greatly enhanced the power of the king however, since the king was allowed to confiscate the estates of any noble that rose in rebellion to him, and, as the kingship passed back and forth between the Lancasters and Yorks, almost every house was, at some point, in alliance with a "rebel". The Yorks were finally victorious, but even they came to a bad end. Edward IV ruled for 22 years, but when he died, his brother Richard III plotted to usurp the throne by killing his nephews. This accomplished, he found he had made many enemies, and when Henry Tudor (VII), a distant relative on the Lancaster side rose an army against him, several of his generals deserted him. Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings was killed on the battlefield of Bosworth, bringing the noble line that had ruled England for three centuries to an inglorious end. TIMELINE
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