Wars of the Roses

Wars of the Roses (c.1455–87), modern name for the civil war between the English houses of Lancaster and York, commencing under Henry VI (1421–61, 1470–1); continuing under the Yorkist kings Edward IV (1461–70, 1471–83), Edward V (1483), and Richard III (1483–5); and petering out after the accession of Henry VII (1485–1509). Ireland's role in the wars chiefly reflected its strategic importance as a springboard for invading England. It also supplied experienced troops—English ‘bills and bows’ (troops armed with the battleaxe with long wooden handle, or the longbow) and Gaelic kerns—but not in overwhelming numbers. As in other outlying regions, feuding between the lordship's leading families became aligned in the 1450s with rivalries in England. The FitzGerald earls of Desmond and Kildare were retainers of Richard, duke of York, while the 5th earl of Ormond was a leading Lancastrian. The Yorkist ascendancy in Ireland was threatened by York's death at Wakefield (1460) but confirmed by the Yorkist victory at Towton (1461). Towton also consolidated Geraldine influence but precipitated a crisis of lordship. The accession of York's heir as Edward IV meant that his Irish estates were held by a permanent absentee; and after Ormond's execution for treason, the senior Butler line disappeared from politics until 1475, when the attainder was reversed. Ireland served as a base for Yorkist invasions of England in 1460 (by York himself) and 1487 (by Lambert Simnel). Ormond's heir, Sir John Butler, led an unsuccessful counter‐invasion in 1462; and the Yorkist pretender Perkin Warbeck tried three times in the 1490s to wrest control of Ireland from Henry VII before the wars petered out.

Steven Ellis