On this day, 21 December 1460

Richard, duke of York arrived at Sandal Castle before the Battle of Wakefield took place.

Dec 21, 2024

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watercolor of the Painted Chamber, Westminster. William Capon, 1799

Perhaps these lords were struck by the reality of actually deposing an anointed king. Henry VI, though feeble and incompetent, and though his wife was a tyrant, was anointed by God as king of this land. He himself was not a tyrant, like Richard II and Edward II had been. However, the duke of York went ahead and officially staked his claim on October 16 via the Chancellor, George Neville, bishop of Exeter. Afterwards, the bishop (who was York’s nephew) presented Parliament with a large genealogical roll, showing that York was descended twice over from Edward III:

Richard, duke of York, was descended from Edward III via his second son, Lionel of Antwerp, duke of Clarence. However, his line was descended twice through females, which clouded his claim.
York was also descended from Edward III via his fourth son, Edmund of Langley, duke of York. This claim was through males only.

York was making the argument that he had the better claim than Henry VI:

Henry VI was descended from Edward III through his third son, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster.
Henry’s father was Henry V, whose father, Henry IV, deposed his cousin Richard II, who was descended from Edward III’s first son, Edward, the Black Prince.
Henry VI’s claim was through the male line only.

York made the argument that Henry IV, in ousting Richard II, unlawfully seized the Crown in 1399. Since Richard II had proclaimed Edmund Mortimer, earl of March as his heir, York claimed that he would have been Mortimer’s heir (as nearest male relative to him as his sister’s son). Therefore, “the right, title, dignity royal and estate of the crowns of the realms of England and of France, and the lordship and land of Ireland, of right, law and custom appertaineth and belongeth” (or at least it should) to Richard, duke of York.

Richard, 3rd Duke of York. Detail from the frontispiece of the illuminated manuscript Talbot Shrewsbury Book.

It can be argued that York’s claim was not about dynastic right and wrong at all, else he would have made the claim at some other point in the last twenty years of war. According to Dan Jones in his book, Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors, “... his real purpose encompassed a broad sense that Henry VI’s incompetence, allied with Queen Margaret’s tyrannical instincts, could be tolerated no longer, bound up with a heavy-handed sense of self-importance. All the duke’s previous efforts to amend and correct royal government had failed. Dynasty was the last resort.” (Jones 174)

Intense negotiations in Parliament went on for weeks, in which York’s eighteen-year-old son, Edward, duke of March, acted as a go-between from his father at Westminster Palace and the lords in session at Blackfriars. On October 31, a settlement was reached in which King Henry VI would keep his throne for the rest of his life, but his heir would be his cousin the Duke of York (and not Edward, Prince of Wales).

According to Helen Castor in her book, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, the decision was “compromise which gave due acknowledgement to York’s claims, while allowing his regime to retain the support of the wider political community by functioning in King Henry’s name.” However, the “acknowledgement of York’s claims meant the disinheritance of Henry’s son – and that meant, in practice, it was no settlement at all.”

York and his faction, “bolstered by the astonishingly efficient Yorkist propaganda machine,” once again spread rumors about the Prince of Wales’ “irregular birth,” which had the “happy purpose of justifying York’s claim to be Henry’s heir and undermining the queen’s public standing through insinuations… about her private conduct.”

At the end of November, Margaret of Anjou travelled to Scotland to try and appeal for help against her enemies in England. The queen mother, Mary of Guelders, was regent for her eight-year-old son, James III of Scotland.

A view of the remaining wall at Sandal Castle

In England:

Jasper Tudor, duke of Bedford, was in the west and Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, was in the north. Both were amassing any military forces available for the Lancaster side.
Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset (Lancastrian), forged a path from the southwest to rendezvous with Northumberland in the north.
Despite the difficulty of moving armies in winter, the duke of York marched north with his ally Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, reaching Sandal Castle near Wakefield on this day, 21 December 1460
Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, remained in London
Edward, duke of March led his troops west to Wales

Later that December, a combined English and Scottish army, led by Lancastrians Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, surrounded Richard, duke of York, outside of Sandal Castle. Apparently, although he was awaiting reinforcements in the form of his son Edward, duke of March, with whatever troops he had mustered in the west, York ventured outside of the castle with his second son, Edmund, earl of Rutland, and Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury. All three were killed in the battle that followed, namely the Battle of Wakefield, on 30 December 1460. All of their heads were placed upon Micklegate Bar in York; the duke of York’s head was topped by a paper crown.

Mickelgate Bar, the southern entrance to York.

What do you think? Did Richard, duke of York, have a better claim to the throne than Henry VI? Let me know in the comments!

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