The Wars of the Roses were a series of fifteenth-century English civil wars for control of the throne of England, fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the House of Lancaster, represented by a red rose, and the House of York, represented by a white rose. Eventually, the wars eliminated the male lines of both families. The conflict lasted through many sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1487, but there was related fighting before and after this period between the parties. The power struggle ignited around social and financial troubles following the Hundred Years' War, unfolding the structural problems of bastard feudalism, combined with the mental infirmity and weak rule of King Henry VI which revived interest in the House of York's claim to the throne by Richard of York. Historians disagree on which of these factors was the main reason for the wars.
Between the years 1399 and 1485 England was locked into decades of civil wars between the competing royal houses of Lancaster, (represented by the Red Rose) and York (represented by the white rose). Immortalized through the 16th century plays of William Shakespeare, this period is one of the most turbulent yet significant in England's history, replete with a full cast of есcentric characters culminating in the diabolical Richard the III. This era ushered in one of the most famous and widely known royal dynasties, the Tudors. With the defeat of Richard II in 1485 by Henry Tudor at the battle of Bosworth Field, Henry (head of the house of Lancaster) married Elizabeth of York (daughter of Edward IV) therebу uniting the two royal houses into one represented by the Tudor Rose; a combination of red and white.
Historians debate the extent of impact the wars had on medieval English life. The classical view is that the many casualties among the nobility continued the changes in feudal English society caused by the effects of the Black Death. These included a weakening of the feudal power of the nobles and an increase in the power of the merchant classes and the growth of a centralised monarchy under the Tudors. The wars heralded the end of the medieval period in England and the movement towards the Renaissance.
After the wars, the large standing baronial armies that had helped fuel the conflict were suppressed. Henry VII, wary of any further fighting, kept the barons on a very tight leash, removing their right to raise, arm and supply armies of retainers so that they could not make war on each other or the king. The military power of individual barons declined, and the Tudor court became a place where baronial squabbles were decided with the influence of the monarch.
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