Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York

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Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York KG ( September 21, 1411 , † December 30, 1460 ) was an English peer and head of the House of York until his death in the Battle of Wakefield during the Wars of the Roses . Two of his sons were named Edward IV and then Richard III. Kings of England.

He was the son of Richard of Conisburgh, 1st Earl of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer . Richard of Conisburgh was a son of Edmund , the fourth son of Edward III. Anne Mortimer was a great-granddaughter of Lionel of Antwerp , the second son of Edward III. Both parents were thus direct descendants of Edward III. Richard thus had a legitimate claim to the throne of England, which he expressed by adopting the name Plantagenet in 1448.

Childhood and youth

Richard's mother died shortly after he was born. In 1415 he also lost his father, who was ostracized and executed as a treason against King Henry V. With the ostracism , the title of nobility fell back to the crown. Just a few weeks later his childless uncle Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, fell at the Battle of Agincourt . After some hesitation, Henry V recognized Richard as Duke of York .

The orphan was given to the Neville family under their head Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland as a royal ward and raised there. Westmorland and his wife Joan Beaufort , a legitimate daughter of John of Gaunt and thus a cousin of Richard's father, had a total of 24 children in the household from their relationship and previous marriages, including Richard's future wife, Cecily Neville . Growing up together, Richard cultivated a close relationship with the Neville family, particularly his future brother-in-law Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury . This network of connections was to be of decisive importance for the Wars of the Roses .

On May 19, 1426 Richard, together with the minor King Henry VI. beaten to the Knight of the Bath . At the same time the revoked title of his father as 2nd Earl of Cambridge was reassigned to him.

In 1429 he married Cecily Neville, who was to accompany him on almost all of his travels despite her numerous pregnancies. In 1431 Richard took part in the coronation of the English King Henry VI. to the King of France in Notre Dame in Paris . In 1432 Richard took over his inheritance and now united in his person the lands of the Duke of York and the great fortune of his mother Anne Mortimer, after her brother Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March , died in 1425 without an heir and gave him the title 6. Earl of March and 8th Earl of Ulster . In Richard's person, possible claims to the throne over the second and fourth line of Plantagenet, going back to Edward III.

On April 22, 1433 Richard was accepted as a Knight Companion in the Order of the Garter.

First parole in France

In 1436 Richard went on a campaign to France after the English governor John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford , had to give up Paris in 1435 and died shortly afterwards. Richard's task was to secure the English possessions, but this was hardly possible due to the interim settlement between France and Burgundy , as the French king could concentrate his military power mainly on the English occupation troops and also found a lot of support from the population. Since Richard's original destination Paris could no longer be reached, he turned to Normandy. Here he had successes with some modest territorial gains, but in particular his understanding of good and fair administration was noticed there for the first time. Its use was extended to 1439 over the originally planned 12 months. After his return, he was still denied a seat on the Privy Council .

In 1440 he was appointed governor in France and received the same powers as Bedfort before. In addition to securing the border, Richard put great effort into efficient administration until his return to England in 1445. In 1443, the simultaneous appointment of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset , to Gascony led to a conflict between the two leaders. Richard felt as governor of France and had to hand over urgently needed troops to Somerset. Somerset's campaign ended in a retreat to Normandy, where he died in 1444. Richard's dislike of most of the Beaufort family may have stemmed from these early conflicts. Decades later, after the end of the Houses of Lancaster and York, Somerset's grandson would decide the Wars of the Roses as Henry VII and establish the Tudor dynasty.

The young King Henry VI. proved with increasing age to be apparently incapable of ever being able to govern independently. The madness of his grandfather Charles VI. of France seemed to have passed on to him through his mother, so that the court parties of Henry VI. Uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester , as pretender to the throne, and his great-uncle Henry Beaufort , Bishop of Winchester and brother Joan Beauforts, freely waged a bitter dispute over primacy in the kingdom. In addition to the instability in England, there were further significant territorial losses in France, so that a marriage between Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou , a relative of Charles VII of France , negotiated as an armistice agreement and was also concluded in 1445. The young queen quickly became the leading force in the Lancaster faction and in 1447 disempowered Humphrey of Gloucester.

Richard of York was now the first aspirant to the English throne after the king himself and was thus in natural contrast to the ambitious and dynastically oriented queen. After Richard was again kept away from central positions of power in 1445 - he was expelled from the Privy Council - the post of governor for France he wanted was not restored to him, but to Edmund Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset , brother of Richard's deceased counterparty in France. However, as governor of Ireland, he was supposedly politically sidelined. In 1449 Richard set out for Ireland, avoiding several ambushes, probably initiated by the Queen's party. Again in the following months he impressed with an efficient administration and won the loyalty of the Irish through his sense of justice. Ireland should prove to be consistently York-friendly in the years to come.

In the same period until 1451 all lands in France except for Calais were lost. Anarchy and lynching increased in England itself. In 1450 Richard returned to London to claim his place on the Privy Council. Henry VI. took him on and raised him to the rank of first advisor, but Somerset, who had meanwhile been arrested, was released and the Queen's party regained control of the king. Richard retired to Wales.

In 1452 Richard renewed his petition to the king without receiving a reply. For the first time he actively gathered an army and moved to London , but the city closed its gates while the Queen raised her own army. Henry VI. said Richard in the subsequent talks a court hearing over Somerset, whereupon York dissolved his troops and went to the royal camp, where he found Somerset still in office and dignity. On March 10, Richard had to swear in St Paul's Cathedral that he would keep peace and not raise an army and that he would follow the king inviolably. In the months that followed, it seemed to gradually lose its political influence. In addition, the queen became pregnant and gave birth to an heir to the throne: Edward of Westminster , Prince of Wales. In addition, Margaret Beaufort married Edmund Tudor , the Earl of Richmond, giving the Queen's party other options for succession to the throne other than the York family. Still, Richard, as the leading duke of the empire, managed to get Somerset back into the Tower. Since King Henry VI. was temporarily insane for the first time in August 1453, Richard was able to rise to regent as "Protector of the Realm" and chairman of the Privy Council. However, the mental state of the king improved so much in the winter of 1453/54 that Richard's reign was superfluous.

Outbreak of the Wars of the Roses

In 1455, Heinrich VI. again under the influence of the Queen's Party, so that Somerset was liberated. Richard and his brother-in-law Salisbury lost almost all influence and were personally threatened. She and Salisbury's son Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick , who later became the "Kingmaker", raised an army and moved to St. Albans, where they met a hastily assembled royal force led by Somerset.

St. Albans

Few soldiers died in that First Battle of St Albans , with which the Wars of the Roses finally began, but Somerset and Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron Clifford , were among the dead . The death of the latter would also have fatal consequences for Richard's son Edmund five years later. Henry VI. was captured and brought back to London, accompanied by Richard and Salisbury and Neville, who carried the royal sword on the train. The king spent the next several months in custody, while Richard was used as protector and Salisbury and Neville acted as advisers. But in 1456 Henry VI recovered. again and Richard resigned from office. While he was on a campaign against James II of Scotland on the northern border, the Queen's party regained power. While Henry VI. sought a balance with his limited resources, the fronts hardened.

Ludlow

For 1459 a council meeting was called in Coventry . Richard, the Nevilles, and other nobles refused to attend because they feared arrest and, in turn, raised an army, reinforced by troops from Calais, of which Warwick was captain. For the first time, Richard's two older sons, Eduard and Edmund, went into the field. On October 12, the Royal Army raised the army at Ludlow . Since the soldiers from Calais overflowed that night and their leader knew the deployment plans of the York troops, Richard and Edmund fled to Ireland; Salisbury, Warwick and Eduard fled to Calais, which, despite the deserters, remained loyal to its commander. Cecily and the two younger sons Richards, George and Richard had to stay behind in Ludlow and surrender to the mercy of the Queen and her new general Henry Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset . They were spared, but Ludlow was looted despite the historically documented request by Cecily to spare the place and its people. The residents were tortured and slain as a sign of what happened to the supporters of the Yorks as enemies of the king.

Exile, Northampton and the claim to the throne

Richard was still the official governor of Ireland up to this point and the Irish refused to attempt to remove him on the grounds that such removal would require the approval of the Irish Parliament. In December 1459 Richard was ostracized and his property was confiscated for the king, bypassing his heirs. A compensation was no longer conceivable. After extensive preliminary negotiations by the conspirators, Salisbury and Warwick landed at Sandwich on June 26, 1460 , while Richard remained in Ireland. On July 2, the Nevilles entered London without a fight and eight days later brought the royal army to battle. Warwick defeated Henry VI in this battle of Northampton . Destroying army under Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham . Humphrey Stafford fell, like his son at St. Albans five years earlier, and the king was taken prisoner.

Richard returned to England on September 9th and moved into London on October 10th. There he officially laid claim to the English throne for the first time, but immediately felt compelled to negotiate, as most of the nobles did not seem to tolerate possible usurpation. While the Queen and her followers raised a new army and with Jacob III. from Scotland established contact, Richard negotiated for weeks and achieved the result, as heir to the throne of Henry VI. to be recognized by his son bypassing.

The end at Wakefield

On December 2, Richard, Salisbury, and Edmund marched against the Lancaster troops to dispel this last danger. On December 21, they reached Sandal Castle and had to realize that much stronger enemy troops had marched in the vicinity. York's army holed up in the fortress, but food had to be brought into the fort. On December 30th, parts of Richard's troops were given this task by superior enemy units. It is unclear whether Richard was already with this team or wanted to bring support to his followers from the fortress. The Lancaster Army won a resounding victory in the battle of Wakefield that followed . Richard and Salisbury's son Thomas fell, Edmund was captured and stabbed to death on the battlefield by Lord Clifford of Skipton-Craven, son of Thomas Clifford, who had fallen five years earlier at St. Albans. Salisbury was also captured and executed a day later. The heads of the York leaders were brought to York and there impaled on stakes at Micklegate Gate. Richard's head was crowned mockery with a crown made of straw and paper.

York's claim to the crown seemed to have been destroyed with Richard's death, but only a few months later his eldest son Edward should be proclaimed king and ascend the English throne as Edward IV.

rating

There are hardly any contemporary sources about Richard's character and true intentions. Not even a contemporary copy of him exists. It can rightly be debated whether Richard aspired to the crown from the beginning and only skilfully concealed this for years, or whether he was driven there more and more by the seemingly irreconcilable hatred of Queen Margaret before he reached out his hand himself. Documented are his friendly nature, but also his almost uncompromising determination to pursue a goal once set, as well as his administrative skills, which he demonstrated in France and Ireland.

progeny

Richard and Cecily had thirteen children:

literature

  • Philip A. Haigh: From Wakefield to Towton. Leo Cooper, Barnsley 2002, ISBN 0-85052-825-9 .
  • David Hilliam: Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards. Sutton Publishing, Stroud 1998, ISBN 0-7509-1741-5 .
  • Anthony Goodman: The Wars of the Roses. Routledge, London 1990, ISBN 0-415-05264-5 .
  • Robin L. Storey: The End of the House of Lancaster. Sutton Publishing, Gloucester 1986, ISBN 0-86299-290-7 .

Web links

Commons : Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William A. Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 130.
  2. ^ William A. Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 11.
  3. ^ Storey, The End of the House of Lancaster , 72
  4. ↑ Hilliam, Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards , p 55
  5. ^ Storey, The End of the House of Lancaster , pp. 159 ff.
  6. ^ Goodman, The Wars of the Roses , p. 31
  7. ^ Haigh, From Wakefield to Towton , pp. 31 ff.
predecessor Office successor
Edward of Norwich Duke of York
1415-1460 		Edward Plantagenet
Edmund Mortimer Earl of March
Earl of Ulster
1425-1460 		Edward Plantagenet
Richard of Conisburgh
(until 1415) 		Earl of Cambridge
1426-1460 		Edward Plantagenet
personal data
SURNAME Plantagenet, Richard, 3rd Duke of York
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English peer
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1411
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1460