628 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE nected with the royal family. Edward III had married his younger sons to English heiresses and thus some estates of great size had been brought together. The two leading houses in the realm were the Lancastrians, who had held the throne thus far in the fifteenth century, and the Yorkists, who now had a better hereditary claim to the throne be- cause they were descended from the second as well as the fifth son of Edward III, whereas the Lancastrians were de- scendants of his fourth son£John of Gaunt. Henry VI was as little able to control his Lancastrian kinsmen, the Somersets and the Beau forts, as he was to The Wars of restra i n the Yorkist Party. In 1455 broke out a the Roses, series of battles, raids, border fights, feuds, and 1455-14 5 murders between these two parties and also be- tween lesser rival nobles in various parts of the land. These are collectively known as the "Wars of the Roses," but while the white rose was the emblem of the Yorkists, the red rose was not worn until the very last battle at Bosworth Field in 1485 by Henry Tudor. The chief central thread of interest was the struggle for the throne. Henry VI lost it in 1 46 1 to Edward IV, previously the Duke of York. He in turn was forced to flee to Bruges in 1470 by a hostile combination of the nobility under the lead of the Earl of Warwick, known as the "King- Maker," and who restored Henry VI to the throne. Edward, however, returned in 1 47 1 and slew most of his enemies, including poor old Henry and his youthful son. Edward IV had offended most of his own family by marrying a nobody and elevating her rela- tives to the peerage. When he died, his brother Richard executed several of the queen's kinsmen, seized the throne for himself, and later murdered Edward's two innocent boys. But Richard in his turn had to face hostile combina- tions of what was left of the nobility, and after two years on the throne lost his life and crown to Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who could connect his descent in a very indirect way with the House of Lancaster, and who now became Henry VII. To make surer of his position he married Edward IV's daughter.
