The sorry state of affairs was compounded by the weak and witless reign of the Lancastrian King Henry VI, who suffered from a mental illness that often rendered him nearly catatonic. The realm was still reeling from its recent defeat in the last phase of the Hundred Years’ War with France, which had drained royal coffers, fractured the nobility and sent legions of unemployed soldiers flooding into the countryside.

The Wars of the Roses might never have happened if not for the tenuous state of English politics in the 1450s. Fallout from the Hundred Years’ War helped spark the unrest. Nevertheless, when the Wars of the Roses first kicked off, the Lancasters had been entrenched on the throne since 1399, when Henry IV usurped power from his cousin Richard II. This complicated family tree ensured that both factions had a legitimate case for their royal lineage, though by modern standards the Yorkists’ claim was undoubtedly stronger.

The Yorks were descended from the female relatives of Edward’s second and fourth sons, while the Lancasters were related to Edward’s third son, John of Gaunt. The Houses of York and Lancaster both traced their lineage to the sons of Edward III of the House of Plantagenet, who ruled as England’s king from 1327 until 1377. The Yorks and Lancasters were descended from the same family.

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