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The Battle of Wakefield took place in Sandal Magna near Wakefield, in West Yorkshire in Northern England, on 30 December 1460. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by nobles loyal to the captive King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster, his Queen Margaret of Anjou and their seven-year-old son Edward, Prince of Wales on one side, and the army of Richard, Duke of York, the rival claimant to the throne, on the other. The Duke of York was killed and his army was destroyed. ==Background== King Henry VI ascended the throne when he was only nine months old. He grew up to be an ineffective king, and prone to spells of mental illness. There were increasingly bitter divisions among the regents and councillors who governed in Henry's name, mainly over the conduct of the Hundred Years' War with France. By the late 1440s, two opposing factions had formed behind Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, and Richard of York. York was Lieutenant in France for several years and resented being supplanted in that office by Somerset, who had then failed to defend Normandy against French armies.〔Rowse, pp.112, 119〕 Richard of York was not only the wealthiest magnate in the land,〔Rowse, p.109〕 but was also descended through both his parents from King Edward III, leading to calls that he be recognised as successor to the childless King Henry.〔Seward, p.35〕 His rival, Somerset, belonged to the Beaufort family, who were distant cousins of King Henry. Originally illegitimate, the Beauforts had been made legitimate by an Act of Parliament but Henry VI's grandfather had barred them from the line of succession to the throne (to protect his own children's succession).〔Goodwin (2012), p.76〕 However, there was always the possibility that this could be circumvented and the Beaufort line eventually produced King Henry VII and the Tudor dynasty. In 1452, York attempted to force Henry to dismiss Somerset from the government, but at this stage he lacked support and was forced to swear not to take arms against the King at Old St Paul's Cathedral.〔Seward, p.38〕 Then in 1453, Henry VI suffered a complete mental breakdown. The peers appointed York Lord Protector and he governed the country responsibly, but Henry recovered his sanity after eighteen months and restored Somerset to favour. During Henry's madness his Queen, Margaret of Anjou, had given birth to a son, which dashed York's hopes of becoming king on Henry's death. Fearing arrest for treason, York and his most prominent allies, the Nevilles (York's brother in law, the Earl of Salisbury and his son, the Earl of Warwick, later known as the "Kingmaker"), finally resorted to armed force in 1455. At the First Battle of St Albans, many of York's and Salisbury's rivals and enemies were killed, including Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland (whose family had been involved in a long-running feud with the Nevilles) and Lord Clifford. After the battle, York reaffirmed his loyalty to King Henry, and was reappointed Lord Protector and Lieutenant of Ireland. Margaret of Anjou nevertheless suspected York of wishing to supplant her infant son, Edward, as Henry's successor, and the heirs of the Lancastrian nobles who were killed at St Albans remained at deadly feud with York. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Wakefield」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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