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The Battle of Barnet was a decisive engagement in the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic conflict of 15th-century England. The military action, along with the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury, secured the throne for Edward IV. On 14 April 1471 near Barnet, then a small Hertfordshire town north of London, Edward led the House of York in a fight against the House of Lancaster, which backed Henry VI for the throne. Leading the Lancastrian army was Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, who played a crucial role in the fate of each king. Historians regard the battle as one of the most important clashes in the Wars of the Roses, since it brought about a decisive turn in the fortunes of the two houses. Edward's victory was followed by fourteen years of Yorkist rule over England. Formerly a key figure in the Yorkist cause, Warwick defected to the Lancastrians over disagreements about Edward's nepotism, secret marriage, and foreign policy. Leading a Lancastrian army, the earl defeated his former allies, forcing Edward to flee to Burgundy. The Yorkist king persuaded his host, Charles the Bold, to help him regain the English throne. Leading an army raised with Burgundian money, Edward launched his invasion of England, which culminated at the fields north of Barnet. Under cover of darkness, the Yorkists moved close to the Lancastrians, and clashed in a thick fog at dawn. While the main forces struggled in battle, John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford and his Lancastrian troops routed the Yorkists under Lord William Hastings, chasing them up to Barnet. On their return to the battlefield, Oxford's men were erroneously shot at by his allies commanded by John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu. The Lancastrians lost the battle as cries of treason spread through their line, disrupting morale and causing many to abandon the fight. While retreating, Warwick was killed by Yorkist soldiers. Warwick had been such an influential figure in 15th-century English politics that, on his death, no one matched him in terms of power and popularity. Deprived of Warwick's support, the Lancastrians suffered their final defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, which marked the downfall of the House of Lancaster and the ascendancy of the House of York. Three centuries after the Battle of Barnet, a stone obelisk was raised on the spot where Warwick purportedly died. ==Background== The Wars of the Roses were a series of conflicts between various English lords and nobles in support of two different royal families. In 1461, the conflict reached a milestone when the House of York supplanted its rival, the House of Lancaster, as the ruling royal house in England. Edward IV, leader of the Yorkists, seized the throne from the Lancastrian king, Henry VI, who was captured in 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. The Lancastrian Queen Margaret of Anjou and her son, Edward of Lancaster, fled to Scotland and organised resistance. Edward IV crushed the uprisings, and pressured the Scottish government to force Margaret out; the House of Lancaster went into exile in France. As the Yorkists tightened their hold over England, Edward rewarded his supporters, including his chief adviser Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, elevating them to higher titles and awarding them land confiscated from their defeated foes. The earl grew to disapprove of the king's rule, however, and their relationship later became strained. Warwick had planned for Edward to marry a French princess—Bona of Savoy—to create an alliance between the two countries. The young king, however, favoured ties with Burgundy, and, in 1464, further angered the earl by secretly marrying Elizabeth Woodville; as an impoverished Lancastrian widow, she was regarded by the Yorkists as an unsuitable queen. At her request, Edward bestowed gifts of land and titles on her relations and arranged marriages to rich and powerful families. Eligible bachelors were paired with the Woodville females, narrowing the marriage prospects for Warwick's daughters. Furthermore, the earl was offended by two matches involving his kin. The first was the marriage of his aunt, Lady Katherine Neville, over 60 years old, to Elizabeth's 20-year-old brother, John Woodville, a pairing considered outside of normal wedlock by many people. The other was when his nephew's fiancée, the daughter of Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, was taken as a bride by the queen's son, Thomas Grey, with Edward's approval. Exasperated by these acts, Warwick decided the Woodvilles were a malignant influence on his liege. He felt marginalized: his influence over the young king was failing, and he decided to take drastic action to force Edward's compliance. Warwick's alternative plan was to replace the king with his fellow conspirator, the Duke of Clarence, Edward's younger brother. Instigating several rebellions in the north, Warwick lured the king away from his main bastion of support in the south. Edward found himself outnumbered; while retreating, he learned that Warwick and Clarence had called for open support of the rebellion. After winning the Battle of Edgecote Moor on 26 July 1469, the earl found the Yorkist king deserted by his followers, and brought him to Warwick Castle for "protection". Lancastrian supporters took advantage of Edward's imprisonment to stage uprisings. Because most Yorkist-aligned warlords refused to rally to Warwick's call, the earl was pressured to release the king. Back in power, Edward did not openly pursue Warwick's transgressions against him, but the earl suspected that the king held a grudge. Warwick engineered another rebellion, this time to replace Edward with Clarence. The two conspirators, however, had to flee to France when Edward crushed the uprising—the Battle of Losecoat Field—on 12 March 1470. Through letters in the rebels' possession and confessions from the leaders, the king uncovered the earl's betrayal. In a deal brokered by the French king Louis XI, the earl agreed to serve Margaret and the Lancastrian cause. Warwick invaded England at the head of a Lancastrian army, and in October 1470 forced Edward to seek refuge in Burgundy, then ruled by the king's brother-in-law Charles the Bold. The throne of England was temporarily restored to Henry VI; on 14 March 1471, Edward brought an army back across the English Channel, precipitating the Battle of Barnet a month later. 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 Barnet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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