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Mail David
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Royal Family Squabble touches
Berkshire
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- King Henry VI was born at Windsor
Castle in Medieval times. He was a weak king who liked to pray a lot. He set up colleges at both
Eton and Cambridge.
- He and his cousin, the Duke of
York, argued about who should be King. King Henry sometimes went mad
for long periods. He was locked up in Windsor Castle and the Duke of
York had to rule the country for him.
- The friends of these two men wore coloured
roses to show who they supported. Red for King Henry & the 'Lancastrians'.
White for the Duke of York & the 'Yorkists'.
- The war that broke out between them,
in 1455, was called the ‘War of the Roses’.
- There were battles all over the
country and many soldiers were killed, but they didn’t affect
ordinary people very much.
- However, soldiers were sent to
Newbury to find supporters of the Duke of York. Several of the townspeople
were hung, drawn and quartered!
- The two sides also took to
poisoning each other. Queen Margaret was at Abingdon
Abbey with her friend, the Earl of Devon in 1458. He suddenly
dropped dead after a big meal!
- The powerful Earl of Warwick,
from Bisham 'Abbey' Manor, helped the Duke of York. When the Duke was killed, his
son, Edward, carried on the war. The Earl helped him too.
- The Earl of Warwick had Edward
crowned as King Edward IV, but he tried to rule without the Earl's help.
- King Edward went off and married
a poor girl in secret, when the Earl had wanted him to marry a French
Princess. He told everyone about his new wife at a gathering in
Reading Abbey.
- Eventually, after the Earl died,
King Edward ruled alone.
- The nearest battle to Berkshire
was at Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. Edward marched his soldiers from
Windsor and through Berkshire
to get there. They stopped over night at Abingdon.
- It was a great victory for
Edward. Queen Margaret was imprisoned at Windsor Castle, then the
Tower of London and finally at Wallingford
Castle.
- Old King Henry was put in the Tower of
London. He died there soon afterwards.
People said he had been stabbed to death by King Edward’s brother,
Richard.
- Because of his good works,
people thought King Henry was a saint. He was buried at Chertsey Abbey
in Surrey.
- So many pilgrims visited his
grave that King Richard III later had his body dug up and moved to the
more important church of St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. The
dagger that stabbed him was kept as a holy relic at Caversham 'Priory'.
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