Edward defeated the Lancastrians at Mortimor's Cross and was proclaimed king in March 1461.Edward IV ascended to the throne in 1461 finally achieving the goal of seating a member of the York family pushed forth by his father, Richard, duke of York, for the entire decade of the 1450s.He was briefly restored as ruler from 1470 to 1471 but before the battle of Barnet in April he was captured by Edward and sent to the tower of London where he was murdered on May 21, 1471. In 1461 he lost the throne to Richard's son Edward IV.At the battle of Northampton in 1460 he was captured by the Yorkist forces and forced to acknowledge Richard as the rightful heir to the throne.The next year he recovered and clashed with Richard over who would rule England thus starting the Wars of the Roses. At the age of 32 (1453) he suffered his first attack of mental illness and control of the country was taken up by Richard, duke of York.During his reign his country lost the Hundred Year's War and all of its French territories except for Calais. Henry VI was crowned king of both England and France when he was an infant.

All this divided York and Lancaster.“ William Shakespeare, Richard III Causes both houses were direct descendents of king Edward III the ruling Lancastrian king, Henry VI, surrounded himself with unpopular nobles the civil unrest of much of the population the availability of many powerful lords with their own private armies the untimely episodes of mental illness by King Henry VI. Jesús Centen Camarg 'England hath long been mad, and scarr’d herself: The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood The father rashly slaughter’d his own son The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire.

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