The Urban Sector and the Beginning of the Wars of the Roses, 1450–61

Abstract

Typically, periods of political crisis in medieval England—such as the Barons’ War of the 1250s and 1260s or the troubles of Edward II’s reign—brought towns and their residents to the forefront of national politics, but the early years of the Wars of the Roses proved a notable exception to this rule. The first section of this chapter demonstrates that weakened links between towns, combined with the local dominance of mercantile elites in 1435–50, meant that the urban sector had neither the means nor the will to influence the brewing conflict between the duke of York and the monarchy in 1450–5. The second section, however, shows that the late 1450s saw a return to urban collective action and a ‘politicization’ of townspeople. The re-emergence of a ‘politicized’ urban sector in the Wars of the Roses proved to be a crucial factor in breaking the political stalemate of the 1450s.