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best marriages they can.’ Childhood ended early. Most children were married, apprenticed or in the cloister or university by their early teens.
    The fifteenth century was a turbulent age, and that turbulence manifested itself in England in the civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses, a conflict that was by no means continuous but which dragged on intermittently for a period of thirty years and more. This book tells the story of the struggle between Lancaster and York.
    * 1450 values may be roughly related to 1995 values by multiplying by 234. Thus the Duke of York’s income would be equivalent to approximately £702,000 in 1995 prices. The multiplier of 234 is derived from the following calculation:
    1 The price of a quarter of wheat in 1450 compared to 1914, which gives a multiplier of 4.68.
    2 The change in the price level between 1914 and 1995, which gives a multiplier of 50. After 1914 wheat is not a very useful indicator of prices (food expenditure dropped with rising incomes and the 1930s tariffs on wheat distort prices). Reference may therefore be made to the retail price index for 1914 to 1995, which rises 50 fold: 4.68 × 50 = 234. For this calculation I am indebted to Dr R. B. Weir, Provost of Derwent College at the University of York and lecturer in economic history.

Part I
The Origins
of the Conflict

2
A Race of Magnates
    S ince 1154 England had been ruled by the House of Plantagenet and the succession to the crown had passed fairly peaceably from father to son or brother to brother. The Plantagenet kings, who were reputed by legend to have descended from the Devil, were mostly dynamic men and outstanding leaders, energetic, warlike, courageous, just and wise. They were distinguished by aquiline features, red hair and a ferocious temper truly terrible to behold.
    Edward III (1327–77) was the archetypal Plantagenet king – tall, proud, majestic and handsome, with chiselled features and long hair and beard. Born in 1312, he was only fourteen when his father, Edward II, was deposed and murdered, and eighteen when he assumed personal control of the government of England.
    In 1328 Edward married Philippa of Hainault, who bore him thirteen children. His occasional infidelities did not affect this happy and successful marriage, which lasted forty years. Edward had inherited the notorious Plantagenet temper, but the Queen exerted a restraining influence on him; in a famous incident in 1347, she successfully interceded with him for the lives of the doomed burghers of Calais, which Edward had captured after a long siege.
    Edward lived in great splendour in the royal residences which he enlarged and beautified, and his court was a renowned centre of chivalry. He had a special reverence for St George, the patron saint of England, and did much to promote his cult. In 1348, he founded the Order of the Garter, which was dedicated to the saint.
    Above all, Edward desired to win glory by great deeds. In 1338, concerned by French incursions into his duchy of Aquitaine, in which was centred England’s prosperous wine trade, he laid claim to the throne of France, asserting that he was the true heir by virtue of descent from his mother, who was sister of the last Capetian king.However, the Salic Law, which barred women from succeeding or transmitting a claim to the throne, obtained in France, and the French had already crowned Edward’s cousin, Philip of Valois, who was the male heir of the Capets.
    Edward’s quartering of the lilies of France with the leopards of England on his coat of arms led to the conflict that later became known as the Hundred Years War because it dragged on intermittently for more than a century. Under Edward’s leadership, the English at first scored several victories: Sluys in 1340, Crécy in 1346 and Poitiers in 1356. These were the first important battles in which the English longbowmen demonstrated their supremacy over the heavily armoured French cavalry. However, the early successes of the