EXAM IN AN HOUR!!! I NEED HELP!!!!!!! In laymens terms, what happened in The War of the Roses??

Answer 1

The Wars of the Roses were a series of civil wars fought in medieval England from 1455 to 1487 between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The name Wars of the Roses is based on the badges used by the two sides, the red rose for the Lancastrians and the white rose for the Yorkists. Major causes of the conflict include: 1) both houses were direct descendents of king Edward III; 2) the ruling Lancastrian king, Henry VI, surrounded himself with unpopular nobles; 3) the civil unrest of much of the population; 4) the availability of many powerful lords with their own private armies; and 5) the untimely episodes of mental illness by king Henry VI. Please see the origins page for more information on the start of the wars.

This site presents a clear and easy-to-follow survey of the Wars of the Roses including major players and important battles. We hope this site will pique your interest in a very fascinating and rich period of history -- welcome to the Wars of the Roses.

Answer 2

Basically the various banks have been playing poker with dead hands. Everybody knew it but then somebody got a little nervous and now the banks will not trust each other. The big people are trying to lose their monies into safe securities, and the run of the mill are not able to work due to the companies not being able to borrow to pay their suppliers that have been forced into giving the big boys say 6 months credit but the banks now will not give the smaller ones credit. This means that the smaller companies and also the larger ones are laying off people. People are afraid of spending their monies due to loss of job fears so no spending is done. That makes the spiral worse. All comdities except essentials will crash in price, foodstuff will rocket in price and rubbish will come into the markets. Many many people are destined to go bankrupt, many companies will go to the wall and if you look at some countries then not only famine but war and insurgence. Face it if you had kids you would steal to feed them, under those circumstances if you tried to steal from my what little I had then I would resist you to the point of (your) death. Hence the wars. Now are you concerned?

Answer 3

The book and movie?
The War of the Roses tells the story of Oliver and Barbara Rose, and their descent from a picturesque family life into a world of macabre self-destruction.

The Wars of the Roses (1455–1485) were collectively an intermittent civil war fought over the throne of England between adherents of the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Both houses were branches of the Plantagenet royal house, tracing their descent from King Edward III.

Answer 4

if you're talking about the movie, it's about a couple who ultimately divorces after a long love/hate relationship. It's narrated by their lawyer. They end up fighting over all of their belongings, and they both die at the end, crushed under a chandelier after destroying their house just so that the other person can't have any of the stuff. It's kind of shitty. If you're talking about some actual war, then I have no idea what happened.

Answer 5

A man named cereano de bergerac saved all of prussia from the invading roman army.

Answer 6

Wouldn't it just be easier, quicker, and with better spelling to Wikipedia this for your answers?

Answer 7

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/cavern/5123/roses.html

Answer 8

wikipedia.com or answers.com

Answer 9

The War of the Roses: The Short Version
I Henry IV describes events that take place in the early stages of the War of the Roses, a civil war in England that is also an internal battle among members of the English Royal family. Here is a brief summary of the events and characters relevant to this war and to subsequent English history.

Edward III
Edward III is the last Plantagenet king. (Plantagenet is a family name.) Both the Lancasters and Yorks are descended from Edward III's sons. Edward has seven sons; two die early and are therefore irrelevant to this discussion. The remaining six are, in order of their birth, and therefore of their claim to the throne:

Edward the Black Prince
Lionel Duke of Clarence
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
Edmund 1st Duke of York
Thomas of Woodstock
The order of these names becomes important in the struggle for the throne between the Lancasters and Yorks.

Richard II
Richard II is Chaucer's king. He is the son of Edward the Black Prince, the oldest son of Edward III. Richard acquires the throne after Edward III dies because Edward the Black Prince has already died; the crown passes therefore to Richard, as son of Edward the Black Prince. Richard II was at times a brave and intelligent king--he singlehandedly faced and stopped the rebels from Kent in the Peasants' Rebellion--but in light of later events he is remembered as a weak king who overtaxed the people and waged wars in Ireland that are costly in terms of both money and human life.

In Shakespeare's portrayal of Richard in Richard II, Richard is deeply invested in the idea that the king is God's representative on earth. He is also morally flawed in that he callously "steals" Henry Bolingbroke's property after the death of Henry's father John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, to help pay for Richard's wars in Ireland. In Shakespeare's play, it is impossible to tell whether Henry leaves to return to England before or after hearing that Richard has confiscated his lands after the death of John of Gaunt. You cannot tell whether Henry simply wants his rightful lands or whether he has always had ambitions of being king. Richard is deposed in 1399, one year before Chaucer himself died, by his cousin Henry IV.

Edmund Mortimer
Richard dies without an heir, but he names as his official heir Edmund Mortimer, who is the great-grandson of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. Edmund is named as Richard's heir because he is the son of Lionel, the next surviving son of Edward III after Edward the Black Prince. The play, as you may hear, confuses two Mortimer's--the heir to Richard II and the man who marries the daughter of Owen Glendower. This is historically inaccurate, but an easy confusion for Shakespeare to make.

Henry IV
Henry IV is Richard II's cousin. He is the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward III. Henry, as discussed above, is not clear about whether Henry only wants his lands back, or whether he thinks he has a right to the throne, since he is a grandson of Edward III rather than merely a great- grandson, as Edmund Mortimer is. In Shakespeare's Richard II, it is also possible that Richard "voluntarily" surrenders the crown to his cousin Henry. Richard is placed in Pomfret castle, where he is murdered, probably at the order of Henry. Henry is the first Lancaster king, since he inherits the title "Duke of Lancaster" from his father, John of Gaunt. The Lancasters are represented by the symbol of the red rose.

Duke of Northumberland, Worcester, and Hotspur
Worcester and the Duke of Northumberland are brothers. Hotspur is Northumberland's son. These lords of the Northern border of England, who spend lots of time and money defending England against the Scots's invasions, were instrumental in supporting Henry IV in his takeover of the crown. When Henry comes to the throne, they feel unappreciated, and also have trouble accepting as God's representative on earth a man that without their help could never have been king. In 1 Henry IV, they begin to think more about how Richard was the legitimate king, about how he had named Mortimer his heir, and about how ungrateful Henry IV is. Mortimer has lands in Wales, and therefore joins forces with Glendower, a powerful Welsh leader fighting for Welsh freedom from the English.

Henry V
Henry V inherits the crown peacefully from Henry IV--that is, once he is done monkeying around with Falstaff and his Eastcheap Tavern friends. At the end of Shakespeare's play 2 Henry IV, Hal actually rejects Falstaff in the street in what many people (including Kenneth Branagh in his film "Henry V") consider to be a gratuitously unkind gesture. That rejection begins in 1 Henry IV, when Hal gives his "I know you all" soliloquy, when Hal says that he does and will banish "fat Jack" and all the world, and when he apologizes to Henry IV and accepts a role in the fight against the rebels.

Henry V is very popular because he regains by miliary battle the lands in France that Edward III had won and had subsequently been lost. Henry not only regains French lands, but he also marries the French princess and regains the title of King of France, which Edward III had held.

Henry VI
Henry VI inherits the throne from Henry V, who dies at a young age. Henry VI is pious, but not particularly competent (at least according to later accounts of the War of the Roses). Henry marries Margaret of Anjou, an unpopular French princess, and loses the lands and titles in France that Henry V had gained. As the last Lancastrian king, he is deposed by his cousin Edward IV and is finally murdered at the Tower of London. Shakespeare depicts Richard III as Henry VI's murderer.

Edward IV
Edward IV is the first York king. The Yorks are represented by a white rose. Edward IV is descended from Edmund Langley, first Duke of York, a younger son of Edward III. Why does he think that he is entitled to the throne?

First, because he characterizes Henry VI as incompetent.
Second, because he characterizes Henry as a pawn of his French wife and her allies.
Third--and this is complicated--because his father Richard 3rd Duke of York married a woman named Anne Mortimer, who is the sister of Edmund Mortimer, Richard II's chosen heir to the throne.
Thus, Edward IV is directly descended from Edward III's fifth royal son (Edmund first Duke of York), and is related through the maternal line to Edward III's second son (Lionel Duke of Clarence). Thus Edward IV is doubly related to Edward III, and his relation to Lionel (the second son) is more legitimate than Henry VI's relation to John of Gaunt (the fourth son of Edward III).

Edward marries a bourgeois widow, has in Jane Shore a famous mistress, is generally known for his high living. Edward IV dies after surviving a brief rebellion that puts Henry VI momentarily back on the throne. After Edward's death and a battle in which the last surviving heir of the Lancasters is killed, the Yorks are firmly in power.

Richard III
After Edward IV dies, who deserves to be king? Edward has a son, one of the two royal princes who mysteriously die in the Tower of London. Edward's oldest surviving brother, George Duke of Clarence, also dies in the Tower. He is drowned in a butt of malmsey (wine). The next heir is therefore Edward IV's youngest brother Richard III, who is usually credited with all those mysterious deaths of those who stand between him and the throne. Shakespeare's Richard III contributes to this version of history, for Shakespeare, following Thomas's More's Life of Richard III, gives Richard a hump back and other undesirable traits. For a more sympathetic view of Richard, who heaven knows has been given bad press, see the web site of The Richard III Society. Richard is defeated in battle by Henry Richmond, who becomes Henry VII.

Henry VII
Henry VII is the first Tudor king. He wins the crown by defeating Richard at Bosworth field. He also has a complicated claim to the English throne. Henry Tudor is descended from John of Gaunt and his third wife, Katharine Swinford, who was previously John of Gaunt's mistress. Kathryn is the mother of a royal but initially illegitimate line of the Lancaster family known as the Beauforts. Henry VII is also descended from Owen Tudor, the second husband of Henry V's queen, so that he has two connections to the Lancasters.

Henry VII marries Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV the Yorkist king, so that Henry VII combines Lancaster (red rose) with York (white rose) into the Tudor line. The Tudor monarchs regarded themselves as therefore healing the royal split between Lancaster and York.

For further information on all of these monarchs, see Britannia's Monarchs of England.