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| 1420 |
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| Henry's great victory over vastly superior forces opened the way to the Treaty of Troyes (See 1420). | 1 |
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| 1422–61 |
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| Henry VI (age nine months on his accession) acclaimed king of France; his uncle, the duke of Gloucester, regent (under the council) in England; another uncle, the duke of Bedford, regent in France. | 2 |
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| 1428–29 |
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| English failure at Orléans; coronation of Charles VII at Reims (1429). | 3 |
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| 1431 |
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| The English burned Joan of Arc (See 1430) at Rouen and crowned Henry VI king of France in Paris. Steady advance of Charles VII; unpopularity of the war in England; parliamentary resistance to grants; loss of the Burgundian alliance (1435) and of Paris (1436). | 4 |
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| 1436–37 |
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| Richard, duke of York (heir to throne), regent in France. He was replaced, after a few successes, by the earl of Warwick (1437–39) but later returned to France (1440–43). Continued rivalry of Beaufort and Gloucester. | 5 |
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| 1442 |
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| French conquest of Gascony except Bordeaux and Bayonne. | 6 |
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| 1448–51 |
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| The French reconquest of Maine (1448), Normandy (1450), and Bordeaux and Bayonne (1451) left only Calais in English hands at the end of the Hundred Years' War. | 7 |
| Domestic disorders. Henry, declared of age (1437), was unfit to rule; the council continued in power, and factions and favorites encouraged the rise of disorder. The nobles, enriched by the war and the new progress in sheep farming with enclosures, maintained increasing numbers of private armed retainers (livery and maintenance) with which they fought one another, terrorized their neighbors, paralyzed the courts, and dominated the government. | 8 |
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| 1450 |
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| Cade's rebellion: a revolt of perhaps 30,000 men of Kent and Sussex, including many respectable small landowners, who marched on London to demand reform in government and the restoration of the duke of York to power. Admitted to London, the marchers were finally crushed after they resorted to violence. Richard of York was regent during Henry's periods of insanity (1453–54; 1455–56), but on his recovery (1454) Somerset returned to power. | 9 |
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| 1455–85 |
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| The Wars of the Roses. A dreary civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York (the Yorkists wearing a white rose, the Lancastrians (later) a red rose). The nation as such took little part. Battle of St. Albans (1455): Somerset defeated and killed. Battle of Northampton (1460): the Yorkists defeated the royal army and took Henry prisoner. York asserted his hereditary claim to the throne, and the lords decided that he should succeed Henry on his death (excluding Henry's son, Edward). Richard's son Edward (age 19) defeated the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross (1461), but was defeated at the second battle of St. Albans (1461). London admitted Edward to the town, and after his victory at Towton, acclaimed him king (1461). | 10 |
| Under the Lancastrians, Parliament forced a reversal of the Haxey judgment (1399), asserting a right to freedom of speech in debate. Opposition to packing began to develop, and a statute was passed defining the franchise for elections (1430); this statute was in force until the great reform bill of 1832. | 11 |
| Under Henry VI the aristocratic council ruled and dominated Parliament; finally the chaos of the Wars of the Roses saw the temporary eclipse of ordered government. | 12 |
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| 1461–85 |
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| The House of York. | 13 |
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| 1461–83 |
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| EDWARD IV. Parliament declared the three Lancastrian kings usurpers and Henry VI, his wife, son, and chief adherents, traitors. Edward closed the session with a speech of thanks to the Commons, the first time an English king had addressed that body. The mass of Englishmen now wanted a monarch to keep order and to allow them to attend to trade, industry, and agriculture. Civil war continued intermittently, and Henry VI was finally captured (1465) and put in the Tower. Edward's marriage to the commoner Elizabeth Woodville, and the beginnings of the creation of a new nobility, angered the older nobles. Edward now increasingly unpopular (1469–70). | 14 |
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| 1471 |
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| Edward's victory at Barnet (1471), where Warwick was killed. Henry VI died (in all probability, was murdered) in the Tower. | 15 |
| After the death of Henry VI, Edward faced no serious internal threat. Parliament denied him adequate support for war against Louis XI, and, in any case, when Edward invaded France in 1475, he was bought off without fighting. Thereafter he concentrated on domestic affairs: he reorganized revenues from crown lands (greatly expanded by the addition of the Yorkist estates); began the practice of taking benevolences, theoretically free gifts but actually forced; supported the wool trade and benefited from the increased customs duties. His resulting wealth, combined with a peaceful foreign policy, made him independent of Parliament. These policies served as precedents for later Tudor government. | 16 |
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