“Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluch a red rose from off this thorn with me.”

A little later on the Earl of Warwick rejoins: 

                       “This brawl to-day,

Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night."[4]

[1] Table showing the descendants of Edward III, with reference to the claims of Lancaster and York to the crown: 

Edward III
|
----------------------------------------------------
|                          |                       |
Lionel, Duke of     John of Gaunt, Duke of        Edmund, Duke of
Clarence (3d son)      Lancaster (4th son)          York (5th son)
|                      -----------------           |
Philippa                  |               |     Richard, Earl of
|                  Henry IV    +John, Earl   Cambridge, m.
--------------            |       of Somerset   Anne Mortimer
|            |        Henry V             |
Edmund    Anne Mortimer     |             ---------------
Mortimer  m.  Richard,   Prince Edward,    |             |
(Earl of  Earl of       b. 1453; killed  John,       Edmund,
March)    Cambridge (s.   at battle of  Duke of      Duke of
d. 1424   of Edmund,      Tewkesbury,   Somerset,    Somerset
Duke of York)     1471        d. 1448
|
Richard, Duke
of York
|
Edward IV (1461-1483)

Inherited the title of Duke of York from his father’s brother, Edward, Duke of York, who died without issue.  Richard’ father, the Earl of Cambridge, had forfeited his title and estates by treason, but Parliament had so far limited the sentence that his son was not thereby debarred from inheriting his uncle’s rank and fortune.  Richard, Duke of York, now represented the direct hereditary line of succession to the crown, while Henry VI and his son represented that established by Parliament through the acceptance of Henry IV (S279). +John, Earl of Somerset, was an illegitimate half brother of Henry IV’s, but was, in 1397, declared legitimate by act of Parliament and a papal decree.

[2] Shakespeare’s “Henry VI,” Part I, Act II, scene iv. [3] John, Duke of Somerset, died 1448.  He was brother of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, who was slain at St. Albans, 1455. [4] Shakespeare’s “Henry VI,” Part I, Act II, scene iv.

301.  The Real Object of the Wars of the Roses.

The wars, however, did not directly originate in this quarrel, but rather in the strife for power between Edmund, Duke of Somerset (John’s brother), and Richard, Duke of York.  Each desired to get the control of the government, though at first neither appears to have openly aimed at the crown.

During King Henry’s attack of insanity (1453) Richard was appointed Protector of the realm, and shortly afterward the Duke of Somerset, the King’s particular favorite and chief adviser, was cast into prison on the double charge of having culpably lost Normandy and embezzled public moneys.