There were many family feuds between nobility, however the biggest was between the Neville family and the Percy family. The Nevilles were Yorkist supporters and the Percies were Lancastrian supporters so they were obvious rivals being from two powerful families. However their feud was about land. Both families wanted control over the northern lands, and there were border disputes over ownership. The two noble families tried to fight it out, however, towards the end of the ongoing ‘war’, the Earl of Salisbury, Richard Neville, was captured and executed by the Lancastrians in 1460.
At the first battle of St. Albans, Somerset was killed by York’s men, and Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Northumberland (Percy) were also killed in battle. This made the war between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians worse as both sides wanted revenge. In 1458, the king demanded all feuding families to parade through the streets linking arms as a way of saying to the people that they were no longer at war in a ‘Loveday’. However this reveals how desperate the king was to maintain order and how worried he was about feuds potentially destroying his kingdom.
Henry VI had a problem. He gave out land, titles and money to his ‘favourites’ within the court which made others jealous, but Henry did this so much that he went bankrupt very quickly and proved rather unpopular with some high nobility. This created factions at court and individuals began to start personal feuds: Somerset and York, Somerset and Warwick (Richard Neville, Salisbury’s son) and Suffolk and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. Somerset and Suffolk wanted peace alongside the king, however, York, Warwick and Gloucester wanted to continue fighting against France. Henry lacked political skill to solve his problems and mismanaged his money and his nobility.
The failure of Foreign policy in France was a major blow to the nobility and to Henry’s mental state. The three main losses in France were: the secret surrender of Maine in 1448, the loss of Normandy in 1450 and the final blow, the loss of Gascony in 1453. When the king heard of the loss of Gascony, he lost his mind and went into a catatonic schizophrenic state where he could not talk or move for 18 months. As one historian described him ‘he was a useless vegetable...’ After he recovered, he was never quite the same, falling into occasional relapses. During that period of time Margaret of Anjou, Henry’s wife, had a son and began to take on the role of a very strong Queen who ordered the English nobility into battle against many. This was a crisis for England and as a result of all of this Warwick and York drew closer together to oppose the Queen and Somerset. There were rumours spreading about Henry’s son, Edward, the rumours being that in fact the baby boy was not Henry’s but Somerset’s instead as the Queen and Somerset had been working very closely together whilst Henry was in an unfit state. The nobles suspected they were attempting to place their ‘illegitimate’ son on the throne of England, making Somerset the most powerful man in England.
After much tension building in both the Yorkists and Lancastrians due to blood being spilt and victories on either side, they fought the first battle at St. Albans in March 1455. The king did not fight for his side; he was supposedly sitting under a tree laughing away, watching the battle unfold.
In conclusion to all the evidence gathered, the English nobility were mainly responsible for the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses and the fall of the House of Lancaster because of their manipulation of the king, their personal feuds and the battles of revenge for blood lost. However, king Henry VI also played a part in this outbreak because of his ‘addiction’ for royal patronage, having favourites within the court, failing in the war against France (losing all the land gained previously) and his insanity which led to his Queen leading the country.
