Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims

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During the 1450S England was in a sorry state: her hundred-year war in France had ended in humiliation, law and order had broken down in the towns and shires, and at sea, pirates were everywhere so that the wool trade — which had once kept her coffers brimming — had withered to nothing. Meanwhile her king, Henry VI, was prey to bouts of madness that robbed him of his wits, and with no strong leader, his court had become riven by two factions: one led by the Queen — a strong-willed Frenchwoman named Margaret from Anjou; the other by Richard, Duke of York, and his powerful allies the Earls of Warwick and of Salisbury.

Relations between the two factions first broke down in 1455 and each summoned its men to arms. In a short sharp action in the shadow of the Abbey of St Albans in Hertfordshire, the Queen’s favourite, Edmund, second Duke of Somerset, was killed, and the Duke of York and his allies won the day.

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