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1 Henry IV is set around 1402 (the final scene features the Battle of Shrewsbury which took place in 1403). Although the War of the Roses, a series of dynastic civil wars in England, did not begin until 1455, there were definite signs of this impending conflict around the time this play was set.
Problems began in 1377 with the death of Edward III, who had seven sons. In 14th century England, the crown was passed from father to first son, to second son, and so on. Edward’s oldest son, Edward, the Black Prince, was set to inherit the throne but he died a year before his father, and so his son, Richard, aged 10, became king in 1377 as legitimacy decreed that none of the King’s younger sons could inherit until the line of the oldest was extinct. Unfortunately, the young King Richard II was unable to demonstrate real leadership or ability and later in his reign managed to alienate both his family and the nobility.
Inevitable disaster struck in 1399, when his powerful cousin, Henry of Lancaster (Bolingbroke, later Henry IV) mounted a successful coup and seized the crown. For the next few decades Henry’s heirs, known as the house of Lancaster, ruled England in relative peace, until the early 1450s when Richard, Duke of York, a descendant of Edward III, started making trouble. Against the wishes of powerful nobles, Richard claimed his right to take the throne from a weak and childless king (Henry VI). The opening battle of the War of the Roses took place on May 22, 1455 at the fortified town of St. Albans. In the conflict that followed Richard, and the supporters became known as ‘the Yorkists,’ while King Henry VI and his supporters would be known as the ‘Lancastrians.’
The name “Wars of the Roses” is not thought to have been used during the time of the conflict but has its origins in the badges associated with the two royal houses, the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York. The term came into common use in the nineteenth century, after the publication of Anne of Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott. The concept of identifying families with a specific color appears in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI where the opposing sides pick their different-colored roses at the Temple Hall garden.
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