Tuesday 3rd March

THE WARS OF THE ROSES

This annual schools online conference on the Wars of the Roses is provided at the request of teachers and is aimed at sixth formers who are studying a 15^th century module as part of their History A level.

Content from all three specifications is included in the conference:

AQA Component 2B: The Wars of the Roses 1450-1499

Edexcel Topic 30: Lancastrians, Yorkists and Henry VII, 1399–1509

OCR Unit 105: England 1445–1509: Lancastrians, Yorkists and Henry VII

The 2026 conference took place Tuesday 3rd March 2026.

See Report below.
Enquiries may be sent to education@richardiii.net

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Report on the 2026 Schools Conference on the Wars of the Roses

This was the fifth annual conference the Society has organised for sixth formers studying an A-Level on the 15^th century. The first conference ran online in the aftermath of COVID-19 and the model proved to be cost-effective both for schools and for the Society. The conference is self-financing from the small fee charged to schools and the modest fees offered to our distinguished speakers. This conference generated sufficient surplus to provide the prize money for the essay competition and for the annual service of this educational website.

Thirty two schools with approximately 950 students took part in this year’s conference. Feedback has been very positive on all aspects of the day: the choice of speakers, topics, technical aspects and a vibrant Question and Answer session after each speaker.

Our next educational event is the essay competition on the Life and Times of Richard with entries due by the end of May. Details are at https://www.warsoftheroses.com/essay-prize/

Selected images and quotes (in italics) from speakers’ presentations:

John Watts on Late Medieval Kingship

(‘Edward IV Roll’, 1461: https://r3.org/edwardiv-roll/#ms-lewis-e201)

The central problem in the Wars of the Roses is that kings don’t have sufficient authority and don’t govern well. They don’t get sufficient authority because they don’t govern well. Equally, they don’t govern well because they don’t have sufficient authority. So there’s a kind of circle. The first fundamental principle of the kingship system is that the king had a right to be obeyed. And the second key principle is that the king had a duty to uphold the commonweal of his subjects, especially to defend them and to judge them, to provide justice, to provide order.

Joanna Laynesmith on Margaret of Anjou

Hall’s Chronicle: 1458. … “For the open appearance, and demonstration of this godly concord, public processions were appointed, to be solemnly celebrated within the Cathedral church of Saint Paul in the city of London, on the day of the Conception of our Lady in the month of March (25 March). At which solemn feast, the King, in habit royal, and his diadem on his head, kept his estate in procession, before whom, went hand in hand, the duke of Somerset, the earl of Salisbury, the duke of Exeter, and the earl of Warwick, and so one of the one faction and another of the other sect, and behind the king the duke of York led the Queen with great familiarity in all men’s sight.”

If you look at any of the earlier accounts of this Loveday procession, none of them mentions Margaret walking hand-in-hand with York and if we hadn’t been so influenced by Hall, on reading these earlier accounts, it does appear that Margaret was walking beside Henry VI and that, I’m sure is what happened. That is the sensible thing that happened. It would have been so inappropriate to suggest that the king’s wife had been leading a faction against a leading subject, and therefore needed to partner with him in this demonstration of peace. It would just be a PR foul up at the highest degree.

Matt Lewis on Warwick

I think we ought to consider the First Battle of St Albans as being much less of a dynastic fight. The Crown wasn’t really up for grabs at St Albans. This was more like a gang showdown. You might think of it as more like a mafia hit taking place on the personal enemies of York and the Neville family.

David Grummitt on an A-Level question on Richard III

Lauren Johnson on Margaret Beaufort

The first Englishwoman to appear in print; founded TWO Cambridge colleges, and a school; translated (at least) 2 published books.

I think the A-level syllabus is still quite woefully behind the times when it comes to representation and diversity, so I think it’s absolutely fantastic that the Richard III Society, in putting together this conference, have included both Warwick, the Kingmaker, and Margaret, who I very cheekily refer to as a Kingmaker.

One of the challenges of women’s history historically has been just how much reading across you have to do to get a sense of what women were doing: the chroniclers will not be, most of the time, writing down what these women were doing. Arguably, the Tudors wouldn’t exist without her, in a very real biological function, they wouldn’t, and also politically, it’s quite possible they wouldn’t.

Sean Cunningham on Yorkist Rebellions against Henry VII

At the Battle of Bosworth, his victory was a real shock. He wasn’t expected to have any chance of resisting Richard III’s much bigger army, and it was the Stanleys and their decision to intervene that really caused enough confusion in the battle to allow Richard to be overpowered.

Spies and gossip in Calais 1504. The National Archives , SC 1/58/57

James Ross on Lancastrian weaknesses in 1471

What faced Edward was a very temporary, uneasy, fractured alliance, rather than a coherent whole. Edward is fortunate that his enemies are not able to coordinate their military activities and Edward actually gets to fight them one by one. Henry VI himself is a feeble, perhaps even pathetic figure who cannot unite his factions.

>14 April, Barnet ‘In the morning was a terrible conflict in which various nobles fell on both sides. Amongst those who favoured King Henry’s part two famous lords, Richard, earl of Warwick, and John, Marquis of Montagu, lay dead. Amongst those of this party who got away from the field alive were to be found Henry Holland, duke of Exeter, and John Vere, earl of Oxford…

>4 May, Tewkesbury ‘In the end King Edward gained a famous victory while of the queen’s forces, either on the battlefield or afterwards at the avenging hands of certain persons, there were killed Prince Edward himself, King Henry’s only son, the duke of Somerset, the earl of Devon…Queen Margaret was captured and kept in security

(Crowland Chronicle, ed. Pronay and Cox, pp. 125, 127)

>14 May and following, London [Thomas Neville, Warwick’s cousin], the Bastard of Fauconberg raised a great people of Kent and of shipmen; and to them drew many people of Essex, and so came to London and mustered in St. George’s field. And the captain sent to the mayor that he might with his people come through the city and so towards Tewkesbury to have aided Queen Margaret…’

(Chronicles of London, ed. C.L. Kingsford (1905), p. 185)

Hannes Kleineke on Yorkist strengths in 1471

Edward gets off [his horse]. He effectively fights side by side, with his common soldiers. And in that, he does establish a contrast with the figure of Henry VI who, as James has told us, has to be led, which I don’t think we can underestimate.

Voting by individual pupils gave a narrow victory to Hannes Kleinke.

The conference ended with an enthusiastic and engaging case for studying History at university by Helen Cowie of York University

Iain Farrell

Education Officer

The Richard III Society

Feedback from Teachers:

Thank you – my students and I really enjoyed the conference and got a lot out of it. 

It ran very smoothly and reliably, and the content was just right for my Y12s.

Many thanks for the conference today, my students really enjoyed it.

Thanks for a super day Iain and all involved. Glad to see that York triumphed in the poll (though to be fair it was a win win….)

We had connection problems for the John Watts talk at the start so we missed most of it – but that was a weird gremlin at our end. That apart, students were very positive.

What a great programme and super resources – thank you. Thank you so much for your organisation of this day. Thanks for all the engaging presentations!

It was excellent – very well received by the student body.

Thank you to all of the speakers and for all of the sessions.

Schools Attending the 2025 Conference

Abbeyfield School

All Hallows Catholic College

Ashby School

Beaumont School

Blessed William Howard Catholic High School

Brighton College

Francis Holland School, Regents’ Park

Garforth Academy

Gresham’s School

Haslingden High School and Sixth Form

Hereford Sixth Form College

Herne Bay High School

Highdown School and Sixth Form Centre

Holy Trinity Academy, Telford

Hundred of Hoo Academy

Hymers College

Kesteven & Sleaford High School

King James’s School, Knaresborough

The King’s School Canterbury

Loughborough Schools Foundation

Mary Hare School

Newport Girls High School

Peter Symonds College

Prior Park College

Sexey’s School

St. George’s Academy, Sleaford

Stanborough School, Welwyn Garden City

Tavistock College

The Castle School

The Nelson Thomlinson School

Ursuline College, Kent

Walton High, Milton Keynes

Westcliff High School for Girls

Westminster School

Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear

Wigston College, Leics.

Wymondham High Academy Trust,  Norfolk

York College