1400-1485

During the fifteenth century a series of battles took place between two rival branches of the Plantagenet dynasty for control of the English throne. The House of York had a white rose as its emblem, the House of Lancaster a red rose. This civil war had been ongoing since the death of Richard II.

In 1449 Richard, Duke of York, was appointed governor of Ireland and made a great impression on the Irish and Anglo-Irish. When Richard of York challenged for the throne, Ireland supported him. Indeed Richard's son, Edward IV, triumphed over the House of Lancaster and ascended the throne in 1461, bringing Ireland and England closer once more.

In Ireland, Sir John Butler of Ormond, who supported the Lancasters, was killed in the battle of Piltown near Carrick-on-Suir by Thomas Fitzgerald, son of the Earl of Desmond. Edward IV appointed Thomas, who succeeded his father as Earl of Desmond, as governor of Ireland in 1463. However his close connections with many of the Gaelic chieftains led to suspicions about his loyalty and he was beheaded in Drogheda in 1468. This action provoked an uprising by both the Irish and the Anglo-Irish chiefs, and unable to enforce their rule without resorting to a full-scale invasion, the English had little alternative but to entrust the running of the country to the major Anglo-Irish lords. Garret Mor Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, became chief governor in 1478. Fitzgerald, whose six daughters were married into several of the most important Anglo-Irish and Gaelic families of the period, was now in a position to establish himself as the potential leader of an independent Ireland. Instead he sought to promote the cause of the House of York, the ultimate loser in the War of the Roses.

The War of the Roses ended at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The House of York fell with the death of Richard III, brother of Edward IV, the last English monarch to die on the battlefield. Henry VII of the House of Lancaster became king of England.