Jack Cade to the 1st Battle of St Albans

(Good God, this War of the Roses arc has been spread out long enough for even me to lose interest. Whatev.)

Oh yes, we was just going over what happened to that poor bitch ass Suffolk. Grisly deaths were much more common around then, and a surprising amount of them occur within this period of English history. People were savages back then, ruthless. The image somewhat below is the Falcon and Fetterlock, the badge of House York. Just thought you'd like to know what those Yorkist's bowed down to while they slaughtered those Lancastrians. And while we're on the matter of badges...York's were the white roses and Lancasters were the red roses, although, I don't believe the Lancasters adopted the Red Rose as a badge until long after the wars were over. But if you didn't know that you are one whack ass bitch.

Suffolk's death really didn't change a whole lot, the only thing it changed was Margaret of Anjou. After he was killed she cried a lot more than she usually did. It was a lot of crying. Lots of tears. They flowed like the goddamn river Nile and she probably would have made that analogy herself, if she had any goddamn clue as to what the Nile was, uneducated wench.

This is Greg Baker's number! 265-7&28. He hella knows about the War of the Roses and even looks like muthafuckin Jack Cade when the sun shines down on him a certain way.

But as I was saying you goddamn Harpy, the usurping Lancastrian government had lost all semblance of credibility but it was also bankrupt. The English people had to take care of their own, as was then limey custom. Things were bad in France as well, they were losing land at an alarming rate, the Frogs had reclaimed huge amounts of their rightful territory. Things were bad in Wales too and those Welsh fools always are ready to fuck shit up when it comes to the white(er) man oppressor.

Some angry citizens from Kent got it in their minds to march on London to decry the government. They were led by Jack Cade, who publicly declared that the Queen meant to avenge her lover, Suffolk. This was how Cade's Rebellion began. Don't be thinking it was a bunch of raggedy assed peasants with pitchforks and shit...Nah. It was a well organized movement of what passed for the middle class (and raggedy assed peasants as well I be guessing) that actually posed a threat to the crooked government and made them shit their pants being worried. Among the men they wanted to bring to justice were William Crowmer the Sherrif of Kent, Lord Say who was the ruthless and greedy Treasurer of England, Thomas Daniel, John Trevelyan, and William Booth. Buncha assholes if you ask me, and I know you are.

My number one nigga Jack Cade published a manifesto describing the grievances the people felt under the oppressive rule of the Lancasters. There was a detailed plan on how to right the wrongs, including giving back all the land he had taken away, dismissing Suffolk's supporters, and bringing the killers of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester to justice.

Cade (with nicknames as varied as Doctor Aylmer, John Amend-All, and John Mortimer) and his band of Kentish rebels (many of who were middle class merchants and tradesman) marched on London, forcing King Henry to run like a little girl with a skinned knee (that is to say, hobbling away while crying).

When they got to London everyone involved seemed to forget about reforming the government and all that bullshit, which seemed to take a backseat to pillaging and looting and ransacking. The rebels surrounded the Tower and demanded the greedy treasurer Lord Say be released to them. They gave the man a trial (not much of one though) and had him executed quickly, cutting off his greedy little head, putting it on a pike and parading around the city. The Sherrif of Kent met a similar fate. Bastards done deserve what they got.

At this point my man Cade's power was slipping away like a whore's promises. His followers were split into two main factions, the looters and the reformers, and the reformers were "appalled" at the way Cade himself was handling the situation. London folk eventually got up and did something about these Kentish rebels and after an intense battle on London Bridge, the men of Cade's rebellion fled the scene of chaos they had created. Damn! Ain't history tight as hell?

A ton of Cade's top homeys were caught. That picture up there shows "The Harvest of Heads". Those heads belonged to the men who supported Jack Cade. Cade himself fled to Heathfield. The new Sherrif of Kent, Alexander Iden, intercepted him there and a fierce battle ensued. Alexander (what a cool name!) mortally wounded Cade and pretty much ended his self styled rebellion then and there. Nothing really got accomplished, except now there was a better understanding of what the people were going through, and the lengths they would go to change it. Cade had not been the man chosen to lead the real rebellion, that honor could only be bestowed upon Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York.

King Henry convinced himself that York did have something to do with the rebellion, which was tomfoolery, since York was in Ireland at the time, under the command of the Crown. In order to keep him out of their affairs, the council had made him Lieutenant of Ireland, almost a kind of exile, except with a title. Those bastards and their interfering. They should have been nicer to the Duke of York, cause the muthafucking Duke of York remembers slights done to him.

Things weren't going too well in France either. Somerset was an incompetent wretch and him accidentally falling out of a tower and landing on a spike probably would have been best for his country. But that didn't happen. So he comforted himself with an an existance that entailed constantly being defeated by the French and constantly letting more and more land slip out from England's fingertips.

York had decided he had had enough of Somerset's failures and sailed back to England in a lather to denounce his rival and bring to light his constant failures. In 1452 he had gathered a large group of people with weapons and shit like that, marching straight toward London. In a rare show of leadership, Wimpy King Henry also raised a force of men and met the Duke. The two armies faced each other, neither daring to advance. After a tense afternoon, the king and the duke met at parley. York demanded that Somerset be dismissed saying and I quote, "Dude, King Henry, the guy who's the Captain of Calais should give the 'don't fuck with me or I'll fucking kill you' impression, not the 'please fuck with me, I want you to' impression. So you best dismiss Somerset, he be bullshit!"

York didn't want to fight. He was still loyal to the king after all. It was just a show of force, not an act of treason or anything bad like that. both armies were more or less the same size, ranging in the lower quartile of the 20,000's range. A lot of the King's advisors saw the logic in York's protests. York was ordered to return his allegiance to the throne, but only on one condition. That the little bitch ass motherfucker known as the Duke of Somerset be arrested. Cardinal Kempe was given the unfortunate job of keeping the queen busy while Henry reluctantly agreed to the arrest o Somerset.

York saw this as a victory and told that a warrant had been placed on Somerset he was obliged to keep up his part of the bargain, namely dismissing the army he had called together. Reluctantly he dropped his panoply of flesh and let them dissipate. The royal army also fell apart and made it's way to Blackheath.

The following morning the Queen (little she bitch) saw her favorite man Somerset being hauled away by guards. When she demanded to know just what the fuck was going on, the Duke told her, most likely in a whiny girl voice. She was outraged, as is a bitch's custom, and ordered the guards to release him. She grabbed her buddy the Duke and marched to find Henry sitting around, twiddling his thumbs in the royal tent. He was probably praying or something. He liked to pray he did.His wife however, liked to prey. It goes without saying that she bought Somerset along with her. The king and the queen then got into an argument of some kind, much to the discomfort of Somerset, and to the man who would arrive very soon after.

Things got very interesting when the Duke of York showed up a little bit later with about 40 men. Even though he didn't really enjoy seeing Somerset or the queen, he forced himself to bow. Seeing as how he was basically in the hands of his worst enemies, the duke became a prisoner, though nobody dared to call it that. I'm sure that the damn bitch loved every second of it.

York was then forced to the front of the column on the way to London. Then they forced him to take an oath saying that he had always been loyal to the king, and would continue to stay loyal to him for the rest of his days on this green earth. He was then free to go. I always wondered why he was allowed to just up and walk away. If I was Margaret of Anjou I would have put an end to the Duke of York right then and there. However word spread that the Duke's oldest son, Edward, the Earl of March and future King of England had gathered a force of 11,000 mean suckers and was marching on London. If the Council had known Edward was still a young boy they probably would have not been so willing to let him go. After failing at making an impact, the Duke of York lost support. Henry was enjoying some popularity due to the mighty warrior Talbot, who was decimating the French with the greatest English victories over the Frogs since Agincourt.

The king's half brothers also enjoyed a spew of popularity. Edmund and Jasper Tudor shared the same mother as Henry VI, and Henry had always looked upon them favorably. Edmund was the older one but he wasn't nearly as cool as his little bro. Jasper was the epitome of bombdiggity, and though he was a staunch Lancastrian his whole life, it is hard not to value his bravery, resourcefulness, and noble character. He was styled the Earl of Pembroke, while his brother was given the title Earl of Richmond.

After a fluke of things actually going well under the horrible Lancastrian regime things took a turn for the shitty. In the north the two most powerful families of the land-the Nevilles and Percies- had escalated their bloody feud. Across the sea (damn good Weezer song-bitch!) the slew of victories enacted by the hero Talbot were undone after Talbot went and got himself ambushed and killed. The French hacked him to pieces as well, therefore showing that in times of desperate measures, the French can do something cool.

The English armies sailed home without their leader, and without reconquering France. This was in effect the end of the Hundred Years War. All England had left of France was Calais. And that didn't sit to well with many folks. However that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that God woke up and said, "What a horrible dream..." and everything vanished in a puff of smoke...Actually...

...Henry VI had gone bonkers.. It came from his mother's side. His Frenchy grandfather had been known as the Mad King of France. Though Henry's madness wasn't nearly as cool as the Charles VI's (c'mon, he thought he was glass for god's sakes!) it did render him completely useless, as opposed to his normal state of mostly useless. His was left witless and confused and it became Margaret's duty to run the kingdom, even though she was seven months pregnant at the time. Damn woman! Can't you sew or cook or something like your supposed to? She tried to keep the king's madness a secret, but c'mon, who's not going to hear about the king being suddenly fucking insane? Are you daft woman? That's news. And people talk. Since the Queen was a foreigner and had little sense of the nations prejudices and politics she did a good number of silly things, alienating her even more from the common man. Man, I hope my ho doesn't alienate my subjects and bring ruin to my kingdom when I'm older!

On October 13th, 1453 Margaret finally gave birth to the heir to the Lancastrian throne, a crazy ass cracker called Edward. He was named after such overrated nobility as Edward the Confessor and Edward the Black Prince. I'd just like to interject that exactly a year and eleven days earlier another child had been born. His mother was Cecily Neville, and his name was Richard, later the Duke of Gloucester, later the unlikely King of England. Edward, the Prince of Wales had nothing on Richard, who was the Prince Of Tightness.

It is important to note that King Henry could not declare his own son legitimate because he was still wallowing in the pits of madness. To quote the parlance of our times, "What a suckers."

A regent had to be picked to ensure the safety of the country. After all, its leaders were an insane at worst weak and pious at best king, a she wolf from France with a hunger, the crooked court party headed by Somerset, and a child still sucking on the French teat. The regent was declared to be Richard, the Duke of York, for once not looked over by his peers. For a brief period he ruled the country firmly and fairly. He was grateful to his supporters and cordial with his enemies. What a champ he was!

He was supported staunchly by two very powerful magnates who would play prominently in coming events, Richard Neville who was the Earl of Salisbury (and the brother of York's wife), and his powerful and charismatic son, also named Richard (too many damn Richards!), Earl of Warwick, known later as the Kingmaker. Two other Nevilles are fairly prominent as well, John the Marquess of Montagu and George, who would eventually claim the title of Archbishop of York. However Warwick was certainly the most influential of the Nevilles, and the people loved him. Thanks to shrewd political maneuvering and wise marriage contracts, he had amassed a tremendous amount of land, becoming one of the wealthiest landowners in England.

York did his duties as Protector of the Realm and did what he could to destroy the corruption in the government. It couldn't last forever though, and on Christmas Day 1454 the heretofore crazy king snapped out of it and became himself again, shedding the skin of madness. He didn't have any memory of the seventeen months he had been cuckoo, but that was all well and good. The king was back and even though he was nearly useless anyway the people gave a heartfelt smile since he was such a nice guy.

In February the King dismissed York from his post and dissolved Parliament. York was not the only man in his party forced from power, the head of the Neville Clan (the patriarch at least) Salisbury was dismissed from the office of Chancellor. The Queen made sure that Somerset was also freed from the tower. When he was released he was found crying like a little girl and singing stupid songs about girls. Anyone that had not left with York and had benefited from Somerset's imprisonment were punished accordingly. Within a few months Yorkist power in the capital were stifled, and the Lancasters had once again gained their power. Men like Northumberland and Clifford swore their allegiance to the Lancastrian cause. Many of the Nevilles through blood ties were also obliged to stay loyal to the Lancasters, but others stayed in the York camp, leading the family into their own little civil war.

Around Easter my number one nigga York and Somerset were once again at one another's throats. These weren't just words though. The arguments these two men had inadvertently led to military action and to their own destruction as well. Somerset had begun seriously urging the king to destroy York once and for all, to put an end to whatever ambitions the man had. Clearly Somerset held some sort of resentment for being imprisoned in the Tower. Well I would too I guess. Still, he's a little bitch and deserved what he got. Warwicks's spies brought some information regarding a secret meeting at Westminster headed by Somerset, a meeting only to be attended by men that had great power and influence and also Lancastrians.

York and the older Neville, Salisbury (his brother in law) began mustering an army at the heeding of Warwick. Around the time of this muster York, Salisbury, and Warwick wrote a letter to the king confessing their loyalty to him and to the throne he sat, but the letter was intercepted by the henchmen of Somerset or the Queen, and the King never got a chance to see how loyal the rebels really were. Yes...Loyal rebels. Aren't we all just loyal rebels at heart. Nevermind. Read on. Or I'll bury you.

The Queen was convinced that York was trying to press his superior claim to the throne but at this point it's fairly obvious this was the farthest thing from York's mind. He wanted to save the King from the whispering of a crooked council, not to violently usurp the throne. Margaret however, was convinced otherwise and she gathered an army of her own and they set out to meet the Yorkist army for the first battle of the Wars of the Roses. Thanks for being really fucking stupid Margaret! So you've got more spine than the average GIRL you still pretty much triggered this who goddamn mess!

The two armies finally came face to face at the town of St.Albans. There was a
familiar feeling in the air. This time however there was no parley and the armies were not simply dismissed. This time the outcome would be decided by the blood of the common man, and the iron he found in his veins and the steel of his spine. Or some shit like that, I don't remember, I lost my book of reference.

The Lancaster army was led by the Duke of Buckingham (bastard) and by Lord Clifford (damn bastard), who commanded the vanguard. The Yorkist army was divided into three divisions, led by York, Salisbury, and Warwick. York's young son Edward accompanied him on this campaign. War would become a part of his young adult life. His adult life was mostly eating food and having sex with lots of women. But we'll get to that!

Henry said "NO NO NO!" to all of the Duke's demands for reform so he knew what he had to do. He had to be a stone cold hard warrior and show them he fucking meant business. This was it. The moment that was indirectly set off by Edward III's powerful and plentiful sperm. Richard Plantagenet, the Duke of York, gave the order and the fighting began.

York and Salisbury began by many quick attacks on various streets of St Albans. The smaller Lancastrian army made barricades (i must say, what the hell else could they have done? They are a bunch of weenies compared to the average Yorkist fighting man!) around St Albans and held off the larger Yorkist army for an hour. I'm shocked they lasted that long, bunch of cravens that they are. Warwick led his men around the barricades and down the back streets of the town and cut the Lancasters to pieces from behind.

As soon as they were in the barricades the superior numbers of the Yorkist force worked like a charm. Translation: THEY WHIPPED LANCASTRIAN ASS. Warwick had given his archers orders to "kill any motherfucker near the king" and quite a few of the kings personal motherfucking guards met their end at the tip of the arrow.

Henry VI himself was wounded in the neck by an arrow. Buckingham received quite a few wounds as well. His son was wounded so badly he died some time later. I weep for the young Buckingham. No, I don't. But I guess I'm supposed to be objective or something dumb like that. Somerset's heir, the Earl of Dorset was wounded so badly he couldn't even walk (sucker! That'll teach you to have a dad who's a piece of crap!). Warwick's great enemy Northumberland was killed as well, and Lord Clifford, who's son would outlive him and strive for revenge for his killed father. Bloody Clifford, as the son was later called, eventually got his revenge.

The most notable (and best!) casualty of the event was Somerset himself. Finding some courage the wussy we love to hate was in the middle of some totally awesome i hand to hand combat in front of an Inn. He stopped for a second to reflect on something a soothsayer had once said to him (cause that's what I'd do if I was in the middle of defending my life...un-fucking-believable) and his opponent, obviously no dunce when it came to the rules of killing idiots impaled his muthafuckin heart, possibly eating it afterwards. No, I jest. His heir, the Earl of Dorset now received the title of Duke of Somerset, and like Bloody Clifford, would strive for revenge over his father. The new Somerset was only 19 years old.

The victory at St Albans was da best thing that coulda happened to my man York. With Somerset suddenly transformed into wormfood the Queen had lost her chief supporter. The King himself had been captured and even in captivity York still showed a loyalty to the saintly Henry VI, saying that he had never betrayed him. Henry VI must have bought this, but this badass would think arming yourself and fighting AGAINST HIM ON A FIELD OF BATTLE constitutes betrayal. But hey, people were dumber then. They didn't have things like the internet and porn.

After the rumble there was a long and uneasy pause in the fighting. Many could not believe that the tensions had escalated enough for an actual battle. It pissed a lot of people off that they had to resort to that kind of shit instead of solving problems over a cup of hot English tea. A lot of the dudes who had fought at St Albans made attempts to work out their personal differences. The King himself, a great lover of being naive and stupid, declared "Loveday", a day where Yorkists and Lancastrians could put aside their differences and become friends and brothers once again. The Queen was not going to give an inch though. Damn broad always did have too much pride for her own good. She was determined to see York burn . She would never forgive him for the death of Somerset, who had been the last of her old favorites (the others being Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Suffolk of course). So the bitch pinned all her hopes on his young son.

The fellows who had supported York were reaping the benefits of the winning side, none more son than the Nevilles, and none more so than the most famous and influential Neville, Warwick the muthafuckin Kingmaker. Warwick was appointed Captain of Calais, the last bastion of English influence in the pitiful country known as France.

York himself became the Constable of England and was probably knee deep in ho's. It was a pretty sweet deal.

Yes, things was looking good for the good Duke and his allies. But it wouldn't last. Bitch.