The Wars of the Roses, 1455-1487:

Animation and Interaction as Space/time Transformations

Sandra Lach Arlinghaus

OVERVIEW:  TIME AND SPACE


Timeline of Selected Events
Click on year links to follow annual timelines; click on other links to follow actors and events.

1455--Battle of St. Albans, Richard of York and Henry VI.  Beginning of the Wars of the Roses.

1456
1457
1458
1459--Battle of Blore Heath; Battle of Ludford Bridge
1460--Battle of Northampton; Battle of Wakefield
1461--Battle of Mortimer's Cross; Second Battle of St. Albans; Battle of Ferrybridge; Battle of Towton
1462
1463
1464--Battle of Hedgeley Moor; Battle of Hexham
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469--Battle of Edgcoat
1470--Battle of Losecoat Field
1471--Battle of Barnet; Battle of Tewkesbury
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485--Battle of Bosworth
1486
1487--Battle of Stoke Field
 
The pages above contain numerous links to important participants and to electronic references, timelines, and bibliographies.
In addition to the hundreds mounted there, the following link contains a few extra references not found elsewhere.

BATTLES OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES
HUMAN  INTERACTIONS CAUSE CHANGE

The animated map below depicts 15 battles of the Wars of the Roses.  There is not clear consensus as to how many battles there were and where, exactly they were.  Thus, locations are approximate in many cases.  Download Google Earth (free) and then download the file of rose placemarks; drive around across virtual battlefields.  The height of the placemarks represents time:  the taller the placemark the later the battle was fought.  There is a substantial amount of information associated with the Google Earth file.  The animated sequence of screenshots, below, is simply a beginning to entice the reader to participate in a fully interactive manner.

Screen capture of Google Earth file showing placemarks according to battle victory:  white rose represents a Yorkist victory, red rose represents a Lancastrian victory, and Tudor rose represents a Tudor (Henry VII, House of Lancaster) victory.  The height of the rose placemark represents the date:  earlier is lower, later is higher.

Animation of battles; follow the battle names along the left side as the rose markers enter the scene.  Temporal spacing between successive animation frames reflects temporal spacing between battles:  1 year between battles is represented by 1 second between frames.
  • Click here to see a larger, high resolution image
  • Click here to download the .kmz file for Google Earth--view rose placemarks directly in Google Earth and drive around the virtual scene; read links associated with the placemarks.

PARTICIPANTS:  GENEALOGY OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES

Applets offer visual evidence of temporal pattern. When the line segments joining adjacent rectangles are scaled according to time, additional information is transformed into a spatial format. Another interesting view of the applet is as a dynamic object that represents the stability, or lack thereof, in a system. Scramble the applet; does it settle down to a steady state? The size of the bounding box helps to determine the steadiness of the system--there are many parallels to these ideas in human systems. Move the red "start" box. Move other parts of the applet as you wish, to expose names or genealogical structure.   Notice the loop of descendants of Edward III; John of Gaunt, through John Beaufort, leads to the House of Lancaster, while Lionel, Duke of Clarence leads to the House of York.  When Elizabeth of York marries Lancastrian Henry VII (Tudor) their son, Henry VIII, combines the Yorkist and Lancastrian claims to the throne, closes the loop and structurally ends the dispute.


Click here for a link showing a technique for tracking genealogy based on powering of matrices, used in courses prior to web-based technology.

References:

Citing this site:
Copyright of the content provided on each link belongs to the creator of that site. Copyright of the information cited from magazines, newspapers and books belongs to the publisher unless it is a work in public domain. U.S. Copyright information.