Epos Propagandum (part 4)

This was the time for treachery on a high level

So who was for real could be hard to tell

There were imposters whom I shall describe

Who feigning a heritage their real birth-lines hide

Let's talk of one King Sigismund of Luxemberg

Who was other than said his silvern words

It was he who first assumed the line

In 1408 he announced his family was entwined

With the Royal House of Anjou

Of course it was not true

But he said it was his

And founded the Societas Draconis

Falsly claiming direct British Elven Descent

Can you see what this meant?

Now if you thought that was phony

What about his vampire cronie?

Vlad Draculae or Basarrab

Was invited to the club

To him the descent also wrongly dubbed

Was to the Egyptian Sobek crocodile cult

The power base was thus affirmed

It looked the same but was upturned

They determined the route for Kings to take

That left blood and deception in it’s wake

Stole the robe that denotes the descent

Not at all what the true line meant

To promulgate about the world

This fraud a new banner unfurled

Proclaiming persecution for the fey

And anyone else who doesn’t pay

A clear departure from the way

Intended by the original crew

Of course none of this was that new

Persecutions were rife against those of true knowing

Like the Cathars and the Templars who kept it going

Such knowledge these families held deep in life

Was the reason for their much and arduous strife

Yet falsehood is another gambit than this

What seems like love is a poisonous kiss

Lacking soul but looks the part

Wears the suit but has no heart

Detesting life they suck you dry

You cannot live you cannot die

HUNDRED YEARS WAR p118

The Hundred Years war game had been raging

Since 1337 between England and France campaigning

For the terratory of Aquitaine

Plus Edward had a French throne to claim

Using innovative and deadly new technology

Of the Longbow that skewered horribly

Agincourt was won and Crecy and Poitiers

By the English though it didn’t stay that way

After many a naval skirmish in the channel

Many a raid and siege and battle

Joan d’Arc at just seventeen

Rallied the French and at the siege of Orleans

Turns the tide of the English invasions

She acted from divine persuasions

Visions told her to take her French homeland

Back from dominating English hands

And from that point, though she died at nineteen

Bit by bit the English did leave

Later she was captured at Compiegne

And was used in a political smear campaign

To undermine the French King by association

In a fix-up trial for heresy against the papal persuasion

They burnt her at the stake

And burnt her again to make no mistake

Causing the executioner to fear being damned

Geoffroy Therage felt he’d killed a holy woman

Under Henry the Sixth

England’s French grip truly slipped

Twenty five years from Orleans

Save for Calais the English were gone

Called the Hundred Years War by history

This sequence of wars ended in 1453

A couple of years on and it’s the Wars of the Roses

Where were all the faeries one supposes?

p.119

WARS OF THE ROSES ACCORDING TO SHAKESPEARE

1455 to 1485 was the English silly season for usurping

Drawing to an end the line of Plantagenet Kings

Two sides of a family fighting it out for succession

It wasn’t like this when the Tuatha were in session!

They were mad for it to rule the land

With power of military command

This form of sucession was not always so

As my little bardery has tried to show

Long before it was by female consent

That determined how it went

Not this game of eldest son

So relatively recent begun

Shakespeare dubbed it the Wars of the Roses

And it only goes to show

How a family divided all England to uncivil war

All to sort out their claim line, I ask what for?!?

It’s my own perogative and my propagandum too

To muse on alternative ways to rule

Richard the Second

May or may not have got to heaven

But I hear his court was a riot

He didn’t try to keep the satirists quiet

Lampooning was allowed

In fact spoken out loud

As part of the Royal amusements

In quite some profusement

Geoffrey Chaucer

Our father of literature

Had great daring if you read him

And consider what he put in

To some of his witticisms

Church and state criticisms

Like the Friars who live up Satan’s arse

Numerous as swarming bees what class

To know these things Geoff was well qualified

For many court offices he had occupied

This accepting mood was not to last

Under Bolingbrooke it had to exit fast

What happened to Chaucer noone knows

No records of death with could just show

He was done in secretly because of his position

His insightful stories seen as sedition

So it was war and more war

One ends another is an open door

That was chosen to step through

Rights to rule to proove

The power hungry drool

War is the perfect tool

For taking what is not yours

A King authenticates the cause

Surely the case here adopted

But Boling brooke was not popular

He became Henry the Fourth

And was tolerated because

Richard 2 had been so disliked

(In spite of his Court which sounded nice)

Henry 4 was John Gaunt’s son the 3rd son of Edward 3

But his name was not the first up on the family tree

It should have been descendants of Lionel of Antwerp Edward the Thirds’s 2nd son ,

Richard had said that they were the ones

Who through progeniture should have put the crown on

Roger Mortimer, Lionel’s grandson that Richard had named while he still lived

Was as in Plantagenet lineage their heir presumptive

But Bolingbrooke saw not like this

And violently made it his

Being no heir apparent himself

He took it by stealth

Thus inciting many claims

Using Mortimer’s name

In Wales Cheshire and Northumberland

He got these under command

But didn’t live long to enjoy the gain

His son continued the militaristic reign

Bringing success in that French war game

So this Henry the Fifth was a popular Monarch

In a land where violence is so obviously honoured

But he died and it was the turn of Henry the Sixth

Who due to unstable mind was not really fit

To be England’s ruler over all

But there were more waiting in the stalls

Mortimer’s Daughter Anne

And Richard of Cambridge, her man

Begat Richard of York

Who when he grew up, King Henry would stalk

For Kingship him to challenge

Not that Henry was managing

He was loosing what was in France gained

And with these bouts of illness with his brain

Needed advisors and he got them bad

Edmund Beaufort Duke of Somerset he had

And William de la Pole Duke of Suffolk likely lads

Who dissipated further what control there was

A clear case for the York line of Richard because

The Royal House was in total dissarray

As was much of the country

Still smarting from Henry 4’s usurpery

With much disdaining of Royal authority

And fighting between long established noble families

And those minor nobility that Bolingbrooke had raised

Noteably between the established Northumbrian Percies

And brother-in law Richard Neville with little mercy

In Cornwall it was the Courtneys and the Bonnevilles

It was get your brother and kill kill kill

It was all the rage to go for broke

With wars big and small provoked

By ambiguity or downright illegality

Of the Royal descent

Wholesale carnage this all meant

As the Duchess in Wonderland said

We are painting the white roses red

With Royal confusion at its head

All classes of folk ended up dead

Because of the Kings mental instability

Richard of York set up a council of Regency

Imprisoning Lancastrian Edmund of Somerset

And setting his allies against Henry yet

The King revived from his malaise

And hindered Richard’s scheming ways

He was forced out of Court by Henry’s Queen

That being Margaret of Anjou who had seen

He was trouble but then so was she

And with the help of Lancastrian Nobility

Diminished Richards influence

Till it got him really incensed

And at St Albans hostilities flared

The first of the battles happened there

Richard removed Henry’s unsound advisers

That was his spin then in 1455

Edmund of Somerset and other leaders were dead

Richard was the victor but instead

Of raving on about it, both sides seemed shocked

That they had in war become locked

And made up to each other for a while

Richard resumed the role of Protector

As to the Queen he tried to reject her

When Henry lost it again

Margaret was demoted to look after the ailing King

They had a son Edward was his name

At it slowly kindled hostilities again

In Court Richard had the biggest influence

But Margaret would not yield to any inference

Suggesting her son would not be King

Such thoughts as these violence will bring

Though she waited while Richard had bigger armies

And set up Court over in Coventry

They were more popular there

Than in London where

Merchants were miffed by the loss of trade

Now that proper order had decayed

Somerset’s son was now the rising star of the Court

Things began to get more and more fraught

Margaret got Henry to strip York of his titles

And soon it would be down to where the fight was

Richard was sent back to his Ireland post

There were pirate raids on the South Coast

And as the Capitol slid into a messy situation

The King and Queen thought only of their continuation

She introducing conscription for the first time

Very aware of the tense political clime

Here Richard Neville Earl of Warwick

Had gained popularity and was in thick

With the Merchant classes, a powerful place to be

Soon there would be more hostilities

Richard returned from Ireland

To light the civil war firebrand

A battle in Staffordshire was the first blow

When a Yorkist army heading for Ludlow

Met with a large Lancastrian force

And at Blore Heath they fought of course

The Yorkists made it to the Castle as planned

But later the Lancastrians got the upper hand

After the battle at Ludford Bridge had passed

Richard of York’s eldest son Edward the Earl of March

Had to flee for Calais as did Salisbury and Warwick

Somerset was sent to evict them his efforts came to nowt

The Yorkists even sent ship-raids to knock them about

England was a messy chaotic situation

And in 1460 Warwick made a proper invasion

Got into Kent and London where they were loved

A Papal decree granted backing from above

And at Northampton push came to shove

King Henry was captured there was treachery done

And the Yorkists returned him to merry old London

Because he was victor Richard pushed for King

At first the Lords would not let him in

But York showed his family tree

Detailing more direct geneology

Descending from Lionel of Antwerp

I can see why he felt it would work

Untainted by collateral claimers

Fratricidal usurpers who left a trail of

Wars caused by imbalance of power

Allegiances split and at such an hour

An incapable King of questionable heredity

Causing uncertainty throughout the whole country Henry remained with a majority of five Lords

So they made this new Act of Accord

Disinheriting Henrys son Edward

Giving succession to Richard instead

Which suited him fine

He was next in line

And he governed anyway as Protector of the Realm

As you can see he had done quite well

Margaret was expelled with the child she went North

Lancastrians could not accept the Act of Accord

So rallying round her a large army formed

Amassing strength and brewing a storm

The Duke of York and Lord Salisbury departed

From London headed North to reckon with Margaret

Taking a position at Sandal Castle near Wakefield

And here comes the moment when fate deals

Misfortune to the Duke who had half as many men

As Margaret, attacked and never got up again

Slain, his head put on a spike

His son Edmund and Salisbury alike

Their heads were placed on the gates at York

It was in vain that Richard fought

According to the Accord York’s eldest Edward was heir

And Warwick the biggest landowner in the ar-ea

So Margaret asked the Scots for help against them

Queen Mary Gueldres agreed on condition

She got Berwick Town and her daughter wed Edward

They both agreed and the plan went ahead

Due to circumstances of having no cash

Mary said Margaret could trash

Anywhere below the river Trent

And that is just how it went

In the rich Southern Lands

Extensive pillaging began

Then at Mortimer Cross in Hereford

Edward thrashed Jasper Tudor good

And three suns seen at sunrise the Parhelion

Were said to symbolise York’s surviving three sons

Edward, Richard and George

And this Sunne in Splendour

Was made into their emblem

They were young men then

Warwick let news of Margaret’s plundering

Act as propaganda that helped bring

Southerners round to a Yorkist allegiance

When Coventry changed there was a chance

But too late and too few and with no Edward

At St Albans the Earl was caught off guard

By Margaret’s armies who made him flee

Only to find her Henry unharmed beneath a tree

Margaret headed for London Town

It’s people put the portcullis down

And raised the drawbridges refusing to feed

The Lancastrians who in their need

Pillaged nearby Hertfordshire and Middlesex

But when Edward and Neville arrived from the West

Margaret had North to Dunstable gone

And the Yorkists were let into London

London wanted Edward King

But before they could coronate him

Henry VI would have to be exiled or executed

Because he taken arms against the heir it suited

This was against the Act of Accord written down

It happened at the Battle of Wakefield Town

Edwards brother and father had met their killers

It had gone beyond Henrys bad councillors

Edward and Neville headed North to near York

And met with the large Lancastrian force

At Towton where was the biggest battle as yet

In one day twenty thousand soldiers met their deaths

Edwards victory saw the Lancastrians destroyed

Henry and Margaret fled North with their little boy

Many Lancastrian nobles that had survived

Now changed over to Edwards side

Others went North or to Wales with wounds

Many would be routed out quite soon

When Edward went to York he saw the rotting heads

Of Lord Salisbury his father and brother so instead

He stuck up heads of dead Lancastrian Lords

Including Edmunds executioner the notorious Clifford

Henry and Margaret were in Scotland

At the Court of James the Third ensconced

They conceded Berwick and attacked Carlisle

But they had no money and were trounced

Yorkist forces were wiping out Lancastrians

Where they had fled to the Borderlands

Edward was coronated

At least he had waited

And he ruled in peace for ten years

Resistance remained till 1464

The Percies fell at Alnwick and Bamburgh

There was Hedgely Moor and Hexham

Where Nevilles brother John neatly squashed them

When finally ended the seven year siege at Harlech

Edward had got the thing licked

Henry the deposed King and Margaret were found

And both were put in the Tower of London

Treated quite well it seems at first

Though things did turn out for the worse

There came a time when Richard ‘Kingmaker’ Neville

Earl of Warwick and King Edwards friendship chilled

Liz Woodville was a girl Edward secretly would wed

While Neville had got other plans for him instead

To marry a French girl for their allegiance

But Edward went for his romance

And Woodvilles became more favoured than Nevilles

Which naturally brought out all the devils

Neville was for allegiance with France but Edward was for Burgandy

Edward would not let his brothers Nevilles sisters marry

Neville joined with jealous George

Defeating Edward at Edgecot Moor

At Middleham Castle he was held

His Queens father promptly killed

Edward was forced to call a parliament

That would declare him illegitimate

The crown would go to George Duke of Clarence

As he was Edward’s heir apparent

Yet Richard his brother came to the rescue

With most of the nobles in the retinue

The King was freed a little later

Neville and George called traitors

And forced to flee to France out of the flack

Where exiled Margaret was planning a comeback

King Louis suggested the old enemies get together

Pool their skills to see whether

They could turn the tables

They married two of their children and invaded

This time Edward had to flee

John Neville returned his loyalty

To his brother and his armies caught Edward short

His army scattered but he was not caught

Made it to Holland then Burgandy

While Warwick reinstated Henry

Ed and Rich were the traitors now

When Neville planned invading Burgandy with Louis

Charles the Bold of Burgandy helped Ed with an army

Neville was defeated at the Battle of Barnet

After all that effort he must have thought darn it!

The Battle of Tewksbury did for the last Lancastrians

Henry VI and his heir Edward met their grizzly ends

Murdered to make the York line more strong

Just as murder would feature before too long

With Edward the Fourth back in the picture

Some would say that was the end of conflict sure

But he soon died and mayhem resumed

Because the Woodvilles recently assumed

Power in Court was resented by factions

And sooner or later would come the reaction

Though the families were all of the Yorkist line

There was dissension within at this time

Edward the Fifth was only twelve when coronated

This son of a Woodville was bound to be ill fated

Richard Duke of Gloucester Protector of the Realm

Was the ipso facto leader at England’s troubled helm

With William Hastings and Henry Stafford

Captured young Edward in Bucks at Stony Stratford

And in the Tower of London left him to reside

Soon joined by his brother Richard of York aged nine

What happened to them nobody knows

They were kept out of the way and neatly disposed

The Duke declared their parents’ marriage illegal

To which parliament agreed making Gloucester Regal

The Titulus Regius named him Richard the Third

Of which statute the next King would not read a word

Henry would have them destroyed so no one could trace

In the King business you could never loose face

Lancastrian hopes were for this Henry Tudor

Henry VI’s illegitimate half-brother but proved more

By marriage on his Mother Margaret Beaufort’s side

Her father was John of Beaufort who touched the line

He Edward the Third’s grandson by John of Gaunt

Was good enough lineage the Yorkists to taunt

Henry Tudor defeated Richard the Third

At the famous battle of Bosworth Field

To quickly become King Henry the Seventh

He marries Elizabeth of York who had the best descent

And fused the two roses into one

Hoping for a new peace to come

A red and white Tudor Rose

Containing symbolism to close

The Lancastrian Yorkist Wars

Though executing several more

Claimants was in store to keep the peace

A policy his son would keep

And then to coincide with families and their Royal taste

A demon was put there in Richard the Third’s place

A hunchback usurper according to Shakespeare

That his were Tudor times comes through very clear

After Henry became the Sixth was the Battle of Stoke

An event seemingly by a young man provoked

He was Lambert Simnel

A boy who resembled

The young Yorkist Earl of Warwick

But the plot didn’t stick

Warwick was alive in Henry’s custody

John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln was crushed duly

At Stoke wiping out Yorkist opposition

Simnel was pardoned and made work in the kitchen

Lastly Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard of York

Who was he? Henry just set the executioner to work