What happens in Henry VI, Part 3

York and his sons march into Parliament and seize the throne room, backed by Warwick’s soldiers. Cornered, King Henry VI strikes a bargain: he will keep his crown for life but name York his heir, disinheriting his own young son. When Queen Margaret hears what her weak husband has agreed to, she is enraged. She disowns him, raises an army, and vows to fight for her boy’s birthright. The peace lasts only as long as it takes her to gather men.

The war turns savage at once. Margaret’s forces overwhelm York’s at Wakefield. Lord Clifford, hungry for revenge after his father’s death, catches York’s young son Rutland fleeing the field and stabs the boy despite his pleas. Then Margaret and Clifford capture York himself. They taunt him with a paper crown, wave Rutland’s bloodstained handkerchief in his face, and stab him to death. Margaret orders his head set on the gates of York. But York has grown sons, and they will not forget.

Edward and Richard, York’s surviving heirs, swear vengeance. Warwick joins them with fresh troops and proclaims Edward the rightful king. The armies clash again at Towton, a brutal battle where King Henry sits apart on a molehill, wishing he were a simple shepherd, while a father unknowingly kills his son and a son his father nearby. The Yorkists win. Clifford dies of his wounds, and his head replaces York’s on the city gates — the cycle of revenge feeding itself. Edward is crowned King Edward IV.

Then Edward wrecks his own cause. While Warwick is in France arranging a royal marriage for him with Lady Bona, Edward marries an English widow, Lady Grey, on impulse. The insult enrages King Lewis of France and humiliates Warwick, who switches sides on the spot. Margaret is already in France begging Lewis for aid, and now Warwick joins her. He marries his daughter to Henry’s line and leads an army back to England to pull Edward down.

Warwick’s invasion works at first. His men surprise Edward’s camp at night and take the king prisoner, freeing Henry from the Tower and restoring him to a throne he no longer wants. Henry hands real power to Warwick and Clarence and names the young Earl of Richmond as England’s future hope. But Edward escapes to Burgundy with Richard’s help, raises another army, and returns. At the city of York he claims at first to want only his dukedom, then, pushed by his brothers, declares himself king again. The walls open, and his strength swells as he marches.

The two sides meet at Barnet. Edward brings Warwick down, and the great kingmaker dies on the field, mourning his lost power like a felled cedar. Margaret lands with a French army too late to save him, but presses on regardless. At Tewkesbury she rallies her troops with a defiant speech, comparing their fight to a ship battling storm and rock. It is her last stand. Edward’s forces crush her army and capture her, along with the nobles and her son, young Prince Edward.

The endgame is bloody. When the captured prince answers Edward defiantly, Edward, Richard, and Clarence stab him to death in front of his mother. Margaret begs to be killed too but is dragged away alive, to be shipped back to France. Richard slips off to the Tower, where he murders the helpless King Henry VI, who dies prophesying the ruin Richard will bring. Edward sits crowned at last, with a baby son and talk of lasting peace. But Richard, alone, reveals the truth: he means to betray them all and take the crown for himself, comparing his loyal kiss to the kiss of Judas.