Yorkists

The Yorkists were a faction aligned with the House of York during the Wars of the Roses, a series of dynastic civil wars fought in England between 1455 and 1487. Their primary goal was to claim the English throne for their chosen claimant, a descendant of Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, the third son of King Edward III, and thus considered to have a stronger hereditary claim than the rival House of Lancaster, descended from John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III.

The main figures associated with the Yorkist cause included Richard, 3rd Duke of York, who initially led the faction, and his sons, Edward IV and Richard III. Edward IV was crowned King of England in 1461 and reigned, with a brief interruption, until his death in 1483. His brother, Richard III, then took the throne, but his reign was short-lived. The Yorkist claim to the throne was ultimately extinguished with the victory of Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian claimant, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Henry Tudor subsequently married Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, uniting the houses and ending the Wars of the Roses. While the direct male line of the House of York had few surviving members after 1485, their influence on English history was profound, shaping the succession and political landscape of the late medieval period.