Three weeks earlier, Richard, Duke of York had entered the Council Chamber—in the presence of several lords—and laid his hand on the empty throne, claiming the crown of England.

King Henry, still under the nominal head of the Yorkist government, was in London; Margaret, on the other hand, was in the north with her son, raising an army.

The Lancastrians, in turn, were defeated three months later at the Battle of Towton by York's son, who was crowned King Edward IV on 28 June 1461.

[1] Richard, Duke of York, a powerful noble and heir to the throne until 1453[2]—when Margaret had a son[3]—opposed King Henry VI's government.

[11][12] The violence between the Percys and Nevilles in Yorkshire was of such breadth that it impacted with government,[13] and a chronicler called it the "beginning of the greatest sorrows in England".

[14] Other regional violence took place between the Bonvilles and Courtenays in the southwest,[15] the Harrington and Stanley families in the northwest,[16] the Earls of Shrewsbury and Wiltshire on the Welsh marches,[17] and between William Tailboys and Ralph, Lord Cromwell in the Midlands.

[19][note 3] In 1455 the king recovered his sanity and Somerset was freed but peace remained elusive and, in May, political tension became open warfare.

In response, the Yorkists complained to him of the "doubtes and ambiguitees [and] jealousie" spread by their enemies,[21] and several chroniclers support the view that Somerset was turning the king against York.

[40] And coming there he walked straight on, until he came to the king's throne, upon the covering or cushion on which laying his hand, in this very act like a man about to take possession of his right, he held it upon it for a short time.

But at length withdrawing it, he turned his face to the people, standing quietly under the canopy of royal state, he looked eagerly for their applause.

[47] York's claim and right to the throne had long been recognised by the Royal council and in law, but it became hypothetical after Margaret gave birth to the king's son, Edward of Westminster.

[48] The medievalist Michael Jones has queried whether Warwick was keen to disassociate himself from York's plan because it had been his responsibility to raise popular support in London before the duke returned, but he had failed to do so.

From his landing near Chester in early September 1460, charters and letters signed under his seal began omitting reference to the regnal year, "quite out of conformity with usual practice", says the historian Charles Ross.

[54] John Whethamstede, Abbot of St Albans, described how York marched across the Great Hall with armed men and reached for the throne "like a man taking possession".

[54] The pro-Yorkist French chronicler Jean de Wavrin reported that Warwick had "angry words for the earl [and] showed the duke how the lords and people were ill content against him because he wished to strip the king of his crown".

[61] When York claimed the throne, says Griffiths, Henry's "natural timidity and alarm led him to avoid the duke in the corridors and suites of Westminster".

[62] The Lords considered that only the king had the necessary understanding of the nature of royalty required to assess York's claim, as "his seid highnes had seen and understonden many dyvers writyngs and cronicles".

[46] Having failed to achieve popular acclamation, he pushed his case on a legal front,[58] and it constitutes almost the only business recorded on the Parliamentary Roll for the October 1460 session.

[38][note 11] Perhaps most importantly, from York's perspective, the act granted him the moral high ground against his opponents and the legal machinery and wages to pursue them.

[80] Since 1351, if a "man doth compass or imagine the Death of our Lord the King, or [his] Heir", it had been deemed High Treason;[82][83] now York's political opponents were legally traitors.

The Nevilles had started receiving lands in August and, on the second day of the parliament, Salisbury's attainder was overturned, says the parliamentary record, on the grounds that it had been obtained "through the sinister labours of persons intending the king's destruction".

[76] Margaret would never[87] accept the disinheritance of her son and this perhaps encouraged her and her supporters to see York's death as the only chance of returning Edward to what they considered his rightful position.

While no one in government could state openly that it was the queen and Henry's supporters who were behind the discontent—instead, it was phrased as a need to protect the kingdom's borders from invasion by the Scots—HPO suggests that "it is clear from indirect references that the duke received a specific royal command to deal with the unrest".

Nine days later, York, his son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, Salisbury, Thomas, and many of their closest retainers led a sortie in strength to attack a Lancastrian army gathered near the castle.

Even after news of the defeat reached Edward, now Duke of York, in the Welsh Marches, he continued recruiting a large army; this force may have originally been intended to go north and join his father at Sandal.

[96] In Edward's first parliament, held in November, the Commons accused Henry of allowing "unrest, inward war and trouble, unrightwiseness, shedding and effusion of innocent blood, abusion of the laws, partiality, riot, extortion, murder, rape and vicious living" throughout the kingdom, thus breaching the act.

[47] The historian John Watts has argued that by rejoining Margaret's army after Second St Albans, Henry triggered the act's abdication clause.

[109] The Lancastrians' breach of the Act of Accord, maing them responsible for the civil war, became the official justification for Edward's seizure of the throne.

It was announced as such, for example, by Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, who wrote to the papal legate, Francesco Coppini, that it was a necessary response to the fact that the "treaty, peace and composition of the last Parliament were not observed by the other side".

[111] At which parliament, the commons of the realm being assembled in the common house, coming and treating upon the title of the said Duke of York, suddenly fell down the crown which hung then in the midst of the said house [note 7] of the abbey of Westminster which was taken for a prodigy or token that the reign of King Harry was ended: And also the crown which stood on the highest tower of the steeple in the castle of Dover fell down the same year.