The Wars of the Roses and John of Gaunt's Love Life

One way to look at the Wars of the Roses is how the descendants
of the mistress knock the descendants of the first wife off the
top branch of the family tree.

The Wars of the Roses was about the history of a nation and a
monarchy. It's also about a family. What was at stake wasn’t
simply a series of battles between York and Lancaster. These
events shattered the norms that had held the English monarchy
together for hundreds of years. The Wars of the Roses kept asking
the same question: Is it ok to get rid of the King? Sometimes the
answer was “yes.” It’s the story of one man and how the
descendants of his wife and the descendants of his mistress
played nearly all the key roles in this giant power struggle.
Just one man. John of Gaunt.


History shows us what's possible.