The year 1454 - the wheels really start coming off the wagon.
This is the year the French finally kick the English out of France
after the Hundred Years
War (Joan of Arc and all that), and pious English King Henry VI - who
was always
happiest with his nose in a bible, not in a helmet - has a
mental breakdown.
Henry had never been particularly good at the Patronage Game - he just
handed out
favours to whoever was bending his ear at the time - which usually meant
his close relatives on
the Lancastrian side of the Royal family, or to his formidable French
wife Margaret of Anjou.
Well, as soon as Henry has illuminated birds twittering around his
royal head, Duke Richard,
head of the Yorkist side of the Royal family - leaves his job as lieutenant
of Ireland - gallops
into London and declares himself the nation’s Protector, crying
"Fair Government for all!
Fair Government for all!" - really meaning "More for me and my side
of the family".
But Queen Margaret of Anjou is having none of it. If Richard hangs
around
he might get bigger ideas than just being Protector and could try and
depose
her own infant son Edward. 
