PLANTAGENET, the surname of the French family of Anjou, which, in 1154, suc ceeded to the throne of England on the extinction of the Norman dynasty in the male line, and reigned till 1495, when it was supplanted by the family of Tunon (q.v.). The name Plantagenet belonged originally to the house of Anjou, and is said by antiquarians to have been derived from the circumstance of the first count of this house having caused himself to be scourged with branches of broom as a penance for some crime he had committed. On the extinction of the male line of the Norman dynasty in the person of Henry I., the crown of England was claimed by Stephen, count of Blois, the son of Henry's-sister Adeht, or Adeliza, and by Henry's own daughter Matilda (" the empress Maud"), then the wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou, for her son Henry Plantagenet. Stephen, by favor of the nobles, was the successful competitor, on the condition that Henry should succeed hint; and accordingly on Stephen's death, in 1154, the son of Geoffrey Plantagenet ascended the throne of England as Henry II. His sons, Richard I. and John, succeeded him, and the descendants of the latter in the direct male line—viz.. Henry Edward I., Edward II., Edward III., and (Edward M.'s eldest son, the Black Prince, having died before his father, leaving an only son, who as) Richard IL—succeeded without interruption. The eldest male line now became extinct, and it was necessary to choose the rightful heir to the throne from among the descend ants of Edward M.'s other sons. His second son had died without heirs, but Lionel, duke of Clarence; John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster; and Edmund Langley, duke of York, his third, fourth, and fifth sons respectively, were still represented by legitimate issue. Of these, Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, and Anne Mortimer, the wife of Richard, earl of Cambridge (who was the eldest son and heir of Edmund Langley, duke of York), the lineal descendants of Lionel of Clarence, possessed the prior claim to the throne; but Edmund was put in prison by Henry IV., the eldest son of John of Gaunt,
duke of Lancaster, who usurped the crown in 1399, and transmitted it to his 'Meal descendants henry V. and Henry VI. By this time Edmund Mortimer had died With. out heirs, and the duseendants of the marriage of his sister Anne (the heiress of Clarence) with Richard, earl of Cambridge (the heir of York), uniting the claims of the third and jrli suns, had, through their maternal ancestress, a superior claim to the throne over Henry VI. the Lancastrian monarch, who only represented the fourth son of Edward III. Richard, duke of York, the son of Richard of Cambridge, and Anne _Mortimer, attempted to obtain the erown.'but he was taken and executed, leaving to his sons the task of aveng big his death, and asserting the claims of the combined house of York and Clarence to the throne, in which they were ably assisted by Richard Neville, earl of Warwick ("the king-maker"). The result was a long and desolating civil war (145:5-85) between the partisans of York and Lancaster, which is known in history as the " Wars of the Roses" (the Lancastrians having chosen for their emblem a red and the Yorkists am/cite rose), in which more than 100,000 persons perished, and many noble families were either extir pated on the field and the scaffold, or completely ruined. During this dreadful contest, in which the Yorkists generally had the advantage, Edward IV. (the eldest son of the duke of York who had been executed), his son Edward V., and his brother Richard III. (q.v.) successively swayed the scepter. But Richard's cruel and tyrannical government added new vigor to the reviving Lancastrians, and Henry Tudor (see BENItY VII.), the representative of their claims, defeated the Yorkist tyrant on the field of Bosworth; mid then, by his marriage with Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV., and the repre sentative of the Yorkist claims, reunited in his family the conflicting pretensions to the throne, which he transmitted in peace to his descendants. Sec Tunon; and, for the events of this contest, see Roses, WAns OF THE.