Battle of Wakefield castle on 30 December. His reasons for doing so have been variously ascribed to deception by the Lancastrian armies, or treachery by some nobles and Lancastrian officers who York thought were his allies, or simple rashness or miscalculation by York. The Duke of York was killed and his army was destroyed, many of the prominent Yorkist leaders and their family members died in the battle or were captured and executed. King Henry VI ascended the throne in 1422, when he was only nine months old. He grew up to be an ineffective king, and prone to spells of mental illness.
Succession to the British throne Abdication Act 1936, by which Edward VIII ceased to be Sovereign "immediately upon" his royal assent as King being signified in Parliament on 11 December. The Act provided that he and his descendants, if any, were not to have any "right, title or interest in or to the succession to the Throne". Edward died childless in 1972. Edward's abdication was "a demise of the Crown" (in the words of the Act), and the Duke of York, his brother who was then next in the line, immediately succeeded to the throne and to its "rights, privileges, and dignities", taking the regnal