ABSTRACT
One of the most interesting and least studied problems in the history of the Wars of the Roses is the part played in that struggle by economic forces. The relations between the contending parties and the towns offer one important line of investigation, which has been partly pursued elsewhere; 1 another is offered by their relations with the Company of the Staple, a body powerful by reason of the large financial resources of its members and the influence which it exercised at Calais, the centre of the wool trade and the surest foothold of the English on the Continent. The purpose of this study is to trace the general history of the dealings of the Company with the government during the last years of Henry VI's reign (1449 to 1461), with the special object of determining whether the Company was inclined to champion the cause of either Lancaster or York, and whether it exerted any influence on the political situation at that critical juncture.
