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Wars of the Roses: The People, Places and Battlefields of the Yorkists and Lancastrians
£20.00£23.80 (-16%)
The Wars of the Roses, which saw England and Wales ravaged by warfare for three decades and dynasties rise and fall, decimated the nobility of an entire generation, and saw the rise of the merchant class, the decline of medieval feudalism and opened the country to the enlightened ideals of the Renaissance. Such has been its lasting effects the red and white rose of the Tudors is still a national symbol. This book is an exploration of the buildings, monuments, towns and battlefields of that turbulent era across both England and Wales – places that can still be visited and experienced today. The stories of the great battles of St Albans, Stoke Field, Wakefield, Townton, Barnet, Tewksbury and, of course, Bosworth, are told along with beautiful photographs to help guide the reader round these important sites, as well as the dozens of smaller engagements where the supporters of the Houses of York and Lancaster fought and died. Here are castles and manor houses galore, all of which played their part in this protracted struggle for the throne of England, such as Richard of York’s imposing powerbase of Lulow Castle and the magnificent Tudor stronghold of Bamburg. These are compared with the scant remains of Fotheringhay Castle, the birthplace of Richard III – the man whose remains were so dramatically uncovered in Leicester – and Micklegate Bar, York, was where Richard’s head was placed on a spike. We see the Clocktower of St Albans and ‘Gabriel’ the bell that was rung in 1455 alerting of the Yorkist advance, as well as the Tower of London where Henry VI met his death and the possible burial place of the two princes. These, and scores of other places, monuments, plaques, buildings and battlegrounds, represent not only a journey across England and Wales, but a journey back in time to the bloody conflict that was the War of the Roses.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Frontline Books (3 Feb. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 224 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1399097512 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1399097512 |
| Dimensions | 17.78 x 2.54 x 24.77 cm |
by CarolK
This book is definitely one for Tudor lovers, it is not a period In history which interested me but I found Paul Kendalls’ writing to be clear, factual and easily read. Great illustrations and easy narrative gives an interesting insight into the Tudors. He knows his subject and this publication is an excellent example of good historical writing. Highly recommended. Thanks to Pen & Sword publishers and Netgalley for an advance copy of Wars of the Roses
by Rosie Lee
I’ve read loads about the Wars Of The Roses but can’t recommend this book enough a wonderful read and great illustrations
by donnasbookblog
I thought that this book was excellent and it was a perfect introduction and guide to the Wars of the Roses and what was quite often a tumultuous period in history.
Living less than 10 miles from the location that was reported to have been where the Battle of Bosworth Field took place, the period of the Wars of the Roses, as it is now known has always been one that intrigued me.
I was delighted to find that I had been lucky enough to visit quite a few of the places that were mentioned in the book, and I have added a fair few more to the lists of places to visit in the future too, I do travel quite a bit now with work and Wakefield is one of the locations I have to go so that was first on the list.
I loved the layout of the book; the chapters are punchy and generally between 2 and 4 pages for each topic. The chapters are full of facts and important details, and they give a great summary.
I love that there are so many illustrations and images in the book, there is a mix of older illustrations and new images of what some of the locations look like now. These really are needed in a book like this and this one is a brilliant guide to the sites and locations of where the key events took place.
It is 5 stars from me for this one, very highly recommended
by robbie
great book
by David Grummitt
The idea of exploring the history of the Wars of the Roses through a hundred ‘people, places and battlefields’ (á la Neil MacGregor) is an interesting one and this book certainly threw up some places and occasions that were interesting and made me think again about key incidents in the civil wars. Unfortunately, for all that, it appears to have been written by someone with little knowledge and no real understanding of England in the fifteenth century. My suspicions were raised on the second page of introduction with this caricature of English history: ‘England was a country that lacked order, justice [not really] and strong government [almost certainly under Henry VI].’ The ruling classes, we are told, returned from the Hundred Years War and ‘without an occupation, they then turned their weapons on themselves.’ The errors of fact and interpretation then come quick and easy: Henry V did not leave England in the summer of 1421 to fight against King Charles VII of France (p. 12); William Gregory almost certainly did not write the chronicle edited by James Gairdner as The Historical Collections of a London Citizen, which was not published in any case in Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, containing, as it does, three entirely different chronicles edited by the prolific Gairdner (pp. 14-15); Cade’s rebellion in 1450 did not ‘see the assassination’ of the duke of Suffolk (in fact, Suffolk’s murder was one of the chief causes of the rebellion) and Suffolk did not lead ‘a disastrous military campaign in France’ (p. 27); to claim that ‘any decree signed by Henry VI had to be supported by an authorised letter’ from Margaret of Anjou is utter nonsense (p. 32); the royal court and parliament were not ‘temporarily moved to Coventry’ after the battle of St. Albans in 1455 (although there was a parliament summoned to meet in Coventry in October 1459 after the battle of Ludford Bridge) (p. 49); there were no French attempts to seize Calais in the late 1450s (p. 53); it was not Sir Edmund Grey but Edmund, Lord Grey de Ruthin, who betrayed the Lancastrians at Northampton in 1460 (p. 64); the suggestion that the acts of the 1459 parliament were repealed because its ‘members had not been elected’ is as novel as it wrong (p. 68); I don’t think Warwick’s Flemish handgunners at St. Albans in 1461 can really be described as ‘musketeers’ (p. 85); to suggest that at Towton ‘the battle was so brutal and the carnage so immense that the opposing sides had to temporarily stop fighting in order to clear the bodies before they continued’ is evocative but really nonsense (p. 92). I’ll stop at 1461 but it doesn’t get any better as we move through the rebellions and battles of 1469-1471, the battle of Bosworth (Richard III would presumably have been surprised as I was to learn that ‘under his tenure [as king] the jury system was established’!) and the accession of Henry VII.
I can only marvel at the hubris of an author who can write a book on a subject about which he patently knows so little. His lack of understanding is revealed by the bibliography in which works are conflated and where recent scholarship on the Wars of the Roses (although Michael Hicks’s 2001 biography of Richard III warrants a mention) is so completely ignored. As a historian of the Wars of the Roses the book is profoundly depressing. It is depressing that such a book is going to be read and assumed to be accurate and revealing of the fifteenth century by many of its readers. It is also depressing that all the efforts that historians have put into researching and shedding light on the Wars of the Roses in the past few decades have made so little impact. Maybe we only have ourselves to blame …