The Wars of the Roses

Let me introduce you to the convoluted series of events that is known as the “Wars of the Roses”.  This book will guide you through the usurper kings, and convoluted family tree of the most powerful in England, the people who lived before and during the war.  Allison Weir has worked wonders in explaining the history in the layman’s terms, and she goes further with her book, The Wars of the Roses.  The first half of her novel is aptly named, ‘The Origins of the Conflict’, and she explains in detail the circumstances and events that lead up to the Wars, such as rise of the Lancastrian Kings.   

Each historical figure with a role in those events is humanized, their faults and their talents displayed equally.  The ‘Flower of Christian Chivalry’, King Henry V, is described as a pious, strong, and brilliant man, but also as uncaring towards his French subjects, and partially cruel.  The convoluted family history, of Dukes who are twice removed from the throne by their mother’s side, and factions created that doom England to civil war, we are guided through by the novel.  Pathos, is used to give each character life, that they were once people too.  Their lives, though brief in story, are detailed, not in the terms of academia, but in the layman’s words.  The joy, sorrow, grief, rage, and memories of the subjects of the kingdom are presented to the reader.  

It is history come alive, when York comes to challenge King Henry VI for claim of the throne.  The shock of the magnates, the disappointment in York that none would support him, the calmness of a mentally unstable King, all of this vividly described with imagery.  Thoughts and words, actions and reactions, all are taken into account and carefully worded to seem as if a movie played, and the reader is watching history in the making, as Edward the VI of York and Edward of Lancaster rode to battle against each other.  The Wars of the Roses successfully guides the layman through the convoluted history of the War of the Roses.