The Wars of the Roses
During the fifteenth century, England saw a long, bloody conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster as to who should wear the crown. Out of this bitter war between the white rose and the red, the Tudor dynasty eventually came to power.
Desmond Seward maps the trials of five men and women who experienced the upheaval at first hand, inter-
Desmond Seward is best known for three books: The Monks of War, The Wars of the Roses, and A Brief History of the Hundred Years War. He is one of a small group of historical writers who see narrative as an essential part of the historical process, looking back to Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The periods that interest him most are England in the Middle Ages, especially the fifteenth century, and France from the Hundred Years War until the late nineteenth.
'A brilliant study of the period. Rich in historical detail, yet passionately written, the smell of battle seems to linger on the page.'
'It is hard to imagine a historian more in command of his subject, or better able to bring it howling and thundering to life.'
'A vivid and bizarre picture of English medieval society… admirably researched … ultimately, though, it is the author's own enthusiasm for his subject which makes it so consistently entertaining.'
'Three decades of blood and horror -