Lots of details, some confusion, but that comes with the territory.

books:


	• The Wars of the Roses Alison Weir Ballantine Books, 1995 - 462 pages average customer review:based on 45 reviews
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highly recommended

Confusing By Its Nature

Mid-15th century European History is a fascinating period. In addition to the War of the Roses, the struggle for the throne of England, western Europe was also in turmoil as the French monarchs battled both the English crown and the Burgundian Dukes. This book details the history of these conflicts.

By its nature, this history can be terribly confusing. Threading your way through the various lines of succesion can leave a reader scratching his/her head in an effort to differentiate the various Richards, Edwards and Henrys, not to mention the constantly changing holders of the many dukedoms and earldoms that play into the story. While Weir does a servicable job, I can't help but believe that she could have done better in this regard.

Of course, the story revolves around the struggle for the British throne following the death of Richard II in 1400. At that point, the throne was usurped by Henry IV, then Duke of Lancaster, setting off the near century long struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York. Following the amazingly successful reign of Henry V, in which most of Western France came under the control of the British crown, conflict ensued with the crowning of the mentally unstable and unsuitable Henry VI, who lost the continental gains of his predecessor.

There followed a virtual musical chairs scenario wherein the Lancaster and York candidates traded the throne between them for a period of near 50 years. Playing in the background was the continental conflict between France and Burgundy and the constantly shifting loyalties of the British peerage. The rapidity and constancy with which the various Dukes and Earls switched sides is astonishing. Many heads rolled as a consequence.

As noted, the lineages are devilishly confusing as a result of the inbreeding between the major houses and the constantly changing holders of major titles by which the actors are identified. The author includes numerous genealogical tables, however their form is not as helpful as it could be. In addition, there is an extreme paucity of maps which could have helped to follow the story immensely.

In reading this book, it is my suggestion to read it in as few sittings as possible. Each time you pick up the book, a certain amount of time is required to identify the characters and historical setting. This is not the kind of book that you can expect to read in stretches of 25-30 pages at a time. It is, nonetheless, a fascinating story and one well worth learning. The author is to be commended for taking on a difficult task, though in my opinion she just misses the mark.

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So many names and titles

Really interesting period of English history is covered thoroughly by Ms. Weir. There are, however, so very many characters it becomes sometimes difficult to know to whom the author is referring. For instance, the "Duke of York" is frequently mentioned in the book, but WHICH Duke of York is she referring to (since there was more than one)?
Many of the Royals have names and titles; she freely uses a name without the title, or vice versa, making it a bit confusing to know who she's talking about, and it's necessary to thumb back to previous pages to figure this out. Even though a lineage chart is provided at the end of the book (and it's quite helpful), the print is so small as to require a magnifying glass. A little bit more clarity with all these names and titles would be helpful, but this is a History Book.

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Lots of details, some confusion, but that comes with the territory.

Weir is a fine writer of accessible history, and is my default "go-to" author when looking to expand my reading in the area of English history.

This book is more readable than other biographies and treatments of the people and events of the time, but the sheer number of personages, often going by multiple titles, can still leave your head spinning. But then again, we're talking about a time when people would suddenly change sides, often in the very middle of a battle, joining with a formerly-hated enemy to have at someone who they had sworn allegiance to before (and who might even be a sibling). All this is to say that some confusion comes with the territory.

In Weir's treatement, the Wars of the Roses become largely a personal affair, with the social, political, and economic issues largely coming up as the *results* of the conflict, not as causes. She makes a pretty good case that this is an accurate way of understanding the events, particularly in the final chapter (which, along with the first chapter, can by themselves give a rader a decent overall sense of the major causes/effects for readers not ready or willing to dive into the details of names and dates).

If anything, a bit more of the social history of the time would be welcome, to put the conflict into context. This would probably offer a slightly more valuable overview of the period, even if it came at the expense of some of the fine details of who occupied what castle on what day.

Having said that, I have a much better understanding of the period than I did before, which is what I came to the book for.

It also, by the way, would make a good background reading before tackling Shakespeare's history plays covering this era, which often go unread because the history invovled seems inaccessible to modern audiences.

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War of The Roses

This book was helpful showing the root causes of the War of Roses in the 14th Century. Edward III had a plethora of sons. The most qualified to be king was 4th in line; John of Gaunt. Due to primogeniture the chance of him gaining the throne were slim in his lifetime. His descendants, legitimate and illegitimate had other ideas. Edmund of York's progeny were ambitious and had claims. Edward the Black Prince, heir to the throne, died prematurely. His son became King Richard II. He died without issue. The reader was able to follow so far.

It was more difficult to keep up afterwards because the geneology tables, in the appendix, were illegible. The author's opinion on King Richard III's role on the death of his two nephews detracted from this account. I am not a Richard partisan or detractor. she had this as an open and shut no questions asked case. An unbiased historian would have him on the suspect list, but, there is a reasonable shadow of a doubt. I know that the author goes into length in the sequelThe Princes in the Tower. Another excellent account is Josephine Tey'sThe Daughter of Time. I know it's fiction but she cites available sources for research.

The author showed that King Henry VI was well meaning but the wrong monarch at the wrong time. I had thought that Henry VI was born 500 years too early. You could envision him supporting causes and other duties expected of today's British royalty. His wife, Margaret of Anjou, was shown to be so blinkered by focusing on preserving her family's position to the detriment of the Britain as a whole. King Edward IV was done well. This was helpful in following history, bringing to life the key players.

I will probably read other accounts of The Wars of the Roses. This is a biased, but readable, perspective.

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Wonderful Book

Loved this book, if you love history, you will love this well-researched and thorough book. Very interesting and vivid.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Lancaster and York. For much of the fifteenth century, these two families were locked in battle for control of the British monarchy. Kings were murdered and deposed. Armies marched on London. Old noble names were ruined while rising dynasties seized power and lands. The war between the royal House of Lancaster and York, the longest and most complex in British history, profoundly altered the course of the monarchy. In The Wars of the Roses, Alison Weir reconstructs this conflict with the same dramatic flair and impeccable research that she brought to her highly praised The Princes in the Tower.

The first battle erupted in 1455, but the roots of the conflict reached back to the dawn of the fifteenth century, when the corrupt, hedonistic Richard II was sadistically murdered, and Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, seized England's throne. Both Henry IV and his son, the cold warrior Henry V, ruled England ably, if not always wisely--but Henry VI proved a disaster, both for his dynasty and his kingdom. Only nine months old when his father's sudden death made him king, Henry VI became a tormented and pathetic figure, weak, sexually inept, and prey to fits of insanity. The factional fighting that plagued his reign escalated into bloody war when Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, laid claim to the throne that was rightfully his--and backed up his claim with armed might.

Alison Weir brings brilliantly to life both the war itself and the historic figures who fought it on the great stage of England. Here are the queens who changed history through their actions--the chic, unconventional Katherine of Valois, Henry V's queen; the ruthless, social-climbing Elizabeth Wydville; and, most crucially, Margaret of Anjou, a far tougher and more powerful character than her husband,, Henry VI, and a central figure in the Wars of the Roses.

Here, too, are the nobles who carried the conflict down through the generations--the Beauforts, the bastard descendants of John of Gaunt, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known to his contemporaries as "the Kingmaker"; and the Yorkist King, Edward IV, a ruthless charmer who pledged his life to cause the downfall of the House of Lancaster.

The Wars of the Roses is history at its very best--swift and compelling, rich in character, pageantry, and drama, and vivid in its re-creation of an astonishing, dangerous, and often grim period of history. Alison Weir, one of the foremost authorities on the British royal family, demonstrates here that she is also one of the most dazzling stylists writing history today.

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