The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors

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highlights engaging details: that coronation rituals often bred head lice, and that Henry VI was shocked by, and abhorred, nakedness. This made him useful to the angry Yorkists, and earned him just enough support from exiled Edwardians to make invasion possible. When many think of the era of English history that consisted between the years 1450 and 1603, they think of Queen Elizabeth, the serene Tudor Queen who brought prosperity and glory to England. Since this summer, I have watched all of his programs, which if you haven’t checked out, I strongly suggest that you do.

Against the backdrop of weak kingship and disastrous military defeat in France, two rival branches of the Plantagenet dynasty – Lancaster and York – had gone to war for the throne, using red and white roses as emblems of their causes. Richard’s decision to depose his late brother’s brood by declaring the illegitimate through his priest Shaa the previous man was the first of his many acts that mirrored his brother’s ruthlessness of disposing of rival claimants. The writing is excellent as you'd expect from Dan Jones but as others have said, it is complicated to follow at times as so many of the men had the same names in those days. I suspect that fans of the television show or Martin’s book series would enjoy this book, even if it is nonfiction.Like most accounts of the era, it focuses on his unpopular marriage to Elizabeth Wydeville, which in turn leads to a rebellion by Warwick and the second phases of the wars. Over the next couple of weeks, I will review 10 books which all Royal History Geeks should add to their reading list. What is remarkable, actually, is that Henry had put in place a leadership team that would manage the country quite well while the young Henry VI was growing up.

It had a stable, capable government led by a king who is arguably the best monarch in the country’s history (Shakespeare thought so). Although not laboured in the excellent two episodes I’ve seen so far, in both his book and other articles, Jones has been quick to label the Wars of the Roses as a ‘Tudor construction.Interesting that Jones is firmly on the "guilty" side of the Richard III debate, though I do wish he'd shared some of the opposing views. This war rocked English pride, wrought havoc on royal finances and created personal feuds (but not dynastic rivalry) between men such as Richard, Duke of York, and Edmund, Duke of Somerset.

Then a far more grotesque and insulting marriage was arranged between the twenty-year-old John Woodville and Katherine Neville, Warwick’s aunt and the dowager duchess of Norfolk. Five years later, in 1420, the king was regent of France, heir to the French throne, and married to their princess, Catherine of Valois. With classics such as Ted Hughes's The Iron Man and award-winners including Emma Carroll's Letters from the Lighthouse, Faber Children's Books brings you the best in picture books, young reads and classics. Red and white to symbolize the union of both houses of Lancaster and York and the end of the bloodshed but the bloodshed was far from over.Characters like Margaret of Anjou, Richard of York and a succession of Somerset Dukes become real to us. From Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to theatre greats Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett to rising stars Polly Stenham and Florian Zeller, Faber Drama presents the very best theatre has to offer.