The Wars of the Roses [Hardcover]

This book is very difficult to read, as it jumps around, seemingly randomly from topic to topic. I thought it would settle down into the story of the time and characters, but it doesn't. It only seems interesting, I suppose, to someone who is already an expert on the period and all the dynamics. If you want to learn about this time, this is not the book for you. I'm glad I got it from the library, and can return it.

This is not an easy read. The author is obviously knowledgeable and this book represents a culmination of tremendous knowledge and research. The book is a thesis containing a challenge to conventional thinking about the wars.

I don't fully know the conventional thinking on this war so the details on the challenge were hard to digest. I wanted to learn about the war --- and I did --- but there were narrative and organizational problems made it more difficult than it should have been.

One problem is with definitions. On p.28, where the author defines "bastard feudalism", which the author (who according to the dust jacket has written a book on this) considers a necessary condition of these wars, as a system where a lord could call all in his employ to pageantry or battle. As a lay person, this is my view of feudalism, so how "bastard feudalism" differs is not clear. Similarly, a new concept (to me), that of "entails in tail male" on p. 36, seems to be a method of oral or written testament to override inheritance by primogeniture, but this is not clear.

There are things for which better immediate connections would help. For instance, there are many mentions that the Yorkists are promoting a "reform" or "good government" agenda. Not until p. 172 is the agenda itself spelled out, and it contradicts the many pevious references to "reform agenda" (and also what seems to be part of the author's thesis), but fits the actions of the Yorkists: "However, the Yorkist programme had not proposed a reformed system of government. It entailed rather the better management of the existing system by good rather than evil counselors, in short, themselves."

Queen Margaret is mentioned several times in the first half. You learn that historians are split about her influence, but neither the debate, nor what she is doing is not defined is defined until, finally, on p. 152 comes the first evidence that she is a player, she raises an army in Scotland.

While I don't know this history well enough to critique the balance of events, Henry VI's mental illness comes and goes with no telling of what this illness was and how it vanished. This 2+ year period would seem to be a major event and a major influence in what happened next, but it is mentioned, not explained or analyzed. Similarly Richard, Duke of York who dominates the first half of the book is key to initiating this many years struggle, dies in battle and this is sum total of what is said: "Obviously the defeat at Wakefield and the deaths of both York and Salisbury were unexpected disasters for the Yorkist cause." It would seem that for a key player this would be a big event and it seems there should be something about how he was struck, his mourners/burial, his inheritance. If nothing is known, since Richard is so important to the story, the absence of information should be noted.

The plates are very good and appropriate. The publisher opted for b & w over color, making more of them possible than if color had been used.

The final chapter "The End of the Wars" and the Epilogue are very good and can be used as free standing commentary on these wars for informed readers. "The End..." talks about the significance of the wars both then and now.

Despite all the above, I got through it and learned a lot about this multi-generational war and its aftermath. It's hard to assign stars for an ambitious work like this when I don't have be background to critique its actual thesis. While there is 5 star information here, my experience of the book was 3 stars or less. I'm going to round this higher due to knowledge of the author and the work he put into the it.

Michael Hicks excels in his specialist period of expertise in this comprehensive, concise and perhaps somewhat controversial work in which he challenges many long-held assumptions about the key figures and events in the Wars of the Roses, and demonstrates how some of these have their origins in Yorkist propaganda.

Were the wars until 1460 truly a dynastic struggle? Contemporaries did not think so, and until this time, Hicks shows the Yorkist faction stated that their main aim was political reform. Was Richard of York treated `harshly' by Henry VI? Not if you count escaping execution and being pardoned for treason four times as harsh.

This was indeed the case with Richard of York, who rebelled and raised arms against the King no less than 4 times between 1450 and 1459, and on at least two occasions his forces physically attacked the King's retinue. All of these were treasonable acts according to the law, so Richard was guilty of treason several times over, yet was pardoned in exchange for his oath of allegiance or capitulation.

In this regard King Henry was incredibly lenient towards York, but they Yorkists did not extend that magnanimity towards their rivals. As Hicks demonstrates they adopted a policy of eliminating their rivals in battles, skirmishes and even peacetime. The `battles' in which noblemen opposed to York were amongst the only casualties are testament to this.

Hicks also raises some intriguing issues surrounding Richard of York's title and claim to the throne, by demonstrating that there was not one single `right' or `true' system of succession in 15th century England, but rather several different systems, that could favour both York and Lancaster. He also shows how the circumstances in the infamous parliament of 1460 ensured that they were bound to favour York's claim.

What fascinated me the most was how Hicks succinctly demonstrated that the view of Henry IV's reign and usurpation that has existed since the time of Shakespeare and before is very much influenced by Yorkist spin, which is still prevalent today. All too often the Yorkists are viewed as the victims of Tudor propaganda, but few realise that House of York were all too were masterful in deployment of such propaganda for their own ends, which still colours our view of the Lancastrians today.

It cuts through simplistic and 'black and white' interpretations of this period in which the Yorkists are the `goodies' and the Lancastrians seen as the `baddies' by revealing the complexity of the politics of the age in which all sides were often equally immoral and dishonourable in their conduct. The author is not `pro' Lancastrian that I can see, and he is more then willing to criticise this side, but uses the same measure for the Yorkists. Hence this book is more balanced then many on the subject.

This book is `scholarly' but I did not find it nearly as hard going as many such books (as a History student I read a lot of them) and the author's method of breaking up long chapters into shorter sections under their own headings made the book a lot more readable. Overall this was an excellent and fascinating and challenging work that I find to be more balanced than most.

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