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

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A Milanese ambassador in 1471 likened the task of describing the ever-changing nature of events in England to suffering torture. There are more examples of his merciless bloodshed from Henry VI mysterious death -which was likely murder under the command of Edward IV, to weeks before the gruesome battles that wiped out all the Lancastrian threats -except for one- Barnet and Tewksbury where the King’s cousin and former staunch supporter, the earl of Warwick had been killed and then stripped down of his clothing and paraded naked through the countryside and Edward of Wesminster (who was proving himself to be like his grandfather, the great Henry V) and Edmund Beaufort Duke of Somerset killed in the latter battle with Edward and his brothers breaking the rules of sanctuary and dragging Edmund and his associates from the church he was hiding in and mercilessly executing him. The Tudor rose was invented to symbolize the unity that had supposedly been brought about when Henry VII married Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York in 1486, entwining the two warring branches, the houses of Lancaster and York, together. It's not often that a book manages to be both scholarly and a page-turner, but Jones succeeds on both counts in this entertaining follow-up to his bestselling The Plantagenets. As Henry VII’s reign progressed, he devoted much time and money to continuing to fight the Wars of the Roses.

Before there were the Tudors, there was the House of Plantagenet, which ruled the land now known as England from 1103 to 1485, two years before the Wars of the Roses came to its formal conclusion. He intercepted Rivers and Richard Woodville (Elizabeth Woodville’s second eldest son by her first marriage) and then along with others had them killed but as his namesake he faced a great problem in a king who wasn’t going to bend to his will.Richard Duke of York believed he was more entitled to the privilege and positions bestowed on Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou’s favorites (de la Pole and Beaufort) and that he could do a better job than them, unfortunately his good intentions were lost when he became mad with power and believed that the only way he could rescue England from perdition was by declaring himself king (a bad move which even his closest associates thought was ridiculous); after her partially got what he wanted, Margaret (a formidable woman whose appearance in the book is tremendous, a well educated, and capable leader who had the great example of both her grandmother and mother taking positions of power during her father’s absence or imprisonment, and likewise she wanted to do the same with the same good intentions for her husband’s House) turned the tables on him by defending her only son’s right to inherit his father’s crown and her forces slew him and in his in laws. But Dan Jones does a great job of explaining and keeping everything straight, and tells a cracking story. It wasn’t until his son, Henry VIII that the “White Rose” as the last de la Pole nicknamed himself, was squashed during the battle of Pavia when he fought alongside Francis I .

In 1471 he killed Warwick at the battle of Barnet and Prince Edward at the battle of Tewkesbury, and had Henry VI murdered in the Tower of London. 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.

So angry were the Edwardian Yorkists at Richard III’s usurpation that they turned to Henry Tudor to overthrow him. Characters like Margaret of Anjou, Richard of York and a succession of Somerset Dukes become real to us. 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.

He has written and hosted dozens of TV shows including the acclaimed Netflix/Channel 5 series 'Secrets of Great British Castles'.The author of the New York Times bestseller The Plantagenets chronicles the next chapter in British history-the actual historical backdrop for Game of Thrones The fifteenth century saw the longest and bloodiest series of civil wars in British history. In normal circumstances, being third cousin from one sitting king and third cousin twice removed from his rival would mean that Henry Tudor would have virtually no chance of becoming king.