Blood and Roses: One Family's Struggle and Triumph During the Tumultuous Wars of the Roses [Hardcover]

Helen Castor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 2006

The Wars of the Roses turned England upside down. Between 1455 and 1485 four kings lost their thrones, more than forty noblemen lost their lives on the battlefield or their heads on the block, and thousands of the men who followed them met violent deaths. Yet almost nothing is known about the thoughts and feelings of the people who lived through this bloody conflict, whether kind of noble, landowner or peasant. Almost nothing, but not quite. As they made their way in a disintegrating world, a Norfolk family called the Pastons were writing letters - about politics, about business, about shopping, about love and about each other. Using these letters, the oldest surviving family correspondence in English, Helen Castor traces the extraordinary history of the Paston family across three generations. Blood & Roses tells the dramatic, moving and intensely human story of how one family survived one of the most tempestuous periods in English history.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Referring to publication of the Paston letters, the "literary sensation" of 1787, Horace Walpole said, "I cannot bear to be writing when I am so eager to be reading." The letters are a collection of roughly 1,000 documents written by four generations over the course of some 70 years that provide astonishingly intimate insight into late medieval English life during the tumultuous War of the Roses. The Pastons began as peasant farmers, rose to the status of minor Norfolk gentry and strove mightily to improve their lot through the courts, business and marriage. In this multigenerational biography, Castor tells their story as a sweeping whole and allows readers to understand these people's mental world, one so alien to us and yet strikingly familiar in the most unexpected of ways. Much of their story revolves around the acquisition of land and how they tried (not always successfully) to keep it out of the hands of their sometimes violent neighbors. Castor, a history fellow at Cambridge University, nicely summarizes the complexities of 15th-century politics and culture without losing her momentum. Beautifully paced and splendidly retold, Castor's tale of one family trying to survive and thrive against the odds is popular history at its best. 8 pages of color photos, 1 map. (Apr. 11)
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–Castor takes as the basis of this scholarly yet readable book the trove of letters written by members of a 15th-century English family who had climbed into the ranks of the lesser aristocracy. Other writers have taken advantage of this incredible collection, but Castor offers both the letters and a comprehensive and nuanced grasp of the world in which the Pastons lived. She has created realistic portraits, from Judge William to his embattled son John and John's hardy wife, Margaret, to their sons, the irrepressibly optimistic Sir John and his reliable stay-at-home younger brother and namesake, John. The author uses the family's story to illuminate a nation in which the Wars of the Roses had eliminated all of the old certainties for its inhabitants and forced them to think anew. Good-quality color photos and illustrations are included. For anyone who is interested in history or the Middle Ages, this book is highly recommended. For anyone who thinks that this period was boring, it's a necessity.–Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (April 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007148089
• ISBN-13: 978-0007148080
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #993,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely engrossing., May 14, 2006

By 

Nicholas Warren (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blood and Roses: One Family's Struggle and Triumph During the Tumultuous Wars of the Roses (Hardcover)

I can't praise this book too highly. On one level, it is the story of a tumultuous period in late mediaeval (15th century)England (The Wars of the Roses). On another level, it is the detailed story of the rise of the Paston family from a bondsman farmer (tied to the land) to gentry who could marry into the aristocracy. The interplay of these two brings alive the former. Along the way, Helen Castor tells the more circumscribed story with numerous asides explaining the significance of things we would find difficult to relate to today (e.g., the vaguaries of legal rights to land, or the severe economic consequences of selling a forest to pay debt), but which were so important at the time.

If you have any interest in history at all (particularly English late mediaeval, though not, by any means, restricted to that) do read this book. Helen Castor writes beautifully and brings the period alive.

This is anything but "dry-as-dust" history - it will carry you along like the best of Dumas, even though it is non-fiction. Brava Helen; I can't wait for the next.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great read, December 26, 2004

By 

litchick "litchick" (toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood and Roses: One Family's Struggle and Triumph During the Tumultuous Wars of the Roses (Hardcover)

How little people change! In a world of chicanery and deviousness with a civil war raging, how does a family fend off enemies and progress in wealth and status? Castor uses the private correspondence of the Paston family to weave a fascinating story of a family's struggles and survival during the War of the Roses.

Battles, beheadings, political mayhem, worrying about the son in London who seems to be a spendthrift dilettante and the daughter sleeping with an employee when she should be aspiring to at least a knight if not a duke. It's all here along with whether it is better to rescue your wife trapped in the manor surrounded by men with crossbows, or let nature take its course!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent but sometimes complicated story of landownership in early modern England, October 26, 2006

By 

B. Pym (Berkeley CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood and Roses: One Family's Struggle and Triumph During the Tumultuous Wars of the Roses (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book very much. It is specifically about the family's history during the period of the War of the Roses, and this time really comes alive with all of its uncertainties and political instability. The book occasionaly gets mired in extensive detail about the property problems faced by the family - but certainly shows how much has changed in terms of security of land tenure and property rights since this period. It probably helps to have some initial knowledge of Plantagenet vs. York issues to get into the book, but as a layman myself, I was able to follow the bigger story, of deposed kings and usurpers fairly easily, and was thoroughly engrossed as well in the personality profiles of the kings, princes, peers, and queens depicted.