Customer Reviews

The Wars of the Roses (A Royal History of England)

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If you are looking for a quick way to get an idea of what was going on with the Houses of Lancaster and York during the 15th century, this little book might be just the ticket. It is a short book of only 101 pages, and the large number of illustrations reduce the text pages to only about 50.

The book includes a Genealogical Table starting with Edward III which helps immensely in understanding the complex relationships between the players. Since I found the table so useful, I would have liked it to have been more complete, and - something I wish for in most such tables - for there to have been some way to more readily recognize contemporaries. The table does help in knowing what's going on, though, particularly since the author refers to the players in different ways at different times; sometimes by first name alone, sometimes by title alone, sometimes as so-and-so's brother, etc. He seems to be unaware that the reader may not automatically know which Suffolk (for example) he is referring to. The result is that if you really want to piece together the picture of the Wars of the Roses, this little book can do the trick, but it takes longer to fully digest than the number of pages might suggest.

Also, note that Amazon refers to the book as "by Antonia Fraser (Editor)". The title page shows the book's author as Anthony Cheetham. It appears that the text of the entire book is excerpted directly from "The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England", also edited by Fraser and also available from Amazon. I couldn't identify anything as Fraser's either by attribution or by style, so if you are expecting to enjoy Fraser's writing and unique approach, you may be disappointed. All in all, though, the book did what I wanted it to do.