The War of the Roses: Through the Lives of Five Men and Women of the Fifteenth Century

Rating:
Summary: A supplement to others on the subject
Review: Although Seward's approach to the Wars of the Roses was well researched and loaded with facts, his approach is disappointing. Seward relates the history of the Wars through the lives of five bit players: Margaret Beaufort (Henry Tudor's mother); William Hastings (Edward IV's friend & advisor); John Morton (Henry's advisor); John DeVere, Earl of Oxford (a Lancastrian); and Jane Shore (Edward IV's & William Hastings' mistress). The end result is disappointing because Seward is forced at many points to tie the bit players into the narrative through assumptions. In fact, Jane Shore's role is minimal; most of these sections are actually about her father, John Lambert.

On the plus side, Seward provides the reader with a number of features which leads the reader to a better understanding of the Wars and the players involved: a chronology; a who's who of the major and minor players which is accompanied by short biographies; and genealogical charts.

This book should be viewed as a supplement to other books on the Wars. The following books provide the reader with a much better understanding of the Wars of the Roses: 1. The Wars of the Roses by Charles Ross. This is a great survey of the period written by a professor of medieval history. 2. The Chronicles of the Wars of the Roses, edited by Elizabeth Hallam. A superbly written and illustrated survey which is unfortunately out of print. 3. The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir. Weir's book brilliantly covers the preludes to the Wars and the Wars through the reign of Edward IV.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Polemics
Review: Having read the author's excellent work on the military religious orders, I frankly expected much more on this, a familiar topic. I was extremely disappointed. In addition to misstatements of fact, his main objective seemed to be to blacken the name of every Yorkist who gained the throne, as well as that of Richard, duke of York. Further, he makes the rather unpleasant Henry VII Tudor virtually into a god. All in all, the book appears to display an unfortunate animus and is overly concerned with Richard III, a subject handled with much greater dexterity by Weir and others, whether or not you agree with their conclusions. This was not a book on the Wars of the Roses, but on the general familial and cultural milieu which formed the character of Richard III. It should have been so titled.

Rating:
Summary: Informative but read something else first
Review: Seward has taken five key players in the Wars of the Roses and told their stories. The result is entertaining and full of good factual information, but as a story it is so lopsided as to be useless if you're not already familiar with the history of the period.

Seward writes well enough, though his style's not as entertaining as Alison Weir's (whose history of this period is a much better place to start). The problem is not his style, though; there are simply too many threads in the story for this to be a good way of telling it. Seward tries hard to make the historical sequence mesh with the stories of his five protagonists; he cuts the story into chapters which are in chronological order and each of which revolves primarily around one of the five. However, the points at which the book flows most smoothly as history are exactly the points where he focuses least on his protagonists.

If you don't think of this as a history of the Wars of the Roses, though, and instead think of it as five interlaced biographical sketches, this is a very worthwhile book. Because of the focus Seward has chosen, there is a lot more detail about these individuals than you will find in most of the histories. The men in particular stand out: the Earl of Oxford, William Hasting, and John Morton. The women (Margaret Beaufort and Jane Shore) are less memorable, sadly; mainly because there is so little actual information about them, and they were perforce only indirect players in much of the political manoeuvering of the age.

Recommended; but read something else first -- this is better as background material than as an overview of the period.

Rating:
Summary: Informative but read something else first
Review: Seward has taken five key players in the Wars of the Roses and told their stories. The result is entertaining and full of good factual information, but as a story it is so lopsided as to be useless if you're not already familiar with the history of the period.

Seward writes well enough, though his style's not as entertaining as Alison Weir's (whose history of this period is a much better place to start). The problem is not his style, though; there are simply too many threads in the story for this to be a good way of telling it. Seward tries hard to make the historical sequence mesh with the stories of his five protagonists; he cuts the story into chapters which are in chronological order and each of which revolves primarily around one of the five. However, the points at which the book flows most smoothly as history are exactly the points where he focuses least on his protagonists.

If you don't think of this as a history of the Wars of the Roses, though, and instead think of it as five interlaced biographical sketches, this is a very worthwhile book. Because of the focus Seward has chosen, there is a lot more detail about these individuals than you will find in most of the histories. The men in particular stand out: the Earl of Oxford, William Hasting, and John Morton. The women (Margaret Beaufort and Jane Shore) are less memorable, sadly; mainly because there is so little actual information about them, and they were perforce only indirect players in much of the political manoeuvering of the age.

Recommended; but read something else first -- this is better as background material than as an overview of the period.

Rating:
Summary: A supplement to others on the subject
Review: This history follows five second tier players through the War of the Roses: William Hastings, Edward IV's best friend; Jane Shore, their mistress; Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor - the top Lancastrian during the second phase of the war; Archbishop Morton, Henry's crafty advisor and the Earl of Oxford, a ranking Lancastrian.

This is not a good introduction to the war, not really revolving around the major players like Edward, Henry, Margaret of Anjou and Richard III - but if you are already familiar with the basics (read: Allison Weir), this should be the second book on your shelf about the subject. Each of the five protagonists changed the tide of the war at some point in either the battlefield, bedroom or negotiating room, and Seward makes their stories as riveting as the latest tabloid even when you know what's going to happen next. Especially interesting is the summary about the rest of the lives of the four survivors - most accounts of the war end with Richard III's death, their fates lost in the shuffle. Here, in this book, they get their due.