Customer Reviews
A rose is a rose is a rose - By: Kurt Messick, 03 Dec 2005 
A quick search of books will show a list of dozens with the title ‘The Wars of the Roses’ or some derivative thereof;in the past generation, much scholarship has been devoted to this particular & peculiar eventin English history, & that has had the somewhat unfortunate outcome of making it out to be a far more dramatic episode than perhaps a raw interpretation of empirical data might warrant. Add to this the undoubted dramatic flair of the Shakespearean revisionism for the benefit of the Tudors & later dynastic houses, & one gets the sense that this was an occurrencein English history of truly epic proportions.
While the events that collectively now fall under the classification ‘The Wars of the Roses’ were certainly pivotalin the overall dynastic stream of English (and, ultimately, British) history, J.R. Lander puts forward the case thatin fact the Wars of the Roses is a misnomer – compared with contintental European warfare, the events constituting the multi-generational Wars of the Roses (and attendant prelude) seem no more than mere skirmishes. ‘During the Wars of the Roses the total period of active campaigning between the first battle of St Albans (1455) & the battle of Stoke (1487) amounted to little more than one year – one year out of thirty-two years. Henry VII’s progress from his landingin Milford Haven to his victory at Bosworth Field lasted only fourteen days.’ Indeed, even the symbolic nature of the term, the Wars of the Roses, is not entirely accurate, as the rose on each side was but one of many symbols used.
Lander describes situationsin terms of strategies military & political, tactics & ambitions that all pale by comparison to European counterparts. Most English cities were not fortified; most castles & great houses did not suffer siege; the idea of burning crops & laying waste to cities & villages was far from commonplace practice. Lander conjectures that the prominence of the Wars of the Rosesin the stream of English history may be due to the lack of foreign invasion & involvement; even the French campaigning of the English up to this period was far more intense & far more destructive, & yet the prominence of that cycle of warfarein English history is much smaller.
Perhaps it is because of the fascination & sometimes automatic identification of English history general with English royal history particular that the Wars of the Roses took their pride of place. After the general introductionin which Lander puts forward his caveats & reservations, he proceeds to explore the history of the House of Lancaster, the House of York, periods of peace & stability as well as particularly intense periods of struggle, & Lander devotes individual chapters each to Richard III & Henry VII. Lander also addresses the strange case of Perkin Warbeck, & presentsin good fashion the various arguments pro & conin controversies such as Richard’s possible murder of the princesin the tower versus the claims of someone like Warbeck.
Lander uses extensive sections of previous material – rather than paraphrasing or re-interpreting earlier chronicles, he inserts large sections of the material to allow the reader to make her or his own evaluation of the material. This book was first publishedin 1965, but most of the material quoted is not out-of-date even forty years later, as it comes from chronicles & documents contemporary with the events they describe, or histories written shortly thereafter. It remains an important contributionin the scholarship of the time.
Excellent Political History of the Era - By: Budge Burgess, 04 Oct 2003 The casual history enthusiast might be forgiven for imagining that 'Wars of the Roses' is primarily the description of a military struggle. The wars were, of course, the visible tip of a fiery iceberg - the real struggle was for masteryin England ... or parts of England. Lander provides a thoroughly readable account of the politics of the era as the Houses of York & Lancaster fought for the throne & their supporters fought local political & military battles to dominate the cities & regions. Still one of the best introductions to the politics of the era, well illustratedin black & white, & well organised.
