*THE WARS OF THE ROSES: THE FALL OF THE PLANTAGENETS AND THE RISE OF THE TUDORS* (2014)

That's the title of an excellent book I've just finished reading by Dan Jones. I found it enjoyable, and an interesting narrative of English dynastic struggles during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and how image-management, a series of assertive rulers, and the death of basically anyone with a claim to the throne not named "Tudor," served to bring the Wars of the Roses to and end, and secure the Tudor position as kings of England.

At base, the central argument of the book centers on the fragile nature of English kingship in that period, and how the risks associated with this particular institutional arrangement showed up in a major way following the death of the Henry V and during the reign of Henry VI. An excerpt makes this very point:

...the Wars of the Roses and the destruction of the house of Plantagenet did not really come about because two factions divided by blood were destined to atone through war for the sin of deposing Richard II. All the evil of the fifteenth century was not embodied in a villainous Richard III, and more than the marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York provided instant salvation. Rather, this was a vicious and at times barely comprehensible period of deep political instability, which stemmed ultimately from the collapse of royal authority and English rule in France under Henry VI. In a system in which law, order, justice and peace flowed so heavily from the person of the king and the office of the Crown, Henry VI's reign (and his afterlife between deposition in 1461 and his death ten years later) was a disaster. The English system of government was robust in the 1420s and 1430s--robust enough to deal with a minority of nearly two decades. But it was not robust enough to deal with an adult king who simply would not perform his role (p. 339).

The book is interesting throughout, and I would recommend it.