With vivid descriptions of the battles of Towton and Bosworth, where the last Plantagenet king was slain, this is a bold and dramatic narrative history that will delight readers who like their history with a healthy dose of bedlam, romance, and intrigue. It is also a period of headstrong and resilient women-Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort-who were not afraid to seize power and bend men to their will. Some of the greatest heroes and villains in history were thrown together in these turbulent times-from Joan of Arc and Henry V, whose victory at Agincourt and prudent rule marked the high point of the medieval English monarchy, to Richard III, who stole the throne and murdered his own nephews, the princes in the Tower. Now, celebrated historian Dan Jones describes how the longest reigning British royal family tore itself apart until it was finally replaced by the Tudors. The crown of England changed hands five times as two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought to the death for the right to rule. Narrator John Curless does a superb job of enlivening this dense and complex story.The author of the New York Times bestseller The Plantagenets chronicles the next chapter in British history-the actual historical backdrop for Game of Thrones The fifteenth century saw the longest and bloodiest series of civil wars in British history. Jones persuasively argues that the entire narrative of a war of white versus red roses is, in no small part, semiotically rich Tudor propaganda conceived to aggrandize the regimes of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I by contrasting 15th-century chaos with the subsequent period of relative peace and cultural efflorescence. His subsequent marriage to Elizabeth of York merged the feuding families and launched the Tudor dynasty. At the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the Lancastrian Henry Tudor defeated Richard III, becoming King Henry VII. As lawlessness and intrigue escalated, the throne fell to Edward IV and then his brother, Richard III, who had his two nephews killed to secure his crown. In time, Henry VI grew to be a feckless leader whose ineptitude encouraged his ambitious kinsmen to plots and treason. The premature and sudden death of Henry V in 1422 left his infant son, Henry VI, on the throne, surrounded by quarreling councilors. In the 15th century, the English crown changed hands five times as rival branches of the Plantagenets-the Lancasters and the Yorks-schemed and fought for the right to rule.

The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones