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Only nine months old when his father's sudden death made him king, Henry VI became a tormented and pathetic figure, weak, sexually inept, and prey to fits of insanity.

Both Henry IV and his son, the cold warrior Henry V, ruled England ably, if not always wisely-but Henry VI proved a disaster, both for his dynasty and his kingdom. The first battle erupted in 1455, but the roots of the conflict reached back to the dawn of the fifteenth century, when the corrupt, hedonistic Richard II was sadistically murdered, and Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, seized England's throne. In The Wars of the Roses, Alison Weir reconstructs this conflict with the same dramatic flair and impeccable research that she brought to her highly praised The Princes in the Tower. The war between the royal House of Lancaster and York, the longest and most complex in British history, profoundly altered the course of the monarchy. Old noble names were ruined while rising dynasties seized power and lands. For much of the fifteenth century, these two families were locked in battle for control of the British monarchy. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.

At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York and Henry’s rival and most important of all, Margaret of Anjou, Henry’s wife who took up arms in her husband’s cause and battled for many years in a violent man’s world. Between 14, the royal coffers were bankrupted and the conflict resulted in the downfall of the House of Lancaster and the House of York, and the emergence of the illustrious Tudor dynasty.Īlison Weir’s lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history, on the people and personalities involved in the conflict. Albans, Blore Hill and Towton, some of the bloodiest and most dramatic battles on England’s soil. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York for the throne of England was characterized by treachery, deceit and, at St. A riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, focusing on the human side of the story.

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