David Grummitt - (I.B. Tauris), 2013

212 pp., £12.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-84885-875-6

The Wars of the Roses from the first Battle of St. Albans in 1455 to the battle of Stoke in 1487 were one of the longest and savage periods of civil discord in English history.  What began as a political contest between supporters of the weak Lancastrian king Henry VI and those who favoured the ambitions of the house of York in the late 1440s and early 1450s escalated into bloody conflict.  At local and regional levels, the fighting was between local aristocratic families, such as that between the Percies and Nevilles in northern England, while nationally there were clashes between royalist and rebel armies in the quest for political and then monarchical power.  It was a period of powerful personalities: the phlegmatic and vain Duke of York, his son Edward IV, the charismatic and enigmatic Richard III and Warwick ‘the Kingmaker' and powerful and ambitious women such as Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret of Anjou.  For over a generation, many in the aristocracy, caught on the wrong side, it proved fatal but also, as excavations on the site of the battle of Towton shows, for the many ordinary soldiers who fought. 

The book contains eight chapters each of about twenty pages while the book is divided into three parts, causes, course and consequences.  There are short biographies of the leading players, timeline and family trees, a short bibliography and a useful index.  Unfortunately, there are no maps showing the major battles, where the main centres of fighting were and how they linked to the road network.  It is no coincidence that several of the main battles took place close to the A1 and A5.  These would I think have been a better addition than the illustrations.  David Grummitt had written an elegant and accessible book that helps students through the complexities and controversies of events and provides a valuable reassessment of the pivotal importance of the wars to the development both of the modern administrative state and to the beginnings of a redefinition of what monarchy represented and what its justifications were.  It should find a ready audience, helped by its competitive price, among sixth formers and undergraduates and for teachers who wish to bring their knowledge of the Wars up to date.