Documentary Notes – British History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley: the Wars of the Roses

• Story of past open to interpretation 
• Carefully edited and deceitful version of events 
• Not just a version of what happened – more a tapestry of different stories woven together by whoever was in power at the time 
• Wars of the Roses was invented by the Tudors to justify their power 
• Immortalised by Shakespeare – darkest chapter in English history 
• Lancaster and York locked in battle for the crown of England – kings deposed, innocent children murdered, cousin fought against cousin 
• 1485 Richard III slain and Henry Tudor took the throne 
• Henry VII’s victory hailed the ending of the Medieval period 
• Line between fact and fiction often gets blurred 

Late 16th Century portrait of Richard III, housed in the National Portrait Gallery.

• 1455 Stubbins in Lancashire scene of a legendary battle in the Wars of the Roses beginning with volleys of arrows but ran out of ammunition 
• Lancastrians pelted the Yorkists with black pudding – local legend 
• Yorkists pelted the Lancastrians with Yorkshire puddings – local legend 
• Wars of the Roses in national memory 
• History books – rivalry between Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose) – bloody rivalry largely a creation of the Tudors 

• 1461 bloodshed real in the middle of a snowstorm at Towton 
• Lancastrians started out well but tide turned against them, chased by the Yorkists down the slope to a river and so a massacre began 
• Blood stained the snow red, so location became known as the bloody meadow 
• Shakespeare portrayed the battle as a bloody Armageddon – represented a country torn apart by war, nothing as bad in our history 
• Somme 19,000 British soldiers killed on the first day, Towton 28,000 killed 

• 20 years ago Bradford University revealed barbarity of fighting with remains of 43 men killed at Towton 
• Head forced down into the spine, poleaxes – exceptional even for the Wars of the Roses 
• Skirmishes, but real battles only around 8 in 30 years 
• Not ravaged by all-out war – later myth 
• Out of 32 years of wars, fighting on lasted a total of 13 weeks 

Book Review – ‘The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503’ by J.L. Laynesmith

JL Laynesmith ‘The Last Medieval Queens’

J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), Paperback, ISBN 978-0-199-27956-2

Title: The lives of the last Medieval Queens – this book looks at Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville and Elizabeth of York. However, I think it could also have done with looking more at Jacquetta of Luxembourg and Margaret Beaufort because, although they weren’t Queens, sometimes they almost had the same power as them, and definitely influenced the Queens themselves.

Preface: The introduction gives a broad overview of the lives of the women, and why these particular women are so fascinating. It gives a brief rundown of their lives, and how they link to each other. It also introduces other people who influenced the lives of the Queens and the monarchy, like the Earl of Warwick the “kingmaker”, the Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury, the children of the queens, and the kings that the queens were married to.

Book Review – ‘The Women of the Cousins’ War: the Duchess, the Queen and the King’s Mother’ by Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins’ War: the Duchess, the Queen and the King’s Mother (London: Simon and Schuster Ltd, 2011), Hardback, ISBN 978-0-85720-177-5

Title: Although the book is called The Women of the Cousins’ War, the book only examines a few of them – Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort and Jacquetta of Luxembourg. It doesn’t look at Margaret of Anjou or Anne Neville in a lot of detail. Nevertheless, a good study of those it does examine in detail.

Preface: The preface discusses several important questions, like why write about these women? What’s so important about them? It also goes a lot wider, looking at what history is, and what fiction is, and how they can go together. There is also a sub-section on women’s place in history. The introduction is a little long, almost as long as a chapter.