The Wars of the Roses

A quick search of books will show a list of dozens with the title `The Wars of the Roses' or some derivative thereof; in the past generation, much scholarship has been devoted to this particular and peculiar event in English history, and that has had the somewhat unfortunate outcome of making it out to be a far more dramatic episode than perhaps a raw interpretation of empirical data might warrant. Add to this the undoubted dramatic flair of the Shakespearean revisionism for the benefit of the Tudors and later dynastic houses, and one gets the sense that this was an occurrence in English history of truly epic proportions. While the events that collectively now fall under the classification `The Wars of the Roses' were certainly pivotal in the overall dynastic stream of English (and, ultimately, British) history, J.R. Lander puts forward the case that in fact the Wars of the Roses is a misnomer - compared with contintental European warfare, the events constituting the multi-generational Wars of the Roses (and attendant prelude) seem no more than mere skirmishes. `During the Wars of the Roses the total period of active campaigning between the first battle of St Albans (1455) and the battle of Stoke (1487) amounted to little more than one year - one year out of thirty-two years. Henry VII's progress from his landing in Milford Haven to his victory at Bosworth Field lasted only fourteen days.' Indeed, even the symbolic nature of the term, the Wars of the Roses, is not entirely accurate, as the rose on each side was but one of many symbols used. Lander describes situations in terms of strategies military and political, tactics and ambitions that all pale by comparison to European counterparts. Most English cities were not fortified; most castles and great houses did not suffer siege; the idea of burning crops and laying waste to cities and villages was far from commonplace practice. Lander conjectures that the prominence of the Wars of the Roses in the stream of English history may be due to the lack of foreign invasion and involvement; even the French campaigning of the English up to this period was far more intense and far more destructive, and yet the prominence of that cycle of warfare in English history is much smaller. Perhaps it is because of the fascination and sometimes automatic identification of English history general with English royal history particular that the Wars of the Roses took their pride of place. After the general introduction in which Lander puts forward his caveats and reservations, he proceeds to explore the history of the House of Lancaster, the House of York, periods of peace and stability as well as particularly intense periods of struggle, and Lander devotes individual chapters each to Richard III and Henry VII. Lander also addresses the strange case of Perkin Warbeck, and presents in good fashion the various arguments pro and con in controversies such as Richard's possible murder of the princes in the tower