Reason Read: War Room Challenge/Wars of the Roses
This is an adventure story by Robert Louis Stevenson, fiction; historical, romance.
The source that Stevenson used; The Paston Letters, a collection of correspondence between members of the Paston family of Norfolk gentry and others connected with them in England between the years 1422 and 1509. The collection also includes state papers and other important documents.
Plot: The Black Arrow tells the story of Richard (Dick) Shelton during the Wars of the Roses: how he becomes a knight, rescues his lady Joanna Sedley, and obtains justice for the murder of his father, Sir Harry Shelton.
The Black Arrows; the outlaw "fellowship" strikes with its "four black arrows" for the "four black hearts" of Brackley and three of his retainers: Nicholas Appleyard, Bennet Hatch, and Sir Oliver Oates, the parson.
There are a lot of characters so it would be helpful to make a list.
Setting: May 1460 and January 1461. The important time indicator is the Battle of Wakefield, 30 December 1460 - Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England.
Belligerents: House of Lancaster, House of York, supported by Scotland. the most important rivalry was that between Richard, Duke of York, and Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. York argued for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, to recover territories recently lost to the French, while Somerset belonged to the party which tried to secure peace by making concessions.
Because the king (Henry) was ineffective there were battles to take over the rule. Stevenson's fictional account is inaccurate as he explains in his footnotes; Richard Crookback (later Richard III of England) is presented as an adult active in the Wars of the Roses in January 1461 that Stevenson provides the footnote: "At the date of this story, Richard Crookback could not have been created Duke of Gloucester; but for clearness, with the reader's leave, he shall so be called."Richard was born in 1452, so he would have been merely 8 years old at the time of this story. A later footnote emphasizes this again: "Richard Crookback would have been really far younger at this date [i.e. January, 1461]."[29] Stevenson follows William Shakespeare in retrojecting Richard of Gloucester into an earlier period of the Wars of the Roses and portraying him as a dour hunchback—Stevenson: "the formidable hunchback."(See Henry VI, part 2; Henry VI, part 3; and Richard III.) This characterization closely follows the Tudor myth, a tradition that overly vilified Richard of Gloucester and cast the entire English Fifteenth century as a bloody, barbaric chaos in contrast to the Tudor era of law and order.

I did not know much about the Wars of Roses and I think this was a detriment to reading the novel. I would recommend that a person actually do a bit of research before reading this book so it can be easier to engage in the story. I used Wiki after the fact and my review contains information that I obtained from that source.

I found the novel hard to engage, it had a lot of characters, it was based on history but it also was misleasing by use of "retrojecting". ( )

This was the story of Shelton, a young lad of about 18, who is naive (maybe dumb!) and a tad cruel. He is caught between trying to avenge his father's murder and trying to figure out his guardian, a man who keeps changing sides in the War of the Roses. Shelton is hard to like, he stumbles around, and quite frankly, I just didn't care what happened to him! ( )

Picked this up while on holiday and running short on reading material.
The story is set during the Wars of the Roses and details the struggles of a young man against his cruel foster-father and to find his place in the world.
It's about what you'd expect from an adventure story. The language was very archaic in line with the setting - I only knew what "salet" meant thanks to Wordle!
The main character seemed quite naive and as I neared the end of the book I did feel that he was just going with the flow and not considering the consequences of his actions - just as I began to feel that way, I reached the one scene where he does get confronted with how his actions have ruined someone's life.
He still gets of pretty scot free in the end, gets the girl and all that. Not that I ever doubted he would. It's a fun book for what it is, and a pleasant way to spend a sunny holiday afternoon. ( )

The Black Arrow is a fairly typical swashbuckling tale of knights, battles and courtly love. The romantic love interest was a bit on the silly side, but other than that, an enjoyable read. ( )

Inglaterra, mediados del siglo XV. En pleno estallido de la guerra de las Dos Rosas, que enfrenta a las casas de York y Lancaster, la hermandad de proscritos de la Flecha Negra atenta contra los poderosos. En medio de este tumulto, el joven Richard Shelton aspira a convertirse en caballero bajo la tutela del oscuro sir Daniel Brackley, defensor de la causa Lancaster. El azar quiere que en su camino se cruce John Matcham, que desea desesperadamente huir del cautiverio de Brackley. Cuando se descubra que el aguerrido John es, en realidad, la bella Joanna Sedley, Richard y la hermandad de la Flecha Negra se unirán en una cruzada para liberarla y, quizá, sellar, mediante el amor, el odio entre las dos familias.