Wish that Royle had employed a better fact checker. Many date errors in text (including the wrong day for the Battle of Bosworth), many errors in the Appendix and errorr of omission in the Index. Looks like he did a rush job on this one. Book is an adequate overview of the period. No new information, most of his sources are secondary and his analysis is derrived from the secondary sources. His primary sources are inconsistently given credit for objectivity. ( )

Highly readable account of the Wars of the Roses, the dynastic battle between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. Trevor Royle begins his history with the reign of Richard II and takes the reader through all the subsequents upheavals. A good starting point for anyone interested in this subject. ( )

Royle's history covers more than the Wars of the Roses proper; he starts with the reign of Richard II anc includes all the kings up to Henry VII. Henry VII's reign is not analyzed is full, Royle is concerned chiefly with the last efforts of surviving Yorkist to unseat him, and with Henry and the other Tudors as transitioning to the Renaissance and modernity. Royle's tries to be evenhanded and fair to all of the monarchs, listing their faults and virtues, successes and failures as he sees them.

I am somewhat skeptical of the extent to which he relies on Sir/Saint Thomas More as a source. More's text has some serious problems, none of which are noted by Royle. At one point, he quotes More's description of Edward IV (p.197) and says that More knew him. While it is not outside of the possible that Edward once patted little Tommy More on the head, More was only five when Edward died. More knew people who probably knew Edward IV, but that's a bit sloppy. I am also disappointed that there are no notes, although there is an extensive bibliography' of course, some readers may consider that to be a plus.

I also occasionally found Royle's language a little convoluted: I had to reread sentences to untangle double negatives and antecedents for pronouns. To give an example (p.60), "According to Walsingham, Orleans ... had committed adultery with the wife of a knight, who had killed him and who was then supported by Burgundy in getting his revenge." If 'who' refers to the cuckolded knight, and 'him' to Orleans, as I originally supposed, who is it that had the support of Burgundy? If it is the knight, what is the meaning of the word 'then?' The knight would already appear to have gotten his revenge, so how did Burgundy later support him? If Royle means that Burgundy protected the knight from Orleans' avenging followers, that's a somewhat indirect way to say it.

The quote also points up a flaw in the index: I couldn't find a reference to Orleans either under Louis or under Orleans.

There is a list in the appendix of characters listed and cross-referenced by title or surname which is extremely helpful. I'd like to see more authors adopt the convention.

In all, an informative book, and the bibliography will help readers who want to study further. ( )