The more powerful white rose descendants were through Margaret Pole (daughter of George, Duke of Clarence and Isabel Neville) and when they decided to remain loyal to their faith, they came under Henry’s radar and it wasn’t a matter of whether they were guilty or not as Jones supposes, but the fact that their faith and their Yorkist blood posed a threat to the king. The princes likely were murdered by Richard, though not by himself, someone closest to him -as they began to be seen less and less to quote from contemporary sources after the summer of ’83 until they disappeared altogether in the autumn of that year. Clearly he was not suited to leadership in the 15th century, preferring to help people and pour money into education than to wage wars with France. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.

But perhaps the greatest achievement of this book is the way it makes ‘recent’ and innovative scholarship accessible. Thus had been created the red-and-white ‘Tudor rose’ that seemed to be painted everywhere, reminding the populace that the Tudors stood for unity, reconciliation, peace and the incontestable right to rule. They walked as far as the overturned market place, in the shadow of the castle walls, and then came to a halt: the remnants of a great family throwing themselves on the mercy of the crown.When Neville defeated a royal army at Northampton, Henry VI was forced to disinherit Prince Edward and appoint York and his descendants to the royal succession. It's not often that a book manages to be both scholarly and a page-turner, but Jones succeeds on both counts in this entertaining follow-up to his bestselling The Plantagenets. So many battles, so many traitors and double crossings, so many kings, so many Salisburys, Gloucesters, Somersets… even with a notebook it’s a struggle to keep up.

Tautly structured, elegantly written and finely attuned to the values and sensibilities of the age, The Hollow Crown is probably the best introduction to the Wars of the Roses currently in print. Jones did an excellent job of explaining just how Henry VI’s mental instability led to the generation long civil war. Henry VI’s vengeful Queen, Margaret of Anjou, is standing behind the royal lines and ‘she was in terrible danger’, but ‘the grand wife of the vanquished duke walked through the streets of the ransacked town, her sons by her side. The first English monarch to be crowned both king of England and of France, Henry VI proved incapable of ruling either realm.Then a far more grotesque and insulting marriage was arranged between the twenty-year-old John Woodville and Katherine Neville, Warwick’s aunt and the dowager duchess of Norfolk. The writing is excellent as you'd expect from Dan Jones but as others have said, it is complicated to follow at times as so many of the men had the same names in those days.

Although the true origins of the conflict go back to the sons of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, Jones chooses to explore the reign of King Henry V, Catherine of Valois, and their son Henry VI. Jones takes the story beyond the Battle of Bosworth of 1485 and the burial of the king in the car park. Richard of York argued that his great aristocratic lineage and proximity to the king in blood (as third cousin, once removed, on his mother’s side) gave him the right to steer government during the king’s incapacity. As a young man he was a loving – if not very potent - husband to his loyal wife, Margaret of Anjou, and a kindly half-brother to the recent, and very embarrassing, Tudor additions to the royal family. Throughout it all, Henry VI seemed desensitised: during one battle he sat under a tree, sang songs and laughed.

Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today. Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published. The situation was trickier back then because of how England claimed territory in France, which was seen in the Hundred Years’ War and the claims to the throne, thus adding the French monarchy into the mix. The king’s second son, Prince Henry, was created Duke of York in 1494 to try to shut down all other claims to that family’s legacy.