The Wars of the Roses

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Mon September 8th, 2008, 6:13 am

The Wars of the Roses is a popular setting for historical novels, for good reason. There are so many fascinating characters in this time period: the smart and scheming Margaret of Anjou (as far as I can tell, only one novelist, Jean Plaidy, has written a novel devoted primarily to her, The Red Rose of Anjou), who was married to the mentally incapacitated King Henry VI; Edward IV, his wife Elizabeth Woodville, and his various mistresses; and of course Richard III.

Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour has been discussed in the Author thread for SKP. (I've reviewed it at http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Sunne- ... ndour.html.) Some of the other novelists who have written about Richard III are Rosemary Hawley Jarman, Reay Tannahill, and Sandra Worth.

Novelists who have written about Edward IV include the nineteenth century novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, famous for his purple prose (The Last of the Barons), and Jean Plaidy (The Sun in Splendour - not to be confused with Sunne!), who also wrote a novel about Edward's mistress Jane Shore (The Goldsmith's Wife). Rosemary Hawley Jarman wrote about Elizabeth Woodville in The King's Grey Mare.

Plus, there are various novels about daughters and other relations of these people.

Anyone have any favorites from this setting aside from The Sunne in Splendour?

Amanda · Post by **Amanda** » Mon September 8th, 2008, 9:00 am

I have another book about Margaret of Anjou called "Queen of Lions" by Alan Savage. Haven't read it yet though.

lindymc · Post by **lindymc** » Mon September 8th, 2008, 12:25 pm

[quote=""Margaret""]
Anyone have any favorites from this setting aside from The Sunne in Splendour?[/quote]

I enjoyed A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith, about the fictional woman who might have been the mother of Richard III's bastard children.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Tue September 9th, 2008, 12:49 am

Queen of Lions certainly seems like an appropriate title for a novel about Margaret of Anjou! Be sure to let us know what you think once you've read it, Amanda.

Anne Easter Smith is on my TBR list. She wrote another one, Daughter of York, about the sister of Edward IV and Richard III, who married the French Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.

boswellbaxter · Post by **boswellbaxter** » Tue September 9th, 2008, 1:38 am

Though you wouldn't guess it from its rather demure cover, Queen of Lions is, er, interesting, to say the least. Its most memorable feature is Margaret of Anjou's having sex with men, women, and boys of all classes and in all manner of places.

There are several others about Margaret of Anjou. One, by Ruth S. Perot, called The Red Queen, is reviewed here, and there's an older one by Barnaby Ross called The Passionate Queen that's on my TBR pile.

I'm fond of Jan Westcott's The White Rose, about Elizabeth Woodville (a more sympathetic portrayal than usual) and of Reay Tannahill's The Seventh Son, about Richard III (a sympathetic, but not too-good-to-be-true portrayal of that king). Brenda Honeyman, aka Brenda Clarke, has also written a number of novels set during the Wars of the Roses.

Amanda · Post by **Amanda** » Tue September 9th, 2008, 4:07 am

Though you wouldn't guess it from its rather demure cover, Queen of Lions is, er, interesting, to say the least. Its most memorable feature is Margaret of Anjou's having sex with men, women, and boys of all classes and in all manner of places.

Sounds like quite a romp! What a busy woman, all that and trying to run a civil war as well!

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Tue September 9th, 2008, 9:18 am

[quote=""Margaret""]
Anyone have any favorites from this setting aside from The Sunne in Splendour?[/quote]

Treason by Meredith Whitford is very good - best of the recent bunch IMO if very pro-Richard.
The Adventures of Alianore Audeley by Brian Wainwright is a great romp - Richard III is a peripheral character in this

JaneConsumer · Post by **JaneConsumer** » Tue September 9th, 2008, 11:13 am

There's a good bibliography of Wars of Roses fiction at the Richard III Society Web site.

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Tue September 9th, 2008, 1:53 pm

[quote=""EC2""]Treason by Meredith Whitford is very good - best of the recent bunch IMO if very pro-Richard.
The Adventures of Alianore Audeley by Brian Wainwright is a great romp - Richard III is a peripheral character in this[/quote]

Treason is good and Alianore Audeley is good fun. House of Lanyon by Anand covers that period but a very boring book IMO.

Ariadne · Post by **Ariadne** » Tue September 9th, 2008, 2:24 pm

I enjoyed House of Lanyon quite a bit, but it's not a good choice if you want or expect firsthand descriptions of battles or politics at the time of the Wars of the Roses.

There's an entire book on this topic: The Wars of the Roses in Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography, 1440-1994 by Roxane C. Murph. It includes a number of obscure titles.