Beyond Game of Thrones: Recent Research on the Wars of the Roses and the Tudors

Beyond Game of Thrones: Recent Research on the Wars of the Roses and the Tudors

Dr Eliza Hartrich (contact: )

Teaching History at Post-16 and Beyond

University of Sheffield

26 June 2017

READING LIST

Wars of the Roses (1450-1509)

• C. Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England, c. 1437-1509 (Cambridge, 1997)—a good survey of historiography pertaining to the Wars of the Roses, intended for an informed but non-specialist reader; introductory chapters devoted to a ‘political culture’ survey of ideas of government in late medieval England; particularly notable for a revisionist (and highly negative) account of Henry VII’s reign
• D. Grummitt, A Short History of the Wars of the Roses (London, 2012)—an up-to-date narrative account of the conflict, but one which does incorporate recent work on political culture, militarization, and urban history
• S. Gunn, ‘Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities’, History, 92 (2007)—presents a number of new approaches to interpreting the reign of Henry VII, including popular politics and foreign policy; other works by Gunn on Henry VII (such as his new book on Henry VII’s New Men and the Making of Tudor England) are also highly recommended
• M.A. Hicks, The Wars of the Roses (New Haven, 2010)—intended for a general readership; makes some attempt to incorporate political ideas, popular politics, and diplomacy into narrative account of Wars of the Roses, but still interprets many events through analysis of individuals’ motivations; notable for contesting Carpenter and Watts by arguing that the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses stemmed largely from external causes (economic recession, loss of English France, etc.) rather than from a constitutional crisis surrounding Henry VI’s weak kingship; see also the historiographical battle that ensued when Watts reviewed this book (
• A.J. Pollard (ed.), The Wars of the Roses (Basingstoke, 1995)—a collection of clearly-written essays that signal new directions in the field; particularly useful are Watts on political ideas, Britnell on the economy, and Davies on foreign policy/diplomacy

• J. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996)—a difficult read for A-Level students, but a key work in the ‘political culture’ historiography of the Wars of the Roses. See also J. Watts, ‘Uncivil Wars?: Interpreting the Wars of the Roses’, Teaching History, 148 (2012), pp. 48-50 for some thoughts on teaching the Wars of the Roses at A-Level and Key Stage 3.

Watts has a number of other articles on political language and popular politics in the Wars of the Roses that are extremely thought-provoking, but unfortunately they are published in edited collections that are not readily available in book stores or public libraries. They are also perhaps somewhat complicated for an A-Level students, as they are intended for an academic audience. If you would like references for these articles, though, please feel free to e-mail me!

Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I (1509-1603)

• D. Hoak (ed.), Tudor Political Culture (Cambridge, 1995)—an essay collection that draws extensively from literary and visual sources to discuss Tudor attitudes to governance; see esp. essay by John Guy on counsel
• N. Jones, ‘Mid-Tudor Politics and Political Culture’, History Compass, 3 (2005)—a brief survey of works that present a new ‘political culture’ approach to the Tudor period
• N. Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005)—this is one example from an extensive literature over the past two decades about discourse and political language in Elizabethan England, but these works are almost all aimed at the academic end of the market; works on Elizabeth’s reign intended for a more popular audience (such as those by Susan Doran, or Steven Alford’s biography of William Cecil) still tend to take an ‘individuals and patronage’ approach
• E.H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003)—an influential study of the English Reformation, viewing it as a movement sustained by non-elite Englishmen and Englishwomen; contrasts with interpretation presented by G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (2005), which sees religious change in this period as stemming principally from the personal beliefs and needs of Henry VIII
• T.A. Sowerby, ‘“A Memorial and Pledge of Faith”: Portraiture and Early Modern Diplomatic Culture’, English Historical Review, 129 (2014)—a clearly-written exploration of the role of portraiture, art, and gift-giving in Tudor diplomacy; also contains a number of full-colour images
• A. Wood, Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 2002)—Wood is an important figure in the exploration of popular politics in Tudor England, and this is his most accessible work on the topic

Source Collections

• A. Fletcher and D. MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions (multiple editions)—the analysis of rebellions in this book doesn’t take much account of new ‘popular politics’ approaches, but it does contain a very helpful set of rebel manifestos and other primary source material
• Keith Dockray has published three source collections pertaining to the Wars of the Roses (relating to Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III, respectively); these are rooted in a rather older, patronage-based view of the conflict, but they are useful for containing a wide variety of sources translated into modern English spelling
• Richard III Society Online Library ( –these are available through the academically suspect Richard III Society, so I would recommend being quite careful about which portions of the website you direct your students to; that being said, the website does contain online versions of a number of important chronicles and memoirs relating to the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III (such as the Croyland Chronicle, the Arrivall of Edward IV, and Philippe de Commynes’s Memoirs); these are typically the 19th-century ‘public domain’ versions rather than more recent editions, but they are very helpful in providing the text from chronicles that would otherwise probably be inaccessible to the general reader