The Wars of the Roses 1377-1471

What it is

This is a book, The Wars of the Roses 1377-1471, written by the Scottish historian Robert Balmain Mowat and printed in 1914. The version here is an audio recording made by LibriVox, read in English by volunteer Pamela Nagami. The reader is a modern volunteer, not the historian or Henry VI, and the recording is dedicated to the public domain. The book's preface describes the wars as a fight between the rival branches of the House of Plantagenet, Lancaster and York, for control of the English throne.

Why it matters

Mowat's book is a secondary work written many years after the events. It shows how early twentieth-century historians understood the fifteenth century, which they often saw as a turning point between medieval and modern England. The preface quotes the historian Stubbs, who described the fifteenth century as weaker and more bloody than the fourteenth. Henry VI lived through these conflicts and lost the throne in them, so his story is central to this account.

Look closer

• The preface calls the wars a 'rough schooling' that led to the Tudors. Whose judgement of the period is this, and what might it leave out?
• The recording is read by a volunteer, not the author. How might a different reader change the way you hear the text?
• Why did a 1914 historian think it was important to describe these wars as a turning point?