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caidyn's review
4.0
I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!
This was a fantastic read, although it covered area that I'm very familiar with. Instead of balancing the Lancastrian kings like most books in this period do, it was basically all about the three brothers and what happened to them. I thought it was pretty fair and balanced, honestly. I wish there had been more about Richard III's reign since, honestly, Penn wasn't maligning him like most books do. I also agree with the conclusion that Henry VIII was basically Edward IV reborn... but worse. All in all, a fantastic read. It was very easy to get into and, despite this being familiar ground, I didn't get bored.
This was a fantastic read, although it covered area that I'm very familiar with. Instead of balancing the Lancastrian kings like most books in this period do, it was basically all about the three brothers and what happened to them. I thought it was pretty fair and balanced, honestly. I wish there had been more about Richard III's reign since, honestly, Penn wasn't maligning him like most books do. I also agree with the conclusion that Henry VIII was basically Edward IV reborn... but worse. All in all, a fantastic read. It was very easy to get into and, despite this being familiar ground, I didn't get bored.
footnotes_and_tangents's review
The false dawn of modern England...
On the morning of 2 February 1461, an army camped out in the fields of Herefordshire woke to an unusual sight. In the east, three suns rose out of the valley mist.
An atmospheric optical phenomenon called the sun dog or parhelion, it struck fear and confusion into the army of the young Edward of York, waiting to fight Welsh Lancastrians in the next stage of the Wars of the Roses.
By the end of the year, Edward was King of England. At his side his two brothers, George and Richard. In recognition of the good omen, on his banners he placed a Sunne in Splendour blazing behind his White Rose of York.
500 years later, our obsession with the private lives of the Tudors, the renaissance monarchs of the 16th century, allows us to forget that for a brief moment in history, another royal house looked to make modern England.
A youthful, charismatic war hero, Edward had sons to found a dynasty, an international marriage alliance with prosperous Burgundy and Florentine loans flowing into his accounts courtesy of the Medici Bank.
But he also ruled a land stuffed with nobility armed to the teeth, who had spent a generation butchering each other. He had a cousin who thought himself King in all but name, and a brother never satisfied with his lot.
And so instead of founding a dynasty, the House of York lurched from crisis to catastrophe, turning allies into enemies and usurpers. Until finally, in the autumn of 1485, the last Lancastrian, Henry Tudor called time on the Yorkist experiment. And history ran on towards Anne Boleyn, Cromwell, the Break with Rome and the Virgin Queen.
Penn writes narrative history, drawing out the story from the facts to keep you hooked and immersed in the 15th century. Thoroughly recommended.
On the morning of 2 February 1461, an army camped out in the fields of Herefordshire woke to an unusual sight. In the east, three suns rose out of the valley mist.
An atmospheric optical phenomenon called the sun dog or parhelion, it struck fear and confusion into the army of the young Edward of York, waiting to fight Welsh Lancastrians in the next stage of the Wars of the Roses.
By the end of the year, Edward was King of England. At his side his two brothers, George and Richard. In recognition of the good omen, on his banners he placed a Sunne in Splendour blazing behind his White Rose of York.
500 years later, our obsession with the private lives of the Tudors, the renaissance monarchs of the 16th century, allows us to forget that for a brief moment in history, another royal house looked to make modern England.
A youthful, charismatic war hero, Edward had sons to found a dynasty, an international marriage alliance with prosperous Burgundy and Florentine loans flowing into his accounts courtesy of the Medici Bank.
But he also ruled a land stuffed with nobility armed to the teeth, who had spent a generation butchering each other. He had a cousin who thought himself King in all but name, and a brother never satisfied with his lot.
And so instead of founding a dynasty, the House of York lurched from crisis to catastrophe, turning allies into enemies and usurpers. Until finally, in the autumn of 1485, the last Lancastrian, Henry Tudor called time on the Yorkist experiment. And history ran on towards Anne Boleyn, Cromwell, the Break with Rome and the Virgin Queen.
Penn writes narrative history, drawing out the story from the facts to keep you hooked and immersed in the 15th century. Thoroughly recommended.
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