Book Review: Thomas Penn’s “The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy”

The new book from historian Thomas Penn focuses on one of the two sides in England’s bloody Wars of the Roses.

At first glance, it might seem that it’s impossible to say anything new about the Wars of the Roses, England’s infamous and destructive civil conflict between the rival houses of Lancaster and York. However, Thomas Penn’s The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy comes as close as I’ve seen in recent years. In contrast to other accounts of the period, which tend to focus on the battles or on the minutiae of dynastic relations — which are, of course, vital to understanding the period — Penn focuses on the strife within the House of York itself, as well as on its relationships with the other great powers of Europe, particularly the Duchy of Burgundy and the Kingdom of France. In that sense, it is much more of a biography of the three royal brothers at the center of that house — Edward, George, and Richard — than it is a chronicle of the Wars.

The book follows the fortunes of the House of York as it slowly finds itself drawn into a conflict with that of Lancaster, particularly the woefully ineffectual (and eventually rather mad) King Henry VI and his belligerent and ruthless queen Margaret of Anjou. The bulk of the book is devoted to the…