De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Michael Hicks

The Wars of the Roses 1455-1485

(Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2003). 95 pp. $14.95 ISBN 1 84176 491 4

The laudable intention of Osprey Publishing’s Essential Histories series is to present a history of war ‘seen from political, strategic, tactical, cultural and individual perspectives’. To this end they have produced a series of thin yet lavish books and this volume is no exception, with well-chosen, beautifully reproduced illustrations, and excellent newly-commissioned maps. This multi-faceted approach to military history is ambitious and especially so for this volume given Professor Hicks’s assertion that the Wars of the Roses were not ‘a significant stage in the development of the English monarchy, constitution, society or military science’ (p.8). Instead the Wars are portrayed as a series of short, violent episodes in which the various noble factions vying for the English throne settled their disputes on the battlefield, searching for a decisive victory which would eliminate their opponents politically and militarily. The first ‘War’ in 1459-1461 culminatedg in the victory of the Yorkist Edward IV; the second from 1469-1471 witnessed the deposition of Edward by his erstwhile ally, Richard, earl of Warwick, the Readeption of the Lancastrian Henry VI and the final victory of Edward over Warwick and the Lancastrians at Barnet and Tewkesbury respectively; and the final stage from 1483-1487 which saw the usurpation of Richard III, his subsequent defeat by Henry Tudor and the defence of the new dynasty against a series of pro-Yorkist rebellions, most notably that of Lambert Simnel in 1487. The bulk of the book is concerned with explaining how armies were assembled, organised and fought and with providing a narrative of the periods of open conflict. The final section of the book looks at the impact of the Wars upon English society, economy and political culture.

Professor Hicks’s arguments on the military history of the Wars of the Roses are less than convincing, however. The period 1450-1485 saw the first significant use of handheld gunpowder weapons and pikes in English armies, albeit by foreign mercenaries as Hicks’s himself acknowledges, but these innovations were quickly absorbed into the mainstream of English military activity. It is perhaps no coincidence that when Henry VII led an army to France in 1492 he indented with captains to provide, for the first time, men armed with pikes, testimony to the effectiveness with which he had seen them deployed at Bosworth. Similarly, both Edward IV’s and Richard III’s experience of Burgundian gunpowder weaponry led them to develop England’s capability in this regard to the extent that the artillery train which Edward brought to France in 1475 was comparable to that with which Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494. Likewise, Hicks’s assertion that the ‘Wars of the Roses could not be contested by [i.e., served in? - ed.] veterans of the Hundred Years War’ (p.20) ignores the significant contribution veteran captains like Sir Thomas Kiriell, Andrew Trollope and Sir Gervase Clifton made to the Wars’ first stages, not to mention that the military experience of the principal protagonists – York and Somerset, for instance – and an unknown number of ordinary soldiers had been forged on the battlefields of France.

Hicks’s argument that the Wars had no lasting political significance is also odd. Given the importance of conflict in settling political disputes in this period (the author has chapter which concentrates on the centrality of the decisive battle) and the high casualty rate among the principals, it seems likely that the political culture of late-fifteenth-century England was shaped, above all, by the Wars. The events of the early 1450s, beginning with Cade’s rebellion and culminating in the first battle of St. Albans, had already shown that armed resistance to the crown and its policies was a realistic means of political action. To begin the Wars, as Professor Hicks does, in 1459 is to ignore the significance of the fact that open, armed resistance to the crown predated the battle of Blore Heath in September 1459 by over four years. Equally, it will not do to conclude that the Wars ended simply because of a return of a ‘feel-good factor’ occasioned by the end of the Great Slump in the European economy of the mid-fifteenth century, while to argue that the Wars of the Roses ‘also had no significant impact on the distribution of power within England’ (p.92) is simply preposterous. The crown’s power was increased hugely as a direct result of the Wars. First, and most importantly, the increase in the crown’s landed patrimony through attainder and forfeiture, ensured that Henry VII had both the money and the power to reassert royal authority. Second, the erosion of noble power (through death and attainder, but also as Hicks notes by a partial withdrawal from political life by some nobles) allowed the Tudors to intervene more directly and effectively in local power relationships. Third, Bosworth and the subsequent rebellions of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck allowed Henry VII to effectively neutralise the crown’s enemies, real or potential, culminating in the execution of the young earl of Warwick in 1499. The successful establishment of the Tudor dynasty, which would rule England for over a century, was thus a direct result of the events of the Wars of the Roses.

There are some positives with this book. The maps and illustrations are useful to both the general and more specialised reader. Professor Hicks’s own research is usefully summarised and other recent research, such as Mike Jones’s reinterpretation of Bosworth, is incorporated into the synthesis. Nevertheless, the general reader wanting a short introduction to the main events and politics of the period would be better served by reading Tony Pollard’s 1988 The Wars of the Roses, while the military historian can still look no further that Anthony Goodman’s 1981 The Wars of the Roses.