The Wars of the Roses

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Wars of the Roses which have been the scene for many a historical skirmish over the ages: The period in the fifteenth century when the House of Lancaster and the House of York were continually at odds is described by Shakespeare, in the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III as a time of enormous moral, military and political turmoil - the quintessential civil war; but twentieth century historians like K.B. Macfarlane argued the political instability is wildly overstated and there were no Wars of the Roses at all. Opposing this position are the many Tudor historians who like to claim that the Wars of the Roses represent the final breakdown of the feudal system and lead directly to the Tudor Era and the birth of the modern age.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Dr Helen Castor No other episodes
  Fellow and Director of Studies in History, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
• Professor Colin Richmond No other episodes
  Emeritus Professor of History, Keele University
• Dr Steven Gunn 3 episodes
  Tudor historian and Fellow and Tutor in Modern History, Merton College, Oxford

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Programme ID: p00546sp

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00546sp

Auto-category: 942 (British history)