But this was of little use in winning a war with France, and Henry’s gentle, bovine incompetence and lack of military leadership soon became a terrible problem. I suspect that fans of the television show or Martin’s book series would enjoy this book, even if it is nonfiction. Henry Tudor’s Lancastrian royal lineage was threadbare (he had a better claim to the French throne than the English), and his main attraction was his promise to marry Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, and continue the ‘true’ legacy of the old king.

Perkin Warbeck pretended to be Edward IV’s younger son, Prince Richard; he was sponsored by Edward IV’s sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, and raised an army that disrupted the whole of south-west England before he was captured in 1497. Interesting that Jones is firmly on the "guilty" side of the Richard III debate, though I do wish he'd shared some of the opposing views. The author of Powers and Thrones and presenter of Netflixs Secrets of Great British Castles offers a vivid account of the events that inspired Game of Thrones and Shakespeares Henry IV and Richard IIIDiscover the real history behind The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses, the PBS Great Performance series of Shakespeare's plays, starring Judi Dench, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sofie Okenedo and Hugh Bonneville. Soon afterwards, one of her grandsons disappeared in the Tower of London just as her cousins, “the princes in the Tower”, had also faded from sight. But her eighteen-year old son revenges his father, overthrowing Henry VI to become in 1461 the Yorkist king Edward IV.He has appeared on Broadway in Journeys End, The Sound of Music, and The King and I and off-Broadway in Passion Play, Comic Potential, and The Entertainer. I believe that is simply that this period in English history is wilder than any storyteller could fabricate. The Lancastrian cause seems hopeless, until in 1470 Edward’s cousin and closest ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, ‘the Kingmaker’ makes an alliance with Margaret of Anjou that sees Henry VI re-adapted as King – briefly.

The Queen and the commoner had had four children and Henry VI arranged the marriage of the eldest to a royal cousin: Margaret Beaufort.By then, the wars could be described properly as Yorkists versus Lancastrians, though allegiances were fluid. Dan Jones takes a long view of the civil wars, tracing their origins back to the death of Henry V in 1422 and the accession of his infant son. Richard, Duke of York, makes the grab, first by being regent, then going for the prize of King of England. England coped for a remarkably long time – thanks chiefly to the efforts of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk.

Jones’s material is thrilling, but it is quite a task to sift, select, structure and contextualise the information. Is there in the front piece of books in the royal library, it’s there at Elizabeth I’s coronation where she turns to Penchant Street during her procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey.

So imagine my surprise when I read at the end of chapter 11 that “Sir James Luttrell of Devonshire” was later credited with the capture of Richard, Duke of York! It makes for an engrossing read and a thoroughly enjoyable introduction to the Lancastrian-Yorkist struggle.