Download PDF | [Cambridge Medieval Textbooks] Christine Carpenter - The Wars of the Roses_ Politics and the Constitution in England, c. 1437-1509, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
316 Pages
This is a new interpretation of English politics during the extended period of political crisis beginning with the majority of Henry VI in c. 1437 and lasting at least up to the accession of Henry VIII in 1509. The later fifteenth century in England is a somewhat baffling and apparently incoherent period which historians and history students have found consistently difficult to handle. The grand interpretations of the Whig historians and their successors made sense of it by doing violence to everything that was important in the period. The large-scale 'revisionism' inspired by the classic work of K. B. McFarlane led to the first real work on politics, both national and local, but has left the period in a disjointed state: much material has been unearthed, but without any real sense of direction or coherence.
This book places the events of the century within a clearly delineated framework of constitutional structures, practices and expectations, in an attempt to show the meaning of the apparently frenetic and purposeless political events which occurred within that framework — and which sometimes breached it. At the same time it takes cognisance of all the work that has been done on the period, including recent and innovative work on Henry VI.
PREFACE
This work owes its existence primarily to all those students who have sat in front of me for a Cambridge 'supervision' (i.e. tutorial) since 1973; it must by now be a very large number. Their agonies have not been in vain, for, even by asking the most banal questions — perhaps above all by asking the most banal questions — they have forced me to examine my most fundamental assumptions about medieval England. Indeed, the principal merit of the broad outline papers of history as still taught at Cambridge, combined with the weekly essay and the weekly hour's tuition on the essay, is that both teacher and taught have to learn to think about historical development in broad conceptual terms. Without the teaching that I began to do at Cambridge in my fourth year of research, I should never have understood where my collection of trees about fifteenth-century Warwickshire fitted within the large wood of English political, constitutional, social and economic change from before the Conquest until well into the early-modern period.
It was indeed the formative moment in my development as a historian, even if at times the agony was mine rather than the students', as I struggled to keep one jump ahead of them on a week's reading on each of up to four different topics in a single week. Others to whom I am deeply indebted are those colleagues, past and present, at Cambridge and elsewhere, who, perhaps even without knowing it, have nurtured my understanding of politics and political society in late—medieval England in the last few years.
The medievalists' list must, as always, start with my former research supervisor Dr Gerald Harriss, who has remained constantly encouraging; he has also remained spiritually my supervisor, in that, where our interpretative ways have parted, I have known that this was a sure sign that I must be very careful to be able to justify myself to myself. Among Cambridge medievalists, past and present, I must also thank Dr Edward Powell, Dr Rosemary Horrox (who kindly read chapters 8, 9 and 10 and pointed out mistakes and ambiguities), Dr Rosamond McKitterick, Professor Barrie Dobson and Professor Sir James Holt. But it will be clear from this book how heavily I have leaned on Tudor and Stuart historians for advice and inspiration. I must start with the late Professor Sir Geoffrey Elton, from whom I learned so much in my final year as an undergraduate, but more recently pride of place must go to Dr John Morrill and Professor Wallace MacCaffrey, not forgetting the stimulus I have had from Drs Jenny Wormald, Steven Gunn, Steven Ellis and George Bernard and Mr Patrick Higgins. None of the historians listed above bears any responsibility for any egregious errors or wild theories offered here but all should have my thanks for help, inspiration and at times saving me from worse.
I must also thank William Davies of the Cambridge University Press for his customary kindness and patience while waiting for the completion of my efforts (this one was due in on 31 December 1985, but he tells me this is not a record). Almost finally, there is 'The Group': two of its members have already been mentioned by name. One day, its role in making me feel four times a year in recent years that the life of an academic historian in a university might after all be worth living will be directly acknowledged with a dedication. But, for now, the dedication must go to a group whom I supervised as both undergraduates and research students and who have since in every case but one gone on to become academic historians in their own right.
John and Helen were kind enough to read the manuscript right through and comment on it, saving me repeatedly from error and not infrequently from incoherence: naturally, any errors and incoherence that remain I claim entirely for my own. Helen was kind enough to let me give a 'trailer' for much of her remarkable work on the Duchy of Lancaster; I hope no-one will give me the undeserved credit for it and I trust my remarks will whet the appetite of all historians of the period for her book. All five have taught me a very large part of the history I know, and I can only say, 'Thank you'.
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