Not to be confused with the BBC Shakespeare production.

Jones presents an immensely readable account of the Wars of the Roses and makes the case for them being less a straightforward Lancaster v York battle and more a complex, intertwining ongoing disaster around what happens when too many people think they can be monarchs all at once. It’s very fun.

The only drawback is that Jones and I sharply disagree on the starting point–Jones puts it on the regency of Henry VI, I put it at Richard II, and frankly Jones has to bend over backward to legally justify Bolingbroke’s coup but not Edward IV’s.

Otherwise, a really good book.