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Historical person
1428–1471
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, was one of the richest magnates in England and became known as the “Kingmaker” for his role in the Wars of the Roses. He helped Edward IV take the throne but broke with him over the Woodville marriage and foreign policy. After failed rebellions Warwick allied with Margaret of Anjou, restored Henry VI and returned from exile. Edward defeated and killed him at Barnet in 1471.
Philippa Gregory’s The Kingmaker’s Daughter follows Warwick’s family through the eyes of Anne Neville, while Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour gives him a major role. Historical fiction often portrays him as overmighty and personally betrayed by Edward. His shifting alliances also reflected the political logic of aristocratic affinity, marriage and control of royal patronage.
In non-fiction, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick is discussed in Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown, A. W. Boardman’s Towton 1461, A. W. Boardman’s The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses, A. W. Boardman’s St Albans 1455, and A. W. Boardman’s The Rose, the Bastard and the Saint King. In Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown, Dan Jones follows Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, Edward IV, Warwick, Richard III and the families whose shifting alliances turned disputes over government into the Wars of the Roses.
Historical context
Series
The Wars of the Roses series follows the dynastic struggle from the weakness of Henry VI’s government through the rise of York, Edward IV’s victories and exiles, and the final contest between Richard III and Henry Tudor. The novels combine court politics with the major military turning points…
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Kingmaker follows former monk Thomas Everingham and former nun Katherine as the Wars of the Roses break apart the religious, social and political order that once defined their lives. Beginning with their flight from a priory in 1460, the sequence carries them through Yorkist campaigns, the northern Lancastrian…
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The House of York series follows Edward of York from adolescence to kingship during the Wars of the Roses. It begins amid Henry VI’s recurring incapacity and Richard, Duke of York’s challenge to Lancastrian government, then traces the battles and family losses that bring the young Edward to…
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The third Tom Swan adventure returns to the networks of collectors, bankers, soldiers and spies that connect Renaissance Italy with England and the Ottoman world. After Belgrade, Swan’s knowledge of classical antiquity is inseparable from the reputation he has acquired as an agent capable of surviving difficult missions.…
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The Plantagenet and Tudor novels form a chronological sequence of connected but independently readable stories about women near the English throne. They move from the Lancastrian court and the Wars of the Roses through the rise of the Tudors, Henry VIII’s marriages, the mid-Tudor religious crisis and the…
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The Kathryn Swinbrooke Mysteries follow a physician and apothecary working in Canterbury during the unsettled Yorkist years after the Wars of the Roses. Kathryn’s medical knowledge allows her to distinguish natural death from poisoning, injury and deliberate deception, while her independence brings her into investigations involving civic officials,…
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The Tarnished Crown follows Isobel Fenton, later Isobel Langton, and Robert Langton through the political reversals of Edward IV’s reign. Beginning with Warwick’s rebellion in 1469, the series places their struggle for Beaumoncote Manor, marriage and family security inside the conflicts that divide the Yorkist court and repeatedly…
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The Kingbreaker series tells the story of John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, a committed Lancastrian who survives defeat, imprisonment and exile during the Wars of the Roses. Beginning with the catastrophe at Towton and continuing through the restorations and reversals of Edward IV, Richard III and Henry…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
