the last plantagenets by thomas b costain

Others are painted (rightly) in starker colors: traitors, murderers, liars, thieves. Some historical figures are presented as 'antagonists,' but pitiable ones, particularly Richard II and Henry VI. He mentions a tendency to judge the men of bygone days with modern eyes and to divorce them from their context - thereby judging them too harshly and giving them too little credit. There are times, however, when he expresses the horror of massacres or assassinations and in general, one senses a negative tone when he refers to sins and vices.

In the style of a novelist, Costain tells the sweeping story of the Plantagenets' twilight hours and the Wars of the Roses that tore England apart.Īs a historian, Costain typically relates actions without directly pronouncing judgment on them. The pious but incompetent Henry VI Edward IV of the winning ways and finally, the reviled King Richard III. His son Henry V, one of the best-loved monarchs and the winner of the Battle of Agincourt. Richard II, the boy-king whose passionate belief in the divine right of kings, inherited from his father the Black Prince, was to be his downfall. Picking up (and slightly overlapping) where The Three Edwards left off, Costain chronicles the last kings of England's powerful Plantagenet dynasty. CostainĪ sweeping, broad-brush narrative of England in the 14th and 15th Centuries.

The last plantagenets by thomas b costain