To say something arresting about the Wars of the Roses is a significant accomplishment, given the volume and diversity of recent scholarly and popular writing. Michael Hicks succeeds in doing so in a study whose strengths far outweigh its shortcomings. His basic theme is that what we really have is a series of three wars, beginning in 1450 and not ending until 1525; so much for the customary chronology that takes us from the first battle of St. Albans (1455) through Bosworth field (1485). The first war ended with the accession of Edward IV in 1461, the second with his reaccession in 1471 (and with the deaths of Henry VI and most of the major Lancastrians), and the third only with the end of the dynastic threats to the Tudors in the early years of Henry VIII. In a sense, the plural “Wars” is the operative word, though the anachronistic name we give to these nasty affairs dates from Sir Walter Scott in just 1829.

What stands out in Hicks’s periodization or serialization of the conflicts is his argument that at the end of each of these separate (if related) wars there was every reason to think civil strife was at an end; a king on his throne, opposition eliminated or placated (or driven abroad), subjects ready and willing to accept and honor whoever turned out to be the lord’s anointed. To illustrate this, Hicks cites contemporary chronicles in which the coming (or return) of peace was now exalted. However, for each successive war it was new circumstances, or new combinations of preexisting forces and factors, that caused the conflict to flare up again, to be fought by “an evolving cast list” as new figures entered the picture and old ones left (often in a violent fashion). The wars began in the early 1450s as a struggle for governmental reform but they degenerated, by the second war, into a dynastic struggle. And as a backdrop to the renewal of violence and the progressive brutalization of politics were some constants: the economic crisis of the second half of the century, dissatisfaction over the losing/lost war in France, unfocused calls for “reform” and for the removal of the king’s wicked advisers, and an emerging public (or London) voice, stoked and amplified by partisan propaganda.

But civil war does not just happen. There have to be particular causes, specific crises and situations, people who push things to and over the edge. For the first war, it was the Duke of York—close to the throne, ambitious, popular with Londoners, and unwilling to live with compromise or solemn pledges of loyalty—and driving the country into open violence. This is in contrast to a Henry VI who was far from the feeble and remote king of common depiction, albeit one with some serious problems (like a bout of insanity) and an inability to grasp York’s willingness to resort to violence. Thus, the first war, begun in 1450 and peaking perhaps with a vicious battle at St. Albans in 1455, was concluded with Edward IV’s accession. When young Edward came to the throne he seemed well in command, regardless of where he would rate on a scale of constitutional or dynastic legitimacy. Then on to the second war, only this time it was Warwick who played York, that is, who could not/would not accept the realities of Edward’s rule and whose disaffection led to an alliance with Queen Margaret and the Lancastrian opposition. This second war ended with Edward’s return and his conclusive victories at Barnet and Tewkesbury (along with Henry VI’s death). Peace followed until Edward’s death and Richard of Gloucester’s usurpation reopened a Pandora’s box that held, among other choice items, dissatisfied Yorkists, missing princes, and Henry Tudor at Bosworth. But if tradition makes much of 1485 as a turning point, Hicks points out that between 1483 and 1497 we actually have four kings, two usurpations, four battles, six rebellions, three coups, two assassination plots, and six invasions, not to mention some lesser forms of excitement (208). It took time and Tudor despotism to lay the ghost of civil war and rebellion, and we can still point to the Pilgrimage of Grace and Ket’s rebellion if we are so inclined.

There is much here to commend. For his emphasis on the episodic nature of the wars, the changing motivations of the main players over time, and then especially the extent to which the renewal of wars was a real if minor front in the heavyweight struggles of Burgundy, France, and the Hapsburgs, Hicks offers convincing arguments. But in a desire to avoid focusing on the tangled webs of aristocratic family affiliations, on battles in the field, on the perceived inadequacies of Henry VI, or on the reasons for the popularity of York and Warwick, he seems to drift toward a modern approach to the decades of trouble. It is as though there were two parties—that of loyalty and pacific politics and that willing to break the conventions—seated across from each other in the House, perhaps with the monarch as the speaker. Furthermore, Hicks has a penchant for moral assessment and is hard on those he considers to be out of line. That there were nasty men running things is no doubt the case, but a constant reminder of this is not necessarily helpful for historical analysis. That York should have been indicted for treason—and to be indignant that he was let off without a charge—imposes a view that the author of a book on bastard feudalism and a biography of Warwick could have omitted here. But the overall framework of analysis and the rationale behind the episodic treatment of the Wars more than compensate for some heavy reading and a soupçon of personal bias. This is not a narrative of the Wars of the Roses but an insightful analysis into why and when.