Fatal Colours Towton 1461-England's Most Brutal Battle

by Goodwin, George; Starkey, David

• ISBN13: 9780393080841
• ISBN10: 0393080846
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-29
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

The Battle of Towton in 1461 was unique in its ferocity and brutality, as the armies of two kings of England engaged with murderous weaponry to conclude the first War of the Roses. Variously described as the largest, longest, and bloodiest battle on English soil, Towton was fought with little chance of escape and none of surrender. Combining medieval sources and modern scholarship, George Goodwin colorfully re-creates the atmosphere of fifteenth-century England. From the death of the great Henry V and his baby son's inheritance first of England, then of France, Goodwin chronicles the vicious fighting as increasingly embittered factions struggle for a supremacy that could only be secured after the carnage of Towton. At the center is the first full explanation for the crippling incapacity of the enduringly childlike Henry VI. With a substantive introduction by David Starkey, Fatal Colours brings to life a vibrant and violent age.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Introduction	p. xi
Dramatis Personae:
England, 1422-1450	p. xxv
England, Spring 1460	p. xxvii
Prologue	p. 1
A Step Too Far	p. 5
A Great Man's Legacy-Minority	p. 11
An Absence of Kingship-Majority	p. 26
An Absent-Minded King	p. 44
A Question of Honour	p. 58
A Queen Transformed	p. 77
'A Warwick'	p. 94
The Sun in Splendour	p. 109
A Country at War-North vs South	p. 130
Towton-Palm Sunday 1461	p. 151
In Memoriam	p. 180
Dramatis Personae: After Towton	p. 185
The Wound Man	p. 189
Family Trees	p. 190
Notes	p. 195
Select Bibliography	p. 215
Selected Places to Visit and Related Organisations	p. 223
Acknowledgements	p. 229
Index	p. 233
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