The Wars of the Roses were a prolonged brawl over an inheritance by a deeply dysfunctional extended family. The inheritance in question was the throne of England; the story is one of unbridled ambition and murderous treachery. From the 1450s, when the mentally unstable Henry VI struggled to control the violent feuding of his magnates, through the rise and fall of Richard of York, to the chaos and bloodshed of the 1470s which followed Edward IV's accession and his secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, this is a saga of ambition, intrigue, and bloodshed. Charting a clear course through the dynastic and factional minefield of the era, and offering an authoritative analysis of the battles that ensued, this book is a compelling one-volume account of England longest and bloodiest civil war.