Peasants and Kings

Books read this week: The Struggle For Mastery 5/10 (David Carpenter)

The Struggle for Mastery is part of the Penguin history of Britain series, and covers the years 1066-1284: a choice which is a little peculiar. Starting in 1066 I don't have a problem with, but the book stops abruptly halfway through the reign of Edward I, in a place which really isn't one of history's natural break points. It is however a very ambitious book: unlike many purported histories of Britain, this volume does dedicate considerable space and time to Scottish, Welsh and Irish history, which I found interesting, as I know relatively little about any of them (I couldn't, for example, list the kings of Scotland). It is unfortunate that it gives the book something of an episodic feel: the narrative frequently jumps from one country to the next mid-chapter. A far better approach would have been to divide the book clearly into sections on English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish history, as the sections on each country tend to be clearly delineated in any case. Apart from these minor irritations the book is interesting enough, and I will try to track down the other books in the series. The main thing I took from the book is that it's really a misnomer to identify the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War as being distinct periods of civil strife: up until about 1260, the countries that make up Britain experienced continual low-grade civil war. The reason we remember the Wars of the Roses as civil wars is because they came at the end of a  long (extremely unusual) peace.