Fatal Colours
‘The story has never been told so well or so excitingly’ – Desmond Seward, BBC History Magazine
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 and in appalling conditions 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. Yet, as if too ghastly https://www.patekphilippewatches.to/ to contemplate, the battle itself and the turbulent reign of Henry VI were neglected for centuries.
Combining medieval sources and modern scholarship, George Goodwin colourfully recreates 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, he chronicles the vicious in-fighting at home in response to the vicissitudes of the 100 Years War abroad. He vividly describes the pivotal year of 1450 and a decade of breakdown for both king and kingdom, as increasingly embittered factions struggle for a supremacy that could only be secured after the carnage of Towton.
Fatal Colours includes a cast of strong and compelling characters: a warrior Queen, a ruthless king-making Earl, even a Papal Legate who excommunicates an entire army. And at its centre is the first full explanation for tobacco vape juice the crippling incapacity of the enduringly child-like Henry VI – founder of Eton and King’s College, Cambridge.
With a substantive and sparkling introduction by David Starkey, Fatal Colours brings to life a vibrant and violent age.
