She thinks of her brother outwitting the queen’s army not a month ago at Blore Heath, first to enter the streets at St. The beliefs such as religion and superstition, the difficulties and danger of childbirth are vividly portrayed as Cecily bears 12 (yes 12! But the narratives of an evil, brutal Lancaster and the noble House of York who only seeks power to survive is just boring to me. I have no complaints about how the Irish situations was portrayed and these segments (though too few) were my absolute favourite parts. However, I think the fact that certain innacuracies and oversights didn’t seem to have been made for any genuine artistic reason (this is actually also the case in Jarman’s We Speak no Treason but I’ll get to that later) I will neg a star.

The Battle of Towton – renowned for its brutality and the sheer number of causalities, the largest in English history after the Battle of the Somme – is summarised in a few paragraphs as a glorious and apparently bloodless victory for York. I really like that the focus is on strong women, there are plenty of them in the Middle Ages but history (written for much of the time by men 😁) has chosen to ignore them until recent years. Just like with the other figures - I feel like it’s safely hinted in the text that there is more to RoY than we see in the book but we are just not going all the way there. The writing is beautifully visual, and historical details presented with a light touch so that anyone can pick it up and understand Cecily’s story.I still don’t consider it as good as Jarman and Lytton-Bulwer in terms of artistry, power or ‘quality’ so I take out one star to show this.

We meet her at the execution of Joan of Arc and we instantly start to understand what life is like for women, how high the stakes are, and the strength of character of our protagonist. It all happened in an era before feminism was a spoken word or even an idea, but you will be amazed to find out how many women played crucial roles in the Wars of the Roses. The sack of Ludlow is presented as incredibly traumatic and harrowing while the Yorkist victories are remarkably bloodless. It’s this flaw that makes Cecily’s reads of other characters more understandable – sure, she might dislike someone but she also tends to dislike everyone, especially other women. The first was having Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in France for the burning of Joan of Arc and Henry VI’s coronation in Paris.If you understand anything about the War of the Roses, and the royal family dynamic at the time, Cecily is hardly given a mention. One of my favourite elements of the book was the evolving relationship between Cecily and her husband, Richard. The book opens in 1431 as Cecily witnesses the burning to death of Joan d’Arc and later the crowning of the young King Henry VI of England as King of France, although his realm does not extend to the whole of France and a rival, King Charles of France, also claims that title.