THE ROSE AT HARVEST END

Yet another warming-over of the domestic embroilments of England's 15th century King Edward IV, his brothers Clarence and Gloucester (Richard III), his unpopular Queen Elisabeth Woodville, and the remnants of the families of the Earl of Warwick (the Kingmaker) and feeble Henry VI. The author pauses briefly before all those familiar tableaus: Edward's wooing of widowed Elisabeth (of humble circumstance and iron will); the conspiracy of Warwick and the French with Clarence in tow; the deaths of Henry VI (bloody) and Clarence (submerged in a bouquet of Malmsey), etc. The author admires Richard, considers Clarence his own worst enemy, spots Richard's affection for Warwick's daughter as true romance, and Warwick (who never has received a bad press) is predictably a fallen giant. And inevitably there's a portentous view of beady-eyed Henry Tudor as a child. The author ambles along the well-marked path with neither undue deviation nor distinction.