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WARWICK, THE KINGMAKER by Paul Murray Kendall

WARWICK, THE KINGMAKER

By

Publisher: Norton

The author of last year's excellent Richard The Third re-creates the life and times of Richard Neville, who was born into the violence of the Wars of the Roses from a family supporting York. Before his death he upheld the Lancaster cause and for some years in between he was Earl of Warwick, the maker of kings, the most powerful man in England. His success, and the power accrued to him both in England and France, was self-made; his was the temperament that made men look to and trust him as a leader in turbulent times; he proved his prowess as a young knight in battle, first on land and then at sea. He became the rallying point of the forces in England that were against the Queen's influence, of the Yorkists, and of the growing solidarity and strength of the merchants in London. Henry VI's inability to rule led him to urge Edward Plantagenet to take the throne as Edward IV and for the next years Warwick considered himself as England's head even when he was self-exiled to the northern borders to quell existing distubances. Edward's eventual gentle and polite revolt from Warwick's domination was signalled by his refusal to accept a marriage of state approved by Warwick and by marrying the woman of his choice -- and this was the beginning of Warwick's downfall. In France he pursued his aims and on an English battlefield he died in the Battle of Barnet, espousing the Lancastrian cause. An important picture of the tangled relations between factions in England and France and a remarkably human portrait of a man of action who was also a man of the world of his day, this combines its history and biography ably for the general as well as the special interest reader.