Lancaster and York

The Wars of the Roses

By: Alison Weir

Narrated by: Maggie Mash

Length: 22 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from the beloved and best-selling historian Alison Weir. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York was characterised by treachery, deceit, and bloody battles. Alison Weir's lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history. At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos, and his wife Margaret of Anjou, who took up her arms in her husband's cause and battled in a violent man's world.

©1995 Alison Weir (P)2012 W F Howes Ltd

An interesting history marred by narrator

Alison Weir's histories are usually well researched and written, so I was happy to get this. But the narrator, Maggie Marsh, does great disservice to the text. While a good narrator will use some vocal clues to point up changes of voice in a reading, Ms. Marsh uses broad "accents" that border on characature - perhaps sliding into offensive. This is distracting and does not make the narration better, in fact I'm suprised that a director or the author let it slide by.

Good but dense

The narrator did a great job and the history was interesting, but it was fairly dense and sometimes hard to keep the Lords straight, especially when they were only referred to by their seats.

Never Could have Gotten Thru this book without Audible

Extremely detailed account of the intrigues, treacheries, murders, and rebellions collectively called the Wars of the Roses. If I had attempted to read this book, I'm sure I would not have finished it. Lots of place names and names of Dukes, Earls, kings, etc. made it challenging, but listening vs. reading made a huge difference. The reader did a marvelous job and was easy to listen to. She used different voices when reading quotes, of which there were many, and this helped a lot in following the narrative. I feel very well informed now, about the second half of the 15th century in England. It must have been a hard life for those who managed to die a natural death. For the many who died in battles, or who were decapitated, drawn and quartered, and had their head stuck in a pike for all the town to see, being on the losing side was to be avoided at all costs.

Well researched but...

The narrator's constant theatrical shift in voice made it very difficult to enjoy. The author crafted an interesting and worthwhile book. This is one of the few times I regret getting the audio version over the hardcopy version.

Great story, but...

This is my second time through this book, and I have to say, after doing more research on this era, that this time round I noticed a few historical discrepancies... While Ms Weir weaves an excellent story, I believe she may not have had all of her facts spot on. I'm not going into details in this review, just cautioning my fellow history-addict listeners! However, the story is still well told, and Maggie Mash's narration is delightful, so I have downgraded my original assessment by a mere one star.

great book, terrible voice actor

I can't be the only one to be extremely off put by this lady's voice that she does while reading quotes.

Good historical work. Bad narration

Excellent historical work. Reads like a novel instead of a text book. Almost on par with Dan Jones. The lady doing the narration has a wonderful voice for it, if only she stuck with it. It is FULL of terrible accents. Most of the book sounds like it is being read by what we knew as kids as Count Dracula. It is so frequent that I almost gave up towards the end. If you can stomach the annoyance, the content is definitely worth the effort.

Strange voices...

One of Alison Weir’s most interesting histories- I say this bc I already read so much about War of the Roses, yet she still had me on edge of my seat. Weir is one of the finest writers of popular history.

Ok. Now I have to tackle the narration issue: First, I’ve listened to Maggie Mash so many times, and she is an excellent narrator. She has a beautiful natural voice and when she uses it in this book, it’s lovely.
However, she makes an extremely odd choice (considering this is History and not a bedtime children’s story) of using fake accented voices for direct quotations. Venetian envoys, French diplomats, even English court justices, all have distinct “character” voices that are absolutely ludicrous and, unfortunately, very annoying.

I still finished this book and loved it. I just wish Ms Mash hadn’t made the choice to use bad character voices and foreign accents for every quote in this book.

Finally I once again make a plea to Audible: I’ve been begging continually for 5+ years. Please record “The Princes in the Tower”. It is one of the most important of Weir’s books and is mentioned in the preface of this one. I can’t believe it’s not been recorded already...

New insights into the Cousin's War

I really enjoyed this book about the events leading up to and the early years of the War of the Roses. Most authors start with the reign of Henry VI, however Ms. Weir starts earlier with the reign of Henry IV and the beginning of the Houses of Lancaster and York, all decedents of John of Gaunt. Given this perspective one is allowed to understand the family conflicts that lead to the war. This perspective on the story gives us new insight into why it is indeed the Cousin's War.

Previous reviewers have commented negatively on Ms. Mash's narration due to her use of accents. I do agree that they were grating, especially since they were mostly used for phrases within a sentence. However, we must remember that things such as the use of accents and the placement of these accents falls within the purview of the director not the narrator. The director is responsible for this decision, not the reader. On the whole I have always enjoyed Ms. Mash's narration of books and I will not hold the director's decision against her.

Absorbing and detailed

Alison Weir writes with clarity and detail about an insanely complicated period of English history. I've read several books on the Wars of the Roses, and I've found hers to be one of the most illuminating. The book does get off to a slow start, but once the first chapter has finished setting the stage, the sparks start flying.

It's perfect background reading for Shakespeare's three plays about Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses. Actually, it provides decent background on 7 of Shakespeare’s 8 plays on the Plantagenet dynasty: the first three chapters cover the conflict between Henry Bolingbroke and Richard II, Bolingbroke’s usurpation, and the military triumph of Henry V in France; the rest of the book covers the reign of Henry VI. The missing play is Richard III — more about that in a minute.

It's a detailed history, but the details are important. The period defies summarization: there are too many ups and downs, too many battles, too many turncoats. It's an example of something I've found to be true over the years: if presented well, the additional detail actually clarifies the story rather than making it harder to follow, because the shadings make it possible to distinguish between events that in summary form look like simple repetition.

Weir states that she is primarily concerned with giving a coherent portrait of the people involved in the story, and they are all here. Margaret of Anjou is a blazing star in the narrative, and Warwick the Kingmaker, whose changes of allegiance often seem baffling, here is seen to be acting at each stage of the action from a rational appraisal of the situation.

Maggie Mash is an unusual narrator, and her style took some getting used to. What’s different about her approach is that, like Christian Rodska, she applies techniques of narrating fiction to this nonfiction account. So different people are given different speaking voices; when a written account is being quoted, the narrator’s voice changes to a more stentorian tone, and since people from many countries are involved in the story, Mash tries to pair them with an appropriate accent. After the first chapter or so, I found myself enjoying her approach quite a bit, and I think it helped sustain my interest.

It's a compelling account of remarkable people caught up in nightmare events. The story ends with Edward IV’s final victory and the murder of Henry VI. Of course, partly because of Shakespeare, we tend to think of the story as continuing through the reign of Richard III, including the murder of the princes in the Tower and the battle of Bosworth. Alison Weir wrote a book on that subject too, which I plan to read soon. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be available in audio format.