The English Monarchs Series

Richard III ruled England for a mere twenty-six months, yet few English monarchs remain as compulsively fascinating, and none has been more persistently vilified. In his absorbing and universally praised account, Charles Ross assesses the king within the context of his violent age and explores the critical questions of the reign: why and how Richard Plantagenet usurped the throne; the belief that he ordered the murder of "the Princes in the Tower"; the events leading to the battle of Bosworth in 1485; and the death of the Yorkist dynasty with Richard himself. In a new foreword, Professor Richard A. Griffiths identifies the attributes that have made Ross's account the leading biography in the field, and assesses the impact of the research published since the book first appeared in 1981.

"A fascinating study on a perennially fascinating topic… the base against which will be measured any future research."--Times Higher Education Supplement

Edward IV

by Charles Ross

Published 6 February 1975

Though in his own time Edward IV was popularly seen as an able and successful king who rescued England from the miseries of civil war and provided the country with firm, judicious and popular government, later historians cast doubt on his achievement. This classic study - now reissued with a substantial new foreword by R. A. Griffiths - places the reign firmly in the context of late-medieval power politics, assessing the king's relations with the politically-active classes, and evaluating the many innovations in government on which Edward's reputation rests. Revealing the king as an enigmatic character intelligent, active and forceful, but also pleasure-loving and, in his later years, increasingly arbitrary and avaricious, Ross endorses Edward as a ruler of substantial accomplishment, whose methods and policies carved the foundation of early Tudor government.