English Political Culture in the Fifteenth Century is a new and original study of how politics worked in late medieval England, throwing new light on a much-discussed period in English history. Michael Hicks explores the standards, values and principles that motivated contemporary politicians, and the aspirations and interests of both dukes and peasants alike.
Hicks argues that the Wars of the Roses did not result from fundamental weaknesses in the political system but from the collision of exceptional circumstances that quickly passed away. Overall, he shows that the era was one of stability and harmony, and that there were effective mechanisms for keeping the peace. Structure and continuities, Hicks argues, were more prominent than change.

Essays exploring the potential of the Inquisitions post mortem to shed important new light on the medieval world. The Inquisitions post mortem (IPMs) are a truly wonderful source for many different aspects of late medieval countryside and rural life. They have recently been made digitally accessible and interrogatable by the Mappingthe Medieval Countryside project, and the first fruits of these developments are presented here. The chapters examine IPMs in connection with the landscape and topography of England, in particular markets and fairs and mills;and consider the utility of proofs of age for everyday life on such topics as the Church, retaining, and the wine trade. MICHAEL HICKS is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Winchester. Contributors: Katie A. Clarke, William S. Deller, Paul Dryburgh, Christopher Dyer, Janette Garrett, Michael Hicks, Matthew Holford, Gordon McKelvie, Stephen Mileson, Simon Payling, Matthew Tompkins, Jennifer Ward.

Memorable not for his life but his death, Edward V is probably better known as one of the Princes in the Tower, the supposed victim of his uncle, Richard III. This work presents to us the backdrop to this tragically short life - and reveals how he was both the hope of a dynasty and an integral cause of that dynasty's collapse.

English Political Culture in the Fifteenth Century is a new and original study of how politics worked in late medieval England, throwing new light on a much-discussed period in English history. Michael Hicks explores the standards, values and principles that motivated contemporary politicians, and the aspirations and interests of both dukes and peasants alike.
Hicks argues that the Wars of the Roses did not result from fundamental weaknesses in the political system but from the collision of exceptional circumstances that quickly passed away. Overall, he shows that the era was one of stability and harmony, and that there were effective mechanisms for keeping the peace. Structure and continuities, Hicks argues, were more prominent than change.

Anne Neville was queen to England's most notorious king, Richard III. She was immortalised by Shakespeare for the remarkable nature of her marriage, a union which brought together a sorrowing widow with her husband's murderer. Anne's misfortune did not end there. In addition to killing her first husband, Richard also helped kill her father, father-in-law and brother-in-law, imprisoned her mother, and was suspected of poisoning Anne herself. Dying before the age of thirty, Anne Neville packed into her short life incident enough for many adventurous careers, but was always, apparently, the passive instrument of others' evil intentions. This fascinating new biography seeks to tell the story of Anne's life in her own right, and uncovers the real wife of Richard III by charting the remarkable twists and turns of her fraught and ultimately tragic life

An "excellent new biography" (Keith Thomas, New York Review of Books) of the wily and formidable prince who unexpectedly became monarch-the most infamous king in British history "An intricately detailed account of Richard's every recorded move on his journey from younger son of the powerful Duke of York to the last of England's mediaeval monarchs."-Mark Jones, Albion Magazine The reign of Richard III, the last Yorkist king and the final monarch of the Plantagenet dynasty, marked a turning point in British history. But despite his lasting legacy, Richard only ruled as king for the final two years of his life. While much attention has been given to his short reign, Michael Hicks explores the whole of Richard's fascinating life and traces the unfolding of his character and career from his early years as the son of a duke to his violent death at the battle of Bosworth. Hicks explores how Richard-villainized for his imprisonment and probable killing of the princes-applied his experience to overcome numerous setbacks and adversaries. Richard proves a complex, conflicted individual whose Machiavellian tact and strategic foresight won him a kingdom. He was a reformer who planned big changes, but lost the opportunity to fulfill them and to retain his crown.

A valuable resource on the social and economic life of medieval England Inquisitions post mortem are the single most important source for the history of medieval English landed society and are indispensable to social, economic, and political historians of the later middle ages; they were compiled with the help of jurors from the area, as a county-by-county record of a deceased individual's land-holdings and associated rights, where the individual held land directly of the crown. It is this explicit connection with land and locality - in economic, social, political, and topographical terms - that makes these documents of such comprehensive interest. This volume calendars the inquisitions and related documents from the short reigns of Edward V and Richard III, from the protectorate to the battle of Bosworth (1483-1485). It looks at 101 individuals across 181 inquisitions and includes valuable information and detailed returns on the estates of the greater aristocracy, among them Henry Bourchier, earl of Essex and William Lord Hastings [d. 1483], alongside lesser landholders, jurors' names and full manorial extents. The volume incorporates not only inquisitions post mortem but also assignments of dower and a proof of age from across the counties of England and the Marches of Wales. It is especially rich in inquisitions relating to the lands of the royal justices and widowed dowagers and documents how many landholders had conveyed lands to trustees, thus escaping royal wardship and prompting remedial legislation by Richard's parliament. Standard information includes medieval descriptions of towns and villages and the charting of land and its descent at all social levels. The volume also provides comprehensive indexes of jurors, persons, places, and subjects.

Five centuries have passed since Richard III was King of England. He reigned for just two years. Then retribution swept away his throne, his life, his dynasty and, above all, his reputation. He has been vilified as a murderer and a monster. It is through Shakespeare's portrayal that subsequent generations knew Richard III as an evil king. Then, in this century, Richard III has found his advocates: those who regard him as more sinned against than sinning. The process of rehabilitation has begun. This study by an acclaimed scholar of Richard III strips away the legends, propaganda and the posturing of the centuries and rescues Richard from his critics and supporters alike and, by revealing contemporary evidence and attitudes, recreates the world of Ricardian politics and ideo logical warfare, and seeks to explain Richard's bewildering transformation in his own lifetime from the model of nobility, via kingship, to tyrant and monster.

Drama that examines the risks and fears of motherhood. Angie (Radha Mitchell) and her husband, Russ (Justin Louis), are expecting their first child. Being pregnant is fun for Angie because her best friend is pregnant too. In fact, there are lots of young couples just like Angie and Russ in the quaint town where they live. Things go terribly wrong when Angie loses her baby and falls into a severe depression. The cheery friends who used to adore Angie and Russ are long gone. In fact, Angie and Russ are shunned by their friends, who treat their misfortune as a potentially contagious disease, as Angie slides further into the darkness of postpartum misery.

The Wars of the Roses (1455-85) were a major turning point in English history. But the underlying causes for the successive upheavals have been hotly contested by historians ever since. In this original and stimulating new synthesis, distinguished historian Michael Hicks examines the difficult economic, military, and financial crises and explains, for the first time, the real reasons why the Wars of the Roses began, why they kept recurring, and why, eventually, they ceased. Alongside fresh assessments of key personalities, Hicks sheds new light on the significance of the involvement of the people in politics, the intervention of foreign powers in English affairs, and a fifteenth-century credit crunch. Combining a meticulous dissection of competing dynamics with a clear account of the course of events, this is a definitive and indispensable history of a compelling, complex period.

The Southampton brokage books are the best source for English inland trade before modern times . Internal trade always matched overseas trade. Between 1430 and 1540 the brokage series records all departures through Southampton's Bargate, the owner, carter, commodity, quantity, destination and date, and many deliveries too. Twelve such years make up the database that illuminates Southampton's trade with its extensive region at the time when the city was at its most important as the principal point of access to England for the exotic spices and dyestuffs imported by the Genoese. If Southampton's international traffic was particularly important, the town's commerce was representative also of the commonplace trade that occurred throughout England. Seventeen papers investigate Southampton's interaction with Salisbury, London, Winchester, and many other places, long-term trends and short-term fluctuations. The rise and decline of the Italian trade, the dominance of Salisbury and emergence of Jack of Newbury, the recycling of wealth and metals from the dissolved monasteries all feature here. Underpinning the book are 32 computer-generated maps and numerous tables, charts, and graphs, with guidance provided as to how best to exploit and extend this remarkable resource. An accompanying web-mounted database (http://www.overlandtrade.org) enables the changing commerce to be mapped and visualised through maps and trade to be tracked week by week and over a century. Together the book and database provide a unique resource for Southampton, its trading partners, traders and carters, freight traffic and the genealogies of the middling sort.

Richard III has been written off in history as one of England's evil kings. His usurpation of the throne from his nephew Edward V and then subsequent generations of pro-Tudor historians ensured his fame as the disfigured murderer portrayed by Shakespeare. In the twentieth century, Richard found his apologists, those who saw him as more sinned against than sinning. This biography - by the leading expert on Richard - strips away the propaganda of the centuries to rescue Richard from his critics and supporters alike, providing a balanced and compelling portrait of this most infamous of kings.

The Wars of the Roses were quarrels within the Plantagenet family, of which Richard's dynasty, the House of York, was one branch. They were about family trees - the capacity of family relationships both to unite and to divide - and notoriously about the slaughter of cousins, in-laws, brothers, and nephews. The House of York won the first war, with Richard's elder brother becoming king as Edward IV. The 1460s are about the explosion of King Edward IV's family - his brothers (including Richard), his wife and in-laws, and his own offspring - and end in a trial of strength between them. The 1470s are about a second explosion of the House of York, its division into separate nuclear families competing against each other, about the kings' preferences, and in 1483 a sudden violent resolution following Edward IV's death. Richard III claimed to be his brother's heir. The Yorkist establishment refused and shared in Richard's destruction. With the recent discovery of Richard III's skeleton, Professor Michael Hicks, described by BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE as 'the greatest living expert on Richard III', reassesses the family ties and entrails of his wayward and violent family. Many thousands of descendants of Richard's siblings survive, some more interested in their lineage than others, and the book will conclude with an analysis of Richard's DNA and his 'family' as it exists today.

The Wars of the Roses featured sixteen invasions, four successful; six times kings lost their thrones. This book explores why those invasions occurred and kept occurring. Destruction and devastation were minimal, barely affecting the day to day routine of the civilian population, yet the Wars were lethal for their noble leaders and, as first hand accounts reveal, blighted the lives of their women and children. That the Wars ended so abruptly was not so much because Henry VII won at Bosworth and ruled effectively, the author concludes, but rather because a feel-good factor removed popular discontent and continental rivals turned elsewhere.

Conspicuous consumption in the 15th century both offers causes for revolt and allows reconstruction of regional supply and trading networks. The essays in this volume focus on the sources and resources of political power, on consumption (royal and lay, conspicuous and everyday) on political revolution and on economic regulation in the later middle ages. Topics range from the diet of the nobility in the fifteenth century to the knightly household of Richard II and the peace commissions, while particular case studies, of Middlesex, Cambridge, Durham Cathedral and Winchester, shed new light on regional economies through an examination of the patterns of consumption, retailing, and marketing.Professor MICHAEL HICKS teaches at King Alfred's College at Winchester.Contributors: CHRISTOPHER WOOLGAR, ALASTAIR DUNN, SHELAGH MITCHELL, ALISON GUNDY, T.B. PUGH, JESSICA FREEMAN, JOHN HARE, JOHN LEE, MIRANDA THRELFALL-HOLMES, WINIFRED HARWOOD, PETER FLEMING.

This was the story for Karen, a devout mother to her daughter, and a driven woman who sought some comfort in her love and family life without having the slightest clue on how fast the world could or would turn on her. All had come across as smooth and easy until the first-ever murder, a murder that would make her leave home, abandon her past and share a dreaded secret with one other person and an unknown figure. Follow the tale of betrayal, theft, secrets, and most importantly, the cunning and manipulating works of a being constantly lurking in the shadows. Double Dare tells the story as it unfolds for Karen, and ultimately stretches toward her daughter and college kids all around them. Having moved to a town named Ivy Waters, a city intended to become a fresh start, and the right place to root her family anew as she hoped to cast away the secret she held dangerously close in worry and fear to her heart, she had no idea just how many secrets the city of Ivy Waters held in its past.

Not a "simplified" version of the Book of Mormon, but a completely rewritten paraphrase, with a contemporary voice hovering somewhere in the realm of J. D. Salinger, Hunter Thompson, and some generic humanist academic/poet, i.e., me. An affectionate, meditational dramatization and commentary. From the Introduction: "Why 'street-legal'? That's a term we use for souped-up cars-streamlined and powerfully efficient but also decorative, with decals, pinstriping, and tricked-out doodads-that still can be ridden in normal lanes of traffic. They're not cars meant for everyday errands, to be sure. Offroad is their normal habitat. But the only thing they usually lack to be 'normal' is a better muffler. This paraphrase of the Book of Mormon is like that. I've streamlined a lot of passages, put them in terse, up-to-date vernacular, thinking that's what one would have done if one were scratching the book out on metal plates. I've tried to muscle up the prose. But I've also added lots of linguistic decals: digressions, snippets of commentary, queries, and even humor, which the original editor, Mormon, apparently cut."