The banner of my home-village cunningly resembles the logo of one side of the warring families. Unfortunately for me, the 'wrong' side, though - to my great relief - in early depictions, it did not always have this colour ;o)
But the resemblance is so great and for a small village so unlikely to invent such a special and detailed rose drawing, which has no similarity to any other in the region, that it was even speculated, that someone from England might have emigrated here and brought the special way to draw the rose with him.
So as a child, I did not see the Wars of the Roses as such a far distant battle, as my own village, though hundreds of kilometres away, might have been involved in it.
I doubted that 'invented' legend, but found roses very fascinating none the less.
In my late search for news and information about King Richard III, I stumbled upon a video about the "Wars of the Roses", which quoted Polydore Vergil (Anglican History) on its cover and this way immidiately had my full interest:
"King Richard alone was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies."
The DVD presents King Richard III and the entire battle story of the Wars of the Roses from a military perspective:
"Wars of the Roses, Blood, Treachery and Cold Steel" (1994)
Produced & directed by Bob Carruthers,
Narrator: Brian Blessed
Crowell Productions Ltd. 1994
What disappointed me a bit, was the depiction of the battle scenes. Re-enactors playing the believed events at the battle is one thing, on a documentation, I had expected a bit more location shots and detail.
That can be because of my hightened expectation. So I was disappointed that the sole focus was the military perspective upon the "Wars of the Roses" and all other motives behind the military activities were not brought into closer focus or even mentioned in the interview parts of the film.
War as a form of spreading itself, certainly at that time has a good foundation in arguments, at a time, where soldiers often were not fighting for the cause they believed in, but for those who could pay them the most money. Soldiers previously fighting in France and now out of work, needed a new working area, but as an argument for the long lasting fights, it is not even a main reason for the wars, as the nobility, responsible for the dispute, did not draw especially into account to create reasons to keep their soldiers employed.
What on the other hand was impressively shown in the film, was the helebard and the new battle power of foot soldiers.
So all in all, I found the time watching the video well spent and a short and handy overview of all the major battles and scirmishes of the "Wars of the Roses".
The bonus material like images and quiz do not really add much to the experience of the DVD, as they are much too short to give a complete or summarising impression. And the research status still is 1994, this means, Albion Hill is seen as the area of the Battle of Bosworth, though new research found the more likely place of the deadly battle of King Richard III. But this does not have a central position in the arguments of the video and so I just want to mention this in a side-note and otherwise recommend the video as a quick introduction into the long series of battles and the fighting techniques.
If one wants to know more about reasons, developments and persons involved in the long going dispute, deeper research and studies have to follow after this video.
In the next days I will collect some more reading tips and information to give you a deeper impression and more details about the magnifold reasons, intrigues, betrayals and different kinds of interests influencing this long going battle between two lines of one family and cumulating in the Battle of Bosworth, where King Richard III died (22th August 1485).
TV-Documentation about King Richard III needs our help!
Please support a filming of a documentation about King Richard III together with me.
Take 2 minutes and voice your opinion on
Friday 24th and Saturday 25th of August, 2012 (U.K. time) to convince Channel 4 that it is a necessary endeavour and lots of people are already waiting for a documentation about King Richard III and his life, which will take into account all the new research results and finally bring some of the mis-constructions about this English king to an end.
You can put your comment here, to show your support:
http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/contact-us
Thank you !!!
King Richard Week 2012 with the daily
Quiz questions for the scavenger hunt during the event week.
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KRA Week 2012 News - Day 2)
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