Unit information: Kingship and Crisis during the Wars of the Roses. (Level H Special Subject) in 2009/10

Unit name	Kingship and Crisis during the Wars of the Roses. (Level H Special Subject)
Unit code	HIST37011
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Gibbons
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

'Sackage, carnage and wreckage' is the 1066 & All That summary of the fifteenth century in England, and its image as an era of anarchy and bloodshed has been crystallised in the popular imagination through the history plays of William Shakespeare. However, over the last forty years, increasing interest has been taken in this 'Cinderella century' by scholars and controversy continues to rage over major issues of interpretation. This special subject will address perhaps the most vital question - that of kingship during a period of dynastic turbulence and usurpation. How was kingly authority conferred and its continued validity restated and reaffirmed in a century when every occupant of the English throne had his right to it challenged?

Teaching Information

• 10 x 2- hour seminars

• 1 x 5,000-word essay

Assessment Information

1 x 3-400 word essay (50%) and 1 x 2 hour exam (50%)

Reading and References

• Carpenter, Christine, The Wars of the Roses: politics and the constitution in England, c. 1437-1509 (Cambridge, CUP, 1997)

• Cook, David R., Lancastrians and Yorkists: the Wars of the Roses (London, Longman, 1984)

• Dockray, Keith, William Shakespeare, the Wars of the Roses and the Historians (Stroud, Tempus, 2002)

• Pollard, A.J., Late Medieval England, 1399-1509 (Harlow, Longman, 2000)

• Pollard, A.J., The Wars of the Roses (2nd edn., Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001)

• Watts, John, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, CUP, 1996)