T. Nelson and Sons first edition - 1892
The subtitle A Story for the Young is accurate. The author, Evelyn Ward Everett-Green (1856-1932) was an English novelist who started with improving, pious stories for children, moved on to historical fiction for older girls, and then turned to adult romantic fiction (Wikipedia). In the Wars of the Roses is certainly historical fiction, but appears written for younger girls. Green wrote about 350 books, more than 200 under her own name, with others using the pseudonyms Cecil Adair, H.F.E., E. Ward and Evelyn Dare.
The story is almost hagiographical towards Edward, Prince of Wales, who lost his life under dire circumstances after the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. The fictitious hero of the book Paul Stukely, two years older than the prince, meets the royal party in 1458 when they visit Lichfield. A firm, almost passionate friendship develops between the five and seven year old boys. Paul and his family are fervent Lancastrians and are involved in the vicissitudes of the next decade. After a brief History lesson by the author, we meet Paul again, now aged twenty, chafing under Yorkist rule and still attached to the prince and the Lancastrian cause. The author almost seems in love with her creation: ...there was that in his bright glance and erect and noble bearing which won for him universal admiration and affection. He was, in truth, a right goodly youth. His features were very fine, and the dark-gray eyes with their delicately-pencilled brows were full of fire and brilliance. He had golden curls clustered round the noble head in classic fashion... Wow! and he was almost a slightly older doppelganger of Prince Edward.
Local affairs are mixed up with the national crisis. This includes a band of robbers, with the necessary cardboard 'baddies' and a loving family, where the clever mother furtively reads from Wycliffe's Bible, which is then shut away in a secret cupboard. It feels as if every 19th century author (particularly female) must drag Lollardy into their tales (vide Emily Sarah Holt). Although writers of fiction are allowed leeway with historical 'facts', this time the idea of the late teen age Prince Edward, coming to England, leaving his mother and newly affianced Anne Neville in ignorance back in France, is really a step too far! No wonder the chapter is headed A Strange Encounter. After meeting up with Paul again, they venture to Yorkist London. Edward escapes to return abroad, but Paul is incarcerated; escapes; is set upon by the robbers again; is rescued; and finally meets up with the Lancastrian army under Queen Margaret, Prince Edward and the duke of Somerset at Cerne Abbey in Dorset.
Notwithstanding the disheartening news from Barnet, where Warwick, Montague and the Neville force have been decisively beaten by King Edward, the Lancastrians march north via Bristol to their doom at Tewkesbury. This is not before Paul meets Anne Neville - in the first blush of maiden bloom and beauty, her face ethereally lovely, yet tinged, as it seemed, with some haunting melancholy, which gave a strange pathos to its rare beauty, and seemed almost to speak of the doom of sorrow and loss already hanging over her, little as she knew it then. Ah, what it is to have the novelist's gift of foresight.
The titles of last two chapters - The Tragedy of Tewkesbury and The Prince Avenged - confirm the author in the Lancastrian camp. Prince Edward at Tewkesbury behaves rather like Richard III at Bosworth, charging bravely but misguidedly into the enemy's superior ranks. Everett Green permits herself to write another totally unhistorical scenario, where Anne Neville, disguised as a page-boy, gets close to the captured Edward as he is struck by King Edward's gauntlet. Paul Stukely lived to see the foul crime that stained the victor's laurels on the field of Tewkesbury amply avenged upon the House of York in the days that quickly followed. Henry VI may have been murdered in the Tower; Queen Margaret may have ended her days abroad; but the Duke of Clarence was killed on his brother's orders; the two princes were done to death between the stone walls of a prison.
The next death in that ill-omened race was that of King Richard's own son, in the tenth year of his age. As Duke of Gloucester, he had stood by to see the death of young Edward, even if his hand had not been raised to strike him. He had then forced into reluctant wedlock with himself the betrothed bride of the murdered prince - the unhappy Lady Anne. He had murdered his brother's children to raise himself to the throne, and had committed many other crimes to maintain himself thereon...and lastly, the lonely monarch, wifeless and childless, was called upon to reap the fruits of the bitter hostility and distrust which his cruel and arbitrary rule had awakened in the breasts of his own nobles and of his subjects in general.
Fortuitously, Paul has not only kept his head down after Tewkesbury, but has married and got children. He joins Henry Tudor and is at Bosworth to witness Richard's death - he who had obtained his crown by treachery, cruelty, and treason of the blackest kind, was destined to fall a victim to the treachery of others. As Paul saw the mangled corpse flung across a horse's back and carried ignominiously from the field, he felt that the God of heaven did indeed look down and visit with His vengeance those who had set at nought his laws, and that in the miserable death of this last son of the House of York the cause of the Red Rose was amply avenged.
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