Product Description

The House of Percy resounds throughout Shakespeare's history plays, the Wars of the Roses and the centuries-long Anglo-Scottish Wars. In the Middle Ages, the earls of Northumberland were famed, or notorious, as the Kings in the North, a region they ran almost as an hereditary domain. Alexander Rose traces the history of this ancient and sometimes haughty dynasty, from the moment William de Percy stepped into England alongside William the Conqueror to the waning of the medieval era after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The book considers the family within its broader context of British history - too often regarded as purely 'Southern English' history - and offers readers the grand sweep of Anglo-Scottish history from the perspective of individuals. The Percys' commanding role in the English wars against Scotland, as well as their part in the Hundred Years War, the Crusades and the politics of the time, feature prominently. Today, as the United Kingdom threatens to crack into its constituent parts,KINGS IN THE NORTH shows us how and why it came together in the first place.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #563702 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Review
Alexander Rose has written a two-page feature on The Battle of Shrewsbury for

About the Author
Alexander Rose has a PhD from Magdalene College, Cambridge. He has written for the TELEGRAPH and the SPECTATOR, and now works for Conrad Black's Canadian newspaper, the NATIONAL POST. This is his first book.

Customer Reviews

Good as far as it went, but not far enough
I was disappointed since I had read the previous review. The history of the Percy family is well researched, but there are so many detailed deviations into battles and other events where no Percy participated that it made the book a bit unwieldy. If it had been better edited (some sloppy mistakes) and kept to the point it might have been possible to go into the 16th and 17th centuries, covering the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Wizard earl, and the Percy participation in the Gunpowder plot.

The Great House of Percy
This book is superb I found it hard to put down and read it within a couple of days !
The way the style of writing is easy to get to grips with, which greatly helps the reader grasp whats going on especially with all the interlinked families of the nobles of the time. The book shows how the lives of the Percy family influenced English history from the Conquest to the Wars of the Roses. This is a book for anyone interested in getting a general history from the time of the conquest or for those from the North who want to know more about where they are from, this is a book that will appeal to anyone.