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Lancaster and York. For much of the fifteenth century these two families were locked in battle for control of the British monarchy. Kings were murdered and deposed. Armies marched on London. Old noble names were ruined while rising dynasties seized power and lands. The war between the royal Houses of Lancaster and York, the longest and most complex in British history, profoundly altered the course of the monarchy. Alison Weir brings brilliantly to life both the war itself and the historic figures who fought it on the great stage of England. Here are the queens who changed history through their actions - the chic, unconventional Katherine of Valois, Henry V's queen; the ruthless, social-climbing Elizabeth Wydville; and, most crucially, Margaret of Anjou, a far tougher and more powerful character than her husband, Henry VI, and a central figure in the Wars of the Roses. Here, too, are the nobles who carried the conflict down through the generations - the Beauforts, the bastard descendants of John of Gaunt; Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known to his contemporaries as 'the Kingmaker'; and the Yorkist King, Edward IV, a ruthless charmer who pledged his life to cause the downfall of the House of Lancaster.