What can explain the Scottish King's rash challenge to his uncle of England, Henry VIII, in 1542? In that year, writes Albert Makinson, a Scots army was destroyed on the borders of Cumberland, and James's throne passed to his daughter, Mary, before whom lay a tragic destiny.
Albert Makinson offers a study of Edward II's “over-mighty subject” who, having suffered a violent death as a rebel against the King, became a popular hero and a strong candidate for canonization.
Albert Makinson assesses the rival party claims of Lancaster and York, which afforded the pretext for a blaze of plebeian discontent and patrician lawlessness that filled England for the next one hundred and fifty years with a profound horror of civil war genealogy of the ruling family, and fewer still in the principles of parliamentary democracy.
