Welsh Journals

R. A. Griffiths provides a valuable examination of 'The Sense of Dynasty in the reign of Henry VI', in the course of which he highlights the all-important beliefs in the dynastic rights of the Lancastrians to the crown. But neither he nor Charles Ross (in his recent book on the Wars) succeeds in making me believe that contemporaries thought of the military actions of the time as 'The Wars of the Roses'. A. J. Pollard focuses with advantage on 'The Richmondshire Community of Gentry' during the Wars aforesaid and illuminates the important part played by the wealthy but non-noble landed classes. M. A. Hicks re-examines 'The Changing Role of the Wydevilles in Yorkist Politics to 1483' and re-affirms the reasons for the generally poor reputation of the family. Carole Rawcliffe brings some valuable and much needed information on the comparatively neglected theme of 'Baronial Councils' in this period. The longest and most important contribution in this volume is that by Margaret Condon on 'Ruling Elites in the Reign of Henry VII'. Miss Condon seeks to identify the most influential 'elites' during the reign, stresses their remarkable stability, the lack of faction, and the dominant personal power of the king himself. She makes many significant points, some of which are new, all of which call for closer consideration than can be given here, and certainly need to be taken into account in any further assessment of Henry VII.1 The remaining three papers are more diverse in character. Alison Allan studies 'Yorkist propaganda: Pedigree, prophecy and the "British History" in the reign of Edward IV, mainly by way of careful examination of existing source materials. Miss Anne E. Curry takes us across the Channel and deep into important military matters with her paper, 'The First English Standing Army?-Military organisation in Lancastrian Normandy, 1420-1450'. K. R. Dockray seeks to take us very much further still with a paper under a title of doubtful meaningfulness- 'Japan and England in the Fifteenth Century: The Onin War and the Wars of the Roses'. Fortunately, Mr. Dockray is modest and states very rightly that 'he does not claim to have identified anything more than a remarkable series of coincidences'. But it is difficult to see that such a series possesses any particular significance for the history of the two countries, and the interest of this paper seems 'uncertain' rather than 'certain'. s. B. CHRIMES Cardiff. A HANDFUL OF HISTORY. By J. R. S. Whiting. Alan Sutton, Dursley, Gloucestershire, 1978. Pp. vii, 201. £ 7.00 This is a book about playing-cards: not an account of their changing design or of the games that have been played with them, but rather what the author calls 'a study of history' (English history from the late-sixteenth to the early-eighteenth century) using some fourteen contemporary packs of cards as evidence. And the evidence, of course, is provided by the illustrations on the cards-early examples of the political cartoon, 1 I shall have more space for these matters in the next issue of this Review.