Synopses & Reviews
On September 9, 1513, the vicious rivalry between the young Henry VIII of England and his charismatic brother-in-law, James IV of Scotland, ended in violence at Flodden Field in the north of England. It was the inevitable climax to years of mounting personal and political tension through which James bravely asserted Scotland’s independence and Henry demanded its obedience.
In Fatal Rivalry, George Goodwin, the best-selling author of Fatal Colours, captures the vibrant Renaissance splendor of the royal courts of England and Scotland, with their unprecedented wealth, innovation, and artistic expression. He shows how the wily Henry VII, far from the miser king of tradition, spent vast sums to secure his throne and elevate the monarchy to a new standard of magnificence among the courts of Europe. He demonstrates how James IV competed with the elder Henry, even claiming that Arthurian legend supported a separate Scottish identity. Such rivalry served as a substitute for war—until Henry VIII’s belligerence forced the real thing.
As England and Scotland scheme toward their biggest-ever battle, Goodwin deploys a fascinating and treacherous cast of characters: maneuvering ministers, cynical foreign allies, conspiring cardinals, and contrasting queens in Katherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor.
Finally, at Flodden on September 9, 1513, King James seems poised for the crushing victory that will confirm him as Scotland’s greatest king and—if an old military foe proves unable to stop him—put all of Britain in his grasp.
Five hundred years after this decisive battle, Fatal Rivalry combines original sources and modern scholarship to re-create the royal drama, the military might, and the world in transition that created this bitter conflict.
Review
"[A] fresh and provocative take on the intertwined histories of Tudor England and Stuart Scotland." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Goodwin provides a concise, fast-moving account of the causes, the actual battle, and the aftermath of the conflict…. For general readers with at least a rudimentary knowledge of British and European history, this will be both an informative and enjoyable read." Booklist
Synopsis
A battle that lasted only hours would establish England’s political domination of Scotland for the next five hundred years.
Synopsis
James IV of Scotland, suspected of ordering the murder of his own father, ascended the throne at the age of fifteen. His marriage to a Tudor princess brought a tenuous peace with England after five centuries of war, but James’s ambitions of becoming a great Renaissance prince collided with those of his brother-in-law Henry VIII. Their history-altering rivalry—political, ceremonial, and cultural—led, in 1513, to the bloodiest battle in British history. On Flodden Field James, through his own miscalculation, became the last king in Britain to fall in battle, thereby condemning most of his nobility to a similarly violent death and sealing his country’s fate.
Superbly researched and dramatically told, this first in-depth examination of the Battle of Flodden traces how a legacy of rivalry—marked by shifting alliances with kings, popes, and emperors—erupted into bloodshed and ushered in a new technological, economic, and geopolitical era.
Synopsis
Flodden 1513: the biggest and bloodiest Anglo-Scottish battle. Its causes spanned many centuries; its consequences were as extraordinary as the battle itself.
About the Author
George Goodwin is a history graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Foundation Exhibition. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Royal Society of Arts and is a member of the Battlefields Trust. He lives near Kew Gardens. His first book, Fatal Colours: Towton 1461, was published to wide critical acclaim in 2011.