Prof. John Watts, Professor of Later Medieval History, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford.
The Wars of the Roses are sometimes romanticized as a dramatic, blood-soaked Shakespearean soap opera, but their historical reality runs much deeper. John Watts, Professor of Later Medieval History at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, will unpack why this brutal 15th-century dynastic conflict still matters to us today. An expert in late-medieval political culture and governance, he will go beyond the popular myths of York versus Lancaster and reveal how these wars exposed fundamental vulnerabilities in the British state, shaping political power, propaganda, and societal structures.