Name: Henry’s Roses: The Lives of Elizabeth of York, Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France
Start: 2025-08-16T13:30:00+01:00
Location: 4A St Martins, LE1 5DB Leicester, United Kingdom

$Henry\u2019s Roses: The Lives of Elizabeth of York, Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France$

The Battle of Bosworth is normally imagined as a battle between two kings, two houses for one throne. But in fact this battle was so much more and affected so many more people's lives. Elizabeth of York was one of these lives, if Henry Tudor won, she would become Queen of England and her children will sit upon the throne. If her uncle Richard had won, she may have married a noble, with her life forever at risk and her children may not have sat upon the thrones of England, Scotland and France. What would history have been like without Henry VIII, we could ask?
Henry VIII’s relationships with women didn't always go well. The king who had six wives, two of which he murdered. But what of the three women that knew him before the marriages and beheadings? Although queens of England, Scotland and France, for Henry these women were also his mother and two sisters.
Celebrating the 540th Anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth with the release of a new book, 'Henry’s Roses: The Lives of Elizabeth of York, Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France', it's author would like to invite you to a talk on Elizabeth of York, who's story changed dramatically because of this battle, plus many more historical events in her life.
Amanda Harvey Purse is the historian and author of various books on Victorian crime, The Boleyns: From the Tudors to the Windsors and Henry’s Roses: The Lives of Elizabeth of York, Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France. She is a Fellow of the Historical Royal Society and researcher for London-based museums and television programmes, such as Lucy Worsley’s, A Very British Murder.
Being fascinated with the people behind historical events for many years, Amanda endeavours to respectfully remember these people, that can often get lost behind the titles, roles and events they were involved in, by sharing their stories so we can possibly understand them a little more, together. By doing this, we may also be able to look at the history we might feel we know so well, in perhaps an exciting and refreshing way