The Blue Boar Inn by oshun

Author's Speculations

The War of the Roses and the War of the Jewels

Everybody knows that George R.R. Martin admits his choices of plot and characters owe a lot to the real life game of thrones of the War of the Roses. I have never seen anyone compare Tolkien’s Wars of Beleriand to the War of the Roses. But lately I have noticed some echoes here and there.

Notes, only peripherally related to this above ficlet

I received a prompt the other night from my friend Jenni asking for a crossover of The Silmarillion with the War of the Roses (she knows I am a moderate, not fanatical, Ricardian—someone who knows there is more to the story Richard III than Shakespeare’s recycled Tudor slanders). Anyway, she asked for a Feanorians-in-history fic, which included sons of Feanor and Richard III.

It took me a couple of days to come up with any kind of idea. I started thinking about the possible parallels between the Battle of Bosworth and the Nírnaeth Arnoediad. Bosworth Field, although much smaller, reminds me of the battle, which determines history within in that fictional world, where victory once looked possible, or even likely, but which ended in crushing defeat and the death of a valiant, if somewhat reckless, king.

Richard waiting for the arrival of the traitorous Stanley’s promised forces, held back and then turned upon him at the critical moment, is reminiscent of Fingon's waiting for Maedhros, held back by treachery and traitors within his ranks. When Richard spots Henry Tudor on the field, he charges percipitously, taking advantage of an opening and the chance of ending a battle which suddenly and unexpectedly had turned from almost certain victory to the likliehood of defeat, before it even started. Fingon, of course, similarly, is forced to engage long before he had intended by Gwindor’s untimely charge.

One could continue to stretch the comparisons, but I will wrap it up before I degenerate into pure babble. Indulge me, please, in one last contrast of the two kings deaths in those battles.

Fingon's death: "At last Fingon stood alone with his guard dead about him . . . . Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood." (The Silmarillion.)

Richard III's death on Bosworth Field shares elements with that description (if you leave out the Balrogs!). Like Fingon, Richard died fighting surrounded by the enemy after all of his personal guard had been slain; ". . . and king Richerd alone was killyd fyghting manfully in the thickkest presse of his enemyes." (Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia.)