The War of the Roses was so named because the house of Lancaster’s symbol was a red rose, while the York symbol was a white rose. Here’s where the comparison breaks down: If you tuned in for the Game of Thrones finale, you saw that things did not end in a marriage uniting two great houses (sort of)… though the idea had been floated by several characters. 1Īccording to Holinshed and Shakespeare, the war ends with the marriage of Henry Tudor (Henry VII), a Lancastrian, and Elizabeth of York, beginning the Tudor reign (in truth it was not so simple). Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande. The plays begin with the death of Henry V and close with Henry VII’s rise to power, covering decades of betrayal, bloody battles, murders, and exiles in between-perfect fodder for a book or television series. Shakespeare covers the War of the Roses in four plays: Henry VI Parts 1-3 and Richard III. Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (a book published in 1577) combined history and legend and served as a major source for several of Shakespeare’s plays- King Lear, Macbeth, and the histories. Weiss and David Benioff, the show is now part of a long tradition of borrowing themes from the War of the Roses, both the historical and the fictional.

HBO’s hit television series, Game of Thrones, is based on A Song of Ice and Fire.

It’s a pretty clear comparison when you distill it down to one line… never mind the differences in complex politics, relationships, and dragons. Now, let me rewrite that sentence: In a nutshell, A Song of Ice and Fire is primarily about the fight between the major houses of Westeros, two of which are the Lannisters and the Starks, to win the Iron Throne. In a nutshell, the War of the Roses was primarily about the fight between two branches of the Plantagenet family, the Lancasters and the Yorks, to win the English throne. The War of the RosesĪny history nerd worth their salt could have told you the clear connection between A Song of Ice and Fire and the War of the Roses, even before the author cited his source material. This blog post explores two of them: one, a historical power struggle that provides a multi-play dramatic structure and two, a direct allusion to a famously repulsive moment in Titus Andronicus. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series, you may have noticed some echoes from Shakespeare’s plays. If you’re a fan of the Game of Thrones TV series or George R.R.

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