Historians have researched extensively the motives and fortunes of kings, nobles, and gentlemen in the Wars of the Roses, that bewildering sequence of rebellions fought between 1455 and 1485. The shadows cast by the awesome puppet masters of the Wars, like Richard of York, Warwick the Kingmaker, or Richard III, add to the mist which swirls around the mass of participants. What sort of people were the soldiers? Why did they repeatedly buckle and saddle up for combat? What hopes and fears kept them awake, lying under the stars?