When Thomas Costain's "The Conquerors," came out more than a dozen years ago, and was followed two years later by his "The Magnificent Century," they gave us a treatment of history refreshingly colorful and new. Here indeed was "The Pageant of England" as rich as events woven into medieval tapestries—stories of tournaments, battles, the storming of castles, arranging of international marriages, the plots and counterplots of family intrigues, and more dimly perhaps yet ominously persistent, the struggles of submerged peasants, the growing power of the guilds, the self-realization of citizens of London.

Perhaps it is just as well that Mr. Costain eventually decided to end his "Pageant" with the coming in of the Tudors. The extent of research for these histories—popular in style but sound in substance—seems a life work in itself….

"The Last Plantagenets," picking up England's story where "The Three Edwards" leaves us...