Dr David Grummitt

Professional biography

I completed my PhD on 'Calais under Tudor Rule, 1485-1547' in 1997 and worked on the AHRC-funded project 'Warfare and State Formation in England and the Habsburg Netherlands, 1477-1559' before joining the 1422-1460 section of the History of Parliament Trust.

I have previously held positions at the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University where I took a particular interest in programme and module design, developing a interdisciplinary BA programme in Medieval and Early Modern Studies. I am also a Director of The Richard III Society and a member of the advisory panel for The Battlefields Trust.

Research interests

I trained as a historian of late medieval and Renaissance Britain and Western Europe. As a military historian, I am particularly interested in  the role of war in the development of the state and its impact on wider cultural and societal change. I have also worked extensively on the political culture of fifteenth-century England, especially the political struggles known to us as the Wars of the Roses. My new book, The Wars of the Roses: War and Martial Culture in England 1455-1487 will be published by Oxford University Press in 2025. I am also writing a new narrative history of the military campaigns of the Wars of the Roses.

My publications include:

The History of Parliament: The Commons 1422-1460, ed. Linda Clark, 5 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Henry VI (Routledge, 2015)

A Short History of the Wars of the Roses (IB Tauris, 2013, 2nd edn. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)

The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in England, 1436-1558 (Boydell & Brewer, 2008)

Teaching interests

As well as being a cluster manager for A225, I am also the module chair of Y031.