The doctor is nervous.
John Bradmore is the best surgeon in England. He has a famous practice in London. He attends on rich and powerful clients, including the king...
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HENRY V reigned over England for only nine years and four months, and died at the age of just thirty-five, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond.
The victor of Agincourt was remembered as the acme of kingship, a model to be closely imitated by his successors. William Shakespeare deployed Henry V as a study in youthful folly redirected to sober statesmanship. In the dark days of World War II, Henry's victories in France were presented by British filmmakers as exemplars for a people existentially threatened by Nazism. Churchill called Henry 'a gleam of splendour in the dark, troubled story of medieval England', while for one modern medievalist, Henry was, quite simply, 'the greatest man who ever ruled England'.
For Dan Jones, Henry is one of the most intriguing characters in all medieval history, but one of the hardest to pin down: a hardened warrior, yet also bookish and artistic; a leader who made many mistakes, yet always triumphed when it mattered. As king, he saved a shattered country from
economic ruin, and in foreign diplomacy made England a serious player once more. Yet through his conquests in northern France, he sowed the seeds for calamity at home, in the form of the Wars of the Roses.
Dan Jones's life of Henry V stands out for the generous amount of space it allots to his long royal apprenticeship - the critical first twenty-six years of his life before he became king. It is an enthralling portrait of a man with a rare ability to force his will on the world. But, above all, it is an unmissable account of England's greatest king from our bestselling medieval historian.
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If you are looking at this book and thinking that it might be a heavy going historical tome then think again.
This is so accessible to read as the author, Dan Jones has steered away from the traditional style of history writing being in the past tense and has written this in the present tense. This may be unconventional, but Mr. Jones has accomplished this extremely well. It drives the text along, pulling the reader in and allowing them to observe history from a closer perspective.
That said, the book contains a vast amount of knowledge as it covers Henry's entire lifetime - from the time of his birth in 1386 to his death in 1422 via his ascension to the throne in 1413. We learn much about the boy and youth, Hal who became the serious King Henry. However, the author states that these two personas were very much one and the same and he sets this out for the reader perfectly.
Despite the fact that I have a history degree, I actually knew little about Henry V other than on a superficial level. I focussed more on modern history. Therefore, I was very eager to dive into this and I feel that I am far more informed now. I have ploughed through many history textbooks over the years and by comparison, this made for easy reading and was more like reading a detailed novel.
This book is an intelligent and informative read which made for enjoyable reading. Publishing today, I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys history.
ISBN: 978 1804541937
Publisher: Head of Zeus/Apollo
Formats: e-book, audio, hardback and paperback
No. of Pages: 448 (hardback)
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About the Author:
Dan Jones is the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of many non-fiction books, including The Plantagenets, The Templars and Powers and Thrones. He is a renowned writer, broadcaster and journalist. He has presented dozens of TV shows, including the Netflix series Secrets of Great British Castles, and writes and hosts the podcast This is History. His debut novel, Essex Dogs, is the first in a series following the fortunes of ordinary soldiers in the early years of the Hundred Years’ War. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
(ARC and author info courtesy of the publisher)
(author photo courtesy of Penguin Random House)
(all opinions are my own)
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