Description
A brand-new life of England's greatest king from our bestselling medieval historian
''A historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist.'' Observer
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. 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.
For Dan Jones, Henry is one of the most intriguing characters in all medieval history, but one of the hardest to pin down. He was a hardened warrior, but also bookish and artistic; a leader who made many mistakes, yet always seemed