The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England

Product Information

When it comes to history, nothing is more fascinating to me than the history of the families designated as Royalty and their nobles. If you look throughout history, there are not many families or dynasties that you can find who would be more fascinating than the Plantagenets. From the beginning of their rule in England in the 1100s, to the splintering of their family into the Lancasters and Yorks, and on to the takeover of England by the Tudors, the Plantagenets have had a huge affect on the history of England and Great Britain. To me, they are the dynasty that all other Royalty, English and other, are measured by. Now there is an interesting fly in the ointment of absolute power for John. His brother Geoffrey, who is the brother between Richard and John, has a son named Arthur of Brittany, who by the rules of primogeniture should have been King of England after Richard. Richard, in fact, had named Arthur as his heir whenever he left England. THE PLANTAGENETS, THE WARRIOR KINGS AND QUEENS WHO MADE ENGLAND is a marvelous read. Full of intrigue, drama, and human emotion it is a pretty darn good overview of the 245 years of the Plantagenet dynasty and the politics of medieval Europe. Edward's inability to empathize with the pressures brought to bear on his opponents was the cause of most of the rebellions and crises of his reign. In 1295 he managed to drive together two enemies that were to remain in each other's arms for the following 365 years. In February 1296 the Scottish government ratified a treaty of friendship with France. The Auld Alliance was born. A king who fights to defend his right has a better claim on his inheritance. Struggle and largesse allow a king to gain glory and territory.” --Bertran de Born

Author Dan Jones writes in an accessible, yet still scholarly, manner and his love and obvious affectionate interaction with the historical period comes across in the writing. The text is chronological in its overview, moving from ruler to ruler and I am a more well rounded student of history for having read it. The fact that it is a darn good read is just icing on the cake.

Become a Member

The problem for John goes away when Arthur mysteriously disappears. Dan Jones offers an explanation, but I will let you read the book and see what you think. John is half the man that his brother Richard is, illustrated best by his contemporaries who refer to him as John Softsword. I have read a few of Dan Jones' books and have concluded that he is a rare, very rare, scholar. Jones understands that histories should never be written for the benefit of other scholars. What purpose does a history serve if only a small group of academics ever read it? Jones clearly thinks otherwise and writes his books to be read by the average book-buying reader that also might be a history geek or could become one if histories weren't so esoteric. Because of this attitude I will buy anything this man writes. There are so many points in the Plantagenet era when they should have lost power. John, Henry III, Edward II, and Richard II are all legitimately bad kings who could have ended the reign of the Plantagenet family. Fortunately, there are strong kings, such as Henry II, Richard I, Edward I, and Edward III, who prove to be powerful, capable rulers who, especially in the case of the two Edwards, overcome the incompetencies of their immediate predecessors.

Jones is a journalist whose love of Medieval history was fostered at Cambridge. It is a passion he is keen to share, and if he is hoping to tempt readers away from Nazis, Tudors, or historical fantasy fiction, he succeeds brilliantly in this exhilarating real-life game of thrones. A cynic and a pragmatist, that was our Henry, but there was evidently no wearing of a hair shirt or walking barefoot to the shrine. Jones also proves absolutely my theory that everything in history is personal. Geoffry of Anjou was Following the death of William Aetherling, Henry I leaves his throne to his daughter, Matilda. Her husband, the handsome Geoffrey of Anjou, is the man who in legend inspired the Plantagent name: he wore a spring of yellow broom blossom (planta genista) in his hair. Four centuries before the advent of Mary Tudor, the question of whether or not England will accept a Queen regnant, has arisen. Matilda’s cousin Stephan of Blois, one of the few survivors of the white ship, seizes the crown, and so begins a long and grim civil war. Entertaining and informative . . . Jones has produced an absorbing narrative that will help ensure that the Plantagenet story remains ‘stamped on the English imagination’ for another generation.” great grandparents Matilda of Scotland and Henry I, 25th great grandfathers Geoffrey count of Anjou and King David I of Scotland, 24th great grandfather Henry II, 2nd cousin Edward I, 1st cousin Louis the Fat, and many more are colored in full context by way of Jones' informed storytelling. Their circumstances and living conditions might've been quite different compared to contemporary times, but their human natures are all too recognizable.

Boy, it's those table manners that will get you, every time. From this joyous union came the aforesaid Henry II, who with Eleanor of Aquitaine spawned first Richard I, aka the Lionheart, who it turns out wasn't gay after all, who spent a cumulative one year of his eleven-year reign in England, and who was killed at the siege of Châlus-Chabrol by a defender wielding a crossbow and carrying a frying pan as a shield (I just eat this stuff up with a spoon). In telling the story, the author makes good use of sources from the time of the various Kings, from which he quotes liberally. I found that these quotes made the narrative more interesting for me. When quoting from the sources, Mr. Jones is careful to say if they supported or were against the King. Henry II, the first son conceived in that frigid marriage bed of Matilda and Geoffrey, now King of England after some more bloody fighting with King Stephen, marries the amazing Eleanor of Aquitaine. I believe she is the only woman to marry the King of France and the King of England in history. She is intelligent, educated, and powerful in her own right. She is a catch for any man, even a king. ”Eleanor had been a magnificent queen whose influence had straddled three important reigns and who had loved and guided her sons even when they behaved unwisely.”

A drunken outing, a ship sinks and a future kiing is dead leaving the country without a clear successor. The result? Twenty years of Civil War. This is how this well written well researched book begins. It then takes us through 250 years of Plntagenet rule. The good, not too much of that, the bad, alot of that, and the ugly. So glad I did not live in the Middle ages. I knew quite a bit of this history going in, but I have always had a fascination with Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen twice, the mother of two Kings, and the women that led her sons in a revolt against her husband. Of course she was imprisoned in various castles for many years, but eventually she once again became a politcal force. She lives into her seventies. I am a self proclaimed history geek. Although my first love was, and always will be, Historical Fiction, over the years I have developed an intense love affair with many well written History books of the non-fiction variety. I have said many time, on here no less, that a good Historical Fiction book should peak my interest and make me seek out factual books on the given subject to fill in the gaps and give me the "true" picture. As a result, I am always excited when I found one of the said History books that I can not only enjoy, but recommend. The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens who made England by British historian Dan Jones is just such a book. Woodwards, Colin; Woodward, Colin (2 August 2013). "The Plantaganets The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England By Dan Jones". The Washington Post . Retrieved 15 August 2020. These negative points roll into an overly-rushed conclusion which instead of detailing the drama between Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke in a memorable way; instead focuses more on Jones’s clear dislike for Richard. The epilogue of “The Plantagenets” also fails to sum-up the work in a resonating way. I would have loved to learn more about the powerful spouses and confidants behind each reign, but this book has done well in whetting my appetite for more.

How to Vote

One of Jones's strengths is an eye for the small but enlightening detail of character. Edward I, or "Longshanks", persecuted all who disagreed with him, whether it be his expulsion of the Jews in 1290 or his conquest of Scotland in 1296. He was so dominant in person that he was said to have scared a man to death, unlike his son Edward II, whose incompetent rule, bedevilled with military defeats and unwise adherence to his favourites, ended with his murder in 1327. Jones notes that the method of his death, traditionally held to be by a rectally inserted red-hot poker, "is almost certainly quite untrue". The medieval wheel of fortune is ever-present. The greatest of all the Plantagenet kings, Edward III, is succeeded in 1377 by one of the very worst, Richard II, and the whole process of civil war begins again. The publishers have managed to stamp the book with the imprimatur of some impressive heavyweights, including David Starkey and Simon Sebag-Montefiore. These things always seem slightly over the top to me - clearly solicited in advance rather than drawn from a published review - , almost hysterical in their approbation. The latter, for example, describes The Plantagenets as ‘outstanding’, a judgement echoed by Helen Castor, the best-selling author of She Wolves. (It must be so: it says so on the cover!) As Jones shows, the men and women in The Plantagenets were playing a very high stakes game, and the consequences of failure could be quite steep. Meanwhile, the ordinary people of the realm, the unnamed and faceless masses who served as mere pawns in this life-sized chess match, remain unfortunately hidden from our view. a b Horspool, David (21 May 2012). "The Plantagenets: the Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones: review". The Telegraph . Retrieved 16 August 2020. He spent the rest of the day and also the whole of the following night in bitterness of soul, given over to prayer and sleeplessness, and continuing his fast for three days...With this extraordinary show of public penance Henry had won the most important propaganda battle of the war.