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.

books about the Plantagenets - Shepherd The best books about the Plantagenets - Shepherd

Four centuries before the advent of Mary Tudor, the question of whether or not England will accept a Queen regnant, has arisen. It’s aimed at the popular market and the popular market might baulk at a work heading fast towards a thousand pages or more! Fortunately, there are men and women willing to stand up to those Plantagenet kings who prove unworthy, and thankfully, there are more capable members of the family available when they need them the most.It’s in his account of the ‘black’ fourteenth century that Jones is at his best, in his treatment of the highs of Edward III and the lows of Richard II, his grandson. Vicious tantrums that ended in murder ran in the Plantagenet family, however, and they weren’t all prepared to appear apologetic, as Henry II was obliged to do after Beckett’s brains were smeared over paving stones in his own cathedral. The Good Kings while for the most part winning their wars also kept good relations with the nobility, while the bad kings did not. There are other mistakes within most chapters of the book, which are also sloppy, careless, and easily corrected. Dan Jones packs a heck of a lot of history into his book, and he sacrifices neither entertainment, humour, nor accuracy.

The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England - Wikipedia

This book ends with Henry IV taking power and initiating the divide in the monarchy that would become the Wars of the Roses, the subject of Jones' next book. That was unfortunate since there were lots of people and subjects on which I would like to have more information. It’s a story told with enthusiasm, insight and panache by Dan Jones in the recently published The Plantagenets: the Kings Who Made England.Many of the people Jones introduces meet terrible ends, and he seldom passes an opportunity to give you a flavor of medieval justice. It was thanks to John that the Channel began to serve in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands. I don't know how he manages it, but Jones manages to conversationally attribute his information to their sources and even discuss conflicting accounts without breaking the flow, the suspense, or even the story. Yet the Black Prince and Edward died before their time, and John found his influence increased with the accession of his young nephew, Richard II. The king couldn't just do what he wanted, and those who did inevitably discovered that payback is a bitch.