Every
generation has a historical period with which it closely identifies.
Unfortunately for Great Britain in the early Twenty-First Century, it seems
that the era over which we most obsess is the Tudor monarchy. A briefest Royal
House spanning only one hundred and eighteen years and three generations of
monarchs dominates the air-waves. It also fills the primary curriculum, so some
unfortunate children are made to ‘do the Tudors’ several times over a school
career at the expense of much more interesting periods of our history.
In
clearer-cut and less sympathetic times, the Victorians relished the exploits of
the Plantagenets. Here were real kings and queens, despots and heroes, and a
definite sense of right and wrong. The dynasty suited the Victorian schoolroom,
and matched well the Empire-building of the muscular Christians which was seen
as a natural extension of England’s greatness.
Dan
Jones has written the Plantagenet book for our times. He has created a broad
sweep of historical writing that stretches from the glories of Henry II to the
ignominy of Richard II. The book covers eight generations of monarchs (the
longest unbroken dynasty in English history) and a period of close to three
hundred years. It is very, very readable. He does not swamp the text with
footnotes, and is precise when required. His main focus is kingship, and this
is dealt with using a broad brush – it is obvious that the strong women of the
realm are included, but also the pseudo-kings who ruled for extensive periods
during the absence of the monarch are included. It fills in the bits that those
long hours in the schoolroom left out. For anyone over forty, the history of
kings involved learning lists that excluded King Louis (who invaded Thanet in
1216), Simon de Montfort (de facto ruler in 1263), Piers Gaveson (the power
behind Edward II’s throne) and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who more or less ruled
everything when her sons were absent from the kingdom.
When
I picked up this book I feared that I would last about a hundred pages and then
put it down. It was a well-chosen Christmas present from my wonderful wife, and
I doubted my ability to persevere when the holiday ended. How wrong I was. For
a book of history, it is actually a page-turner, which is a very rare thing.
For all the skill of Antonia Fraser, I find her books dry and hard to get
enthusiastic about. The style of Dan Jones is full of charm, and makes reading
the next chapter a pleasure. It helps that he decided to write short chapters.
There is nothing more dispiriting than having a half hour to read and not
finishing a chapter. It was easy to read a little, do something else, and then
return to the narrative. It made me more likely to stick with it.
A
central plank to this book is the relationship between the king and the crown.
To begin with the two were indivisible. As the centuries ticked on and the king
and his household demanded more of the people, more was asked in return. It was
no longer enough to rule absolutely and command complete loyalty. It is an
interesting exercise to see just how far each Plantagenet could push it. Some
were obviously more skilful than their predecessors in knowing how much to ask
of the people. Some got it spectacularly wrong. Eventually, the king became a
person separate from the idea of kingship. The real interest is in how each
dealt with this realisation. Some were kings of action and aggression – martial
kings. It is about these kings that the casual reader knows the most, because
it is on their achievements that ‘traditional’ history usually dwells. Most
readers know that Richard I was the ‘Lionheart’ and liked nothing more than
cutting his way through the Near East in the name of his god and his pope.
Fewer know about Henry III, a deeply spiritual king. It is perhaps the greatest
success of this book that Dan Jones illuminates the long reign of Henry
(fifty-six years) and his significant achievements.
It
is an unashamedly English book. It is the story of England and its kings,
because to weave a coherent history that included Ireland, Scotland, Wales,
France and even Castile would mean running to thousands of pages. Jones has
chosen his focus, and adds detail when necessary, but does not feel the need to
explain the intricate nature of Welsh rule, to take one example.
In
doing so the author returns to a simpler idea of Englishness, framed in the
actions of kings and the reactions of the people. It is uncluttered by the
centuries of complication and nationalism. It is an idea to which we can never
return, but in learning a little more about it we are slightly wiser when
presented with our current problems.
There
is so much war that it is a wonder that anyone was left alive at all in 1399,
when Richard II made his final, fatal errors. Because the light has shone so
brightly on Henry VIII and his six wives, everything else is rather overlooked.
If I was a commissioning producer for the BBC, or a Hollywood scriptwriter, I
would be ignoring Anne Boleyn and asking Natalie Portman if her Occitan French
was good enough to portray Eleanor of Aquitaine. And I would be asking Dan
Jones for the details.
