Conquest: The English Kingdom of France 1417-1450
Juliet Barker
Henry V’s remarkable victory at Agincourt (the subject of Juliet Barker’s previous book) is one of the seminal moments of the Hundred Years War. What happened next is less well known but was equally momentous. Agincourt led to the foundation of an English kingdom of France.
This book will tell the dramatic story of the English conquest, the decades of relatively peaceful settlement, and the final, unexpected collapse of English rule over thirty years later. It is a story that will feature battles, sieges and military campaigns, but also highlight the extraordinary people whose lives were profoundly changed by these events: from Joan of Arc, who briefly inspired a French resistance, to William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, who lost his father and four brothers in the conflict and, when taken prisoner himself, knighted his captor rather than surrender to a subordinate. Less important characters, whose stories are just as compelling, will not be forgotten. What was it like to be an English archer doing a tour of duty in Normandy or a French farmer living under occupation? Full of fascinating anecdotes and detail about medieval life, The English Kingdom of France, will give a unique insight into an exciting but little known period of Anglo-French history.
Book Details:
- Author: Juliet Barker
- Published Year: 2009
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Rights Sold
- UK: Little Brown
- US: Harvard University Press
- Brazil: Record
- China: China Renmin University Press.-
Juliet Barker
Juliet Barker was educated at Bradford Girls' Grammar School and St Anne's College, Oxford, where she obtained a doctorate in medieval history. From 1983 to 1989 she was the curator and librarian of the Bronte Parsonage Museum. Her books include The Brontes, which won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award and was short-listed for both the AT&T Non-Fiction Prize and the Marsh Biography Award, The Brontes: A Life in Letters, Wordsworth: A Life, Wordsworth: A Life in Letters.She is a frequent contributor to newspapers and appears regularly on radio and television. In 1999 she was one o...
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Book Reviews
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"The story is worth telling and Barker tells it superbly well. Her judgements are shrewd. Her understanding of the complex politics of the period is impressive. She writes in a spare, elegant style. The pace is brisk, indeed so brisk that one would occasionally have welcomed a more spacious account of the personalities involved and the problems with which they had to grapple...There was a need for a good history of the failed enterprises of the English. Juliet Barker’s book supplies it handsomely"
Literary Review -
"...a magnificently readable account of the last four decades of that war...Juliet Barker’s account of Joan of Arc is one of the best parts of the book...I thought Agincourt was a superb book, but Conquest is even better. Once upon a time there was an English kingdom in France and Juliet Barker has brought it to extraordinary life.”"
Bernard Cornwell, Mail on Sunday -
"Academics may have applauded the arrival this year of Divided Houses, the third volume of Jonathan Sumption’s thorough history of the 100 years’ war, but the general reader may find greater joy in this strikingly engaging study of a relatively unknown era… makes for engrossing reading.
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Sunday Times Books for Christmas -
"…brilliant account of the 30-year period in the early 15th century, roughly between Agincourt and the 20 years after the burning of Joan of Arc, when the English, first under the leadership of Henry V, occupied great swaths of northern France until they were driven out by Charles V11. For reasons of national pride on both sides the period has been neglected, but this vivid reclamation for a wide readership will perhaps restore it to its proper place in our national narrative."
Times -
"a first-rate, fluid account of this little-understood period in European history... Conquest fills a gap in the historiography and may be invaluable for serious students and scholars of the era."
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