The Plantagenets

Dan Jones

The Plantagenets

The Kings Who Made England

Dedication

For JJ, VJ and IJ

Epigraph

For a sensible man ought to consider that Fortune’s favour is
variable and her wheel is ever turning … the Prince must take
care, and always have imprinted on his mind the fact that
although the merciful Creator … is long-suffering and patient
… He is likewise severe in executing punishment and
vengeance upon the stubborn and wilful, and usually begins to
exact that punishment here on earth.

GERALD OF WALES,
THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

List of Maps

List of Genealogical Tables

French Kings, 1060–1422

Preface

Part I
– Age of Shipwreck (1120–1154)

The White Ship

Hunt for an Heir

The Shipwreck

Ambition

A Scandalous Wife

Henry the Conqueror

Peace Process

Part II
– Age of Empire (1154–1204)

Births and Rebirth

L’Espace Plantagenet

Unholy War

Succession Planning

The Eagle’s Nest

Henry Triumphant

A World on Fire

New Horizons

Hero of the East

Treachery

At the Emperor’s Pleasure

Return of the Lionheart

Lackland Supreme

John Softsword

Triumph and Catastrophe

Lackland Undone

Part III
– Age of Opposition (1204–1263)

Salvaging the Wreck

A Stay-at-Home King

A Cruel Master

Beginning of the End

To Bouvines

Magna Carta

Securing the Inheritance

From Marshal to Magna Carta

Kingship at Last

Marriage and Family

Holy Kingship

The Road to War

The Provisions of Oxford

Part IV
– Age of Arthur (1263–1307)

Lewes

From Imprisonment to Evesham

The Leopard

King at Last

A New Arthur

The Final Stand

The King’s Castles

The Price of Conquest

The Expulsion of the Jews

The Great Cause

War on All Fronts

The Conquest of Scotland

Crisis Point

Relapse

Part V
– Age of Violence (1307–1330)

The King and his Brother

Coronation

Emergency

The Ordinances

Manhunt

Summer of Promise

Bannockburn

New Favourites

Civil War

The King’s Tyranny

Mortimer, Isabella and Prince Edward

Endgame

Abdication

False Dawn

Part VI
– Age of Glory (1330–1360)

Royal Coup

Glorious King of a Beggared Kingdom

New Earls, New Enemies

The Hundred Years War Begins

Edward at Sea

The Crisis of 1341

Dominance

The Death of a Princess

Chivalry Reborn

Decade of Triumph

Part VII
– Age of Revolution (1360–1399)

The Family Business

Unravelling Fortunes

The Good Parliament

New King, Old Problems

England in Uproar

Return to Crisis

Treason and Trauma

The Reinvention of Kingship

Richard Revenged

Richard Undone

Richard Alone

Picture Section

Conclusion

Further Reading

Searchable Terms

Other Books by Dan Jones

Copyright

About the Publisher

MAPS

England during the war between Stephen and Matilda,
c
.1135–54

The Plantagenet Empire at its peak,
c
.1187

The Plantagenet Empire after John’s reign,
c
.1216

The Welsh castles of Edward I

Plantagenet battles in Scotland

France under Edward III, 1360

GENEALOGICAL TABLES

The Normans

The Plantagenets