Matthew Strickland

If I were to ask you to conjure up an image of the most famous Henry to rule England, you'd likely think of Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII, hands on hips and full of swagger. But what if I told you that the regnal count was slightly wrong, and that the last Tudor Henry was in fact Henry IX? A little odd and yet true, for one royal Henry, though crowned, anointed, and acknowledged as king of England, is forgotten. This is because Henry "the Young King" was crowned during the lifetime of his show more father, Henry II, and died in his late twenties before he ever had the chance to rule independently. Matthew Strickland does a marvellous job in resurrecting this neglected Henry. Though the sources for his life are comparatively few, Strickland does a good job of putting them in context. Strickland argues that the Young King was far from being the ineffectual gadfly that later medieval and Victorian historians painted him, but was arguably a more gifted and personable figure than his better-known brothers. (Not, admittedly, that that's a difficult thing to be.) I wished at times for a little less focus on military history, but on the whole a strong work. show less

Learned a lot about longbows! Read it backwards - chapter by chapter - so I came to the best last - the fabulous hoard of bows from the Mary Rose.

Learned a lot about longbows! Read it backwards - chapter by chapter - so I came to the best last - the fabulous hoard of bows from the Mary Rose.

An excellent production, with many fascinating themes. It's a heavy book at nearly 3 KG it needs a desk for support.