The Untold Story Of England’s Greatest King - Dan Jones - #852

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dan Jones. He's a historian, author and a podcaster. Though many English kings throughout history have left a lasting impact, Henry V is considered potentially the greatest ever, even though he only ruled for nine years. So what made him such an important figure, and why has his legacy endured for over 600 years? Expect to learn why King Henry V made such an impact on history, how he rose to power, and what he managed to accomplish during his reign, why he was so impressive as a leader, what happened to his legacy in the 600 years since he died, why he became so controversial recently, and much more. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dan Jones. Why write a book about Henry V? Why is he sufficiently important for you to spend several thousand words talking about him?

**Dan Jones** (1:13)
Well, in a sense, it's what I do. I mean, I write mostly medieval history books. And so there's a personal element to it, which is like unfinished business. So early in my career, I wrote a book called The Plantagenets, and that was like a dynastic history of the great English medieval dynasty that started in the 1150s with Henry II, founder of the dynasty, and worked up to Richard II, who was deposed in 1399 Then I wrote another book about the Wars of the Roses, which took the last half of the dynasty, and that started in 1420, the marriage of Henry V and Catherine de Valois, and it went up to the early Tudor period. So that left a little slice of 21 years, mostly covering Henry V's life. So filling that gap, that Henry V-shaped hole was sort of important in completing a sort of run of books, not quite a trilogy, but a triptych in my earth, or canon, if you will. But I think there's a more important point than that. With regards to the subject himself, Henry V was considered in his day and thereafter for hundreds of years to be the acme, the paradigm, the goat of medieval history.

**Chris Williamson** (2:26)
Was he like a British Aurelius?

**Dan Jones** (2:28)
Kind of, yes. Or a little bit like Alexander the Great. Just considered the best who ever did it, you know, who really understood every side of kingship and performed it. And was then, you know, his name became a byword for great kingship. So I think that biographical studies tend to be very interesting if they're about somebody who's the best at doing something or the worst at doing something, and Henry's the best. So if you're a medievalist, this is a landscape you've got to approach at some point. But the biggest reason probably to write it now is that Henry's life can be read, even if you're not interested in medieval history, which I accept there are a few people in the world still left who aren't, it can be read as a great case study of leadership in a time of crisis. Because he comes to power when you've got a realm that's like politically partisan, fractious, divided to camps at each other's throats.
You've got the lingering after effects of a pandemic. You've got a period of at least regional possibly global climate change. You've got a real sense of hopelessness around politics in particular, failed foreign policy as well. But a hopeless sense around politics in particular that feels like it's intractable, that it's unsolvable. And yet along comes one guy seemingly almost out of nowhere, who through the force of personality, charisma, competence, diligence, probity, moral example, drags his realm from the doldrums to the peak of triumph. And I think that's something that's an attractive idea today. In some ways, that's like everybody's kind of fantasy today. Whether you're in the United States, whether you're in Europe, whatever, outside probably the tyrannous autocracies of the world, that is the kind of thing everyone's looking for at the moment. So although Henry V is not an analogy for American politics directly, it's not a parable. His story does speak to themes that I think are really in the air in the world at the moment.

**Chris Williamson** (4:45)
Given the fact that he only ruled for nine years, how did he manage to make such an impact? Is it just the legacy and the fact that he was doing it the best that ever did?

**Dan Jones** (4:56)
Well, in some ways, having a short time in power with a lot concentrated into it, and then in his case, checking out very early, he dies, and it's not too much of a spoiler, they all die. But he dies at age 35, just after his greatest triumph, which is effectively, as an English king, conquering France.