Displaying 1-10 of 4
Displaying 1-10 of 4
That year had another significance, one deeply rooted in the inner mentality of the European consciousness. For it had been in 1453 that the Ottoman Turks had at last conquered Constantinople, the city of cities, thereby extinguishing the Byzantine Empire.
At first glance, there are certainly similarities: a violent dispute over who should be wearing the English crown, and an invasion launched from France by a man who would be king. The main difference, and the reason for 1217’s relative obscurity, is that the earlier invasion was successful – a new king, William the Conqueror, sat on the English throne, and history was rewritten. But this was not the case a century and a half later, when the incursion of the putative Louis I of England was fought off. And the word ‘fought’ is very much the operative one, because it was a series of military engagements that stemmed and then turned a tide that had been very much in Louis’s favour.
My passion for the Wars of the Roses – a passion that has now culminated in the publication of my book on the subject – began back in 1994, when a visit to Bosworth battlefield provided my epiphany and changed the course of my life and career. I had already been a professional artist for ten years, and begun to branch out into painting medieval subjects, but these early canvases were inspired by Arthurian legend rather than real history.
Writing a book on Agincourt presents a number of challenges. Foremost among them, I think, is whether one should be writing a book on the battle at all. I have shelves of Agincourt books in my library. In doing research for the book, I loaded up with piles more. To commit to writing 100,000 words on the fight – to turn 1,000 books on Agincourt into 1,001 – one better have something useful to add.
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