HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-02-20T16:52:50.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: England’s forgotten medieval hero: how John, Duke of Bedford carried on Henry V's fight
items: The bloody rise of Henry V: how his brutal upbringing propelled him to greatness
items: How King John helped bring about a political miracle in medieval England
items: War and military history podcast episodes
items: Medieval Stalingrad: why the siege of Calais was so critical in the Hundred Years' War
items: Jonathan Sumpton on the Hundred Years’ War: “It was Joan of Arc who persuaded the French that they could win”
items: Queens in the Age of Chivalry
items: Why Henry VI’s reign was such a disaster

England’s forgotten medieval hero: how John, Duke of Bedford carried on Henry V's fight
type: item
date: 2025-02-20T16:52:50.000Z
creator: Joanna Arman
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Joan of Arc
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: When the Hundred Years’ War was reaching a climax, one man was fighting tenaciously to secure the English claim to the French crown. So why, asks Joanna Arman, is Henry V’s formidable brother, John, Duke of Bedford, not better known?
encoded: As black skies faded to grey, and dawn broke on that fateful day in the early 15th century, an English army gazed across a field in northern France. What their eyes encountered was a vastly superior force: some 15,000 French-led troops glared back – their numbers nearly double those of England’s men-at-arms and archers. The English had faced seemingly insuperable odds before, and emerged victorious. But could they really triumph over this well-armed force bolstered by fearsome international allies? The Hundred Years’ War had been raging for close to a century already, with negotiations between England and France coming and going – but all ultimately failing to decisively end the conflict. The balance of military success had swung one way and then the other in clashes on land and, occasionally, at sea. Read more | Jonathan Sumpton on the Hundred Years’ War: “It was Joan of Arc who persuaded the French that they could win” Many confrontations had ended with English longbowmen proving decisive. But as morning ebbed and the afternoon rolled on, the outcome remained uncertain. Finally, battle commenced – and the English won a great and memorable victory against the odds. Sounds familiar? No, this is not a description of the battle of Agincourt, Henry V’s famous victory of 1415. Instead, it’s the story of the clash fought on 17 August 1424 – nearly nine years after Agincourt, and two after Henry’s death – outside the town of Verneuil-sur-Avre in Normandy. Here, the English army led by Henry’s younger brother John, Duke of Bedford, hammered a combined force of French and Scottish solders plus 2,000 Milanese heavy cavalry, killing perhaps 6,000 enemy troops while suffering minimal losses. Historians refer to the battle of Verneuil as ‘the second Agincourt’ – yet that clash, like John himself, is largely forgotten today. Why has such a heroic victory faded from memory? And what part did John play in that tumultuous period of English and French history? Born to battle We’ll r…

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The bloody rise of Henry V: how his brutal upbringing propelled him to greatness
type: item
date: 2024-10-15T17:26:41.000Z
creator: Dan Jones
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: Held hostage at 12. Deciding the fate of captives at 14. Maimed in battle at 16. The future King Henry V learned a series of violent but valuable leadership lessons during his youth. Dan Jones traces the evolution of ‘Prince Hal’ into one of medieval England's most revered warrior monarchs and the victor of Agincourt
encoded: Summer 1403 saw surgeon John Bradmore rush to Kenilworth Castle to attend to a famous patient. Henry, the 16-year-old Prince of Wales and heir to the English throne, was in a critical condition. On 21 July, he had fought alongside his father, King Henry IV, at the battle of Shrewsbury against rebels led by Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy. The royal army had won – but the cost of victory had been high. During the battle, an arrow had pierced Prince Henry’s cheek and lodged deep in his head. He’d been lucky to survive; without urgent medical attention, he would surely soon die. The procedure Bradmore performed at Kenilworth was a marvel of surgical ingenuity. Over the course of several weeks, the medic widened the entry wound, all the while keeping it clean and free from infection. When the hole in Henry’s face was wide enough, Bradmore used a tool of his own devising to grip and slowly remove the metal arrowhead. Miraculously, during this entire process, the prince hadn’t gone into toxic shock. Bradmore then closed and sewed up the wound. He’d saved Henry’s life. Read more | Why is Henry V's portrait in profile? The operation had been complex and daring. It was also profoundly important for the dynastic history of England, the political history of Britain, and the military history of western Europe. What kind of king was Henry V? In 1413, a decade after Bradmore extracted that arrowhead, his patient succeeded to the English throne as King Henry V. Two years later, he was victorious at the battle of Agincourt. He was the king who realised the Plantagenet claim to the crown of France. He dragged England out of the dire condition into which it had sunk during the tyrannical reign of Richard II and the fractious one of his own father. He dispensed justice and defended traditional religion. He used the English language as a tool to bind his subjects as a nation. And he projected a stern, unyielding, ultra-pious public image; indeed, one observer thought him more like a priest than …

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How King John helped bring about a political miracle in medieval England
type: item
date: 2024-08-07T20:02:44.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: From the historic moment that 'bad' King John was made to put his seal to Magna Carta to parliament, taxation and the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries heralded many changes in England. In fact, Caroline Burt and Richard Partington explore how these changes laid the foundations for the modern British state
encoded: Good. But could do better. That was the message that the English people conveyed to their all-conquering monarch at the height of the Hundred Years’ War. In 1358, England’s great warrior-king Edward III asked parliament if he should accept a peace treaty he’d negotiated with the French, following a series of dramatic military victories. Parliament emphatically advised the king to fight again. Too much blood had been shed and too much treasure expended. The French, MPs declared, were not offering enough. For Edward’s distant predecessor King John, such a scenario would have been unthinkable. Then, at the dawn of the 13th century, there was no notion of shared national enterprise around foreign policy. The English king’s lands in France were a matter for the king alone – not for the community of the realm expressing its will through parliament. The people, if they had been courageous enough to venture their opinions to John, would have been told – not so politely – to keep their noses out. It was also unimaginable during John’s reign that other matters that parliament routinely considered in Edward III’s day – issues such as how much tax people paid, and the way in which law and justice was dispensed to the masses – might be a matter of nationwide debate. English state transformed Yet the 150 or so years between John’s reign and Edward’s victories over the French witnessed the utter transformation of the English state. This extraordinary period saw the introduction of a system of national taxation by consent, and the advent of the forum that approved that tax: parliament. It saw the legal system grow exponentially and a network of royal officers being appointed across the land. It saw striking advances in military organisation, including the professionalisation of the army. And, of course, it saw the introduction of Magna Carta, which established the much-cherished principle that the king was subject to the same law as his subjects. <img src="https://images.immediate.…

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War and military history podcast episodes
type: item
subject: General History
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Second World War battles
subject: The Crimean War
subject: Viking warfare
subject: Wartime Britain
description: Browse our archive of HistoryExtra podcasts on war and military history, from Nelson’s demise at Trafalgar to the role of Indian soldiers in World War One...

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Medieval Stalingrad: why the siege of Calais was so critical in the Hundred Years' War
type: item
date: 2023-11-10T11:26:54.000Z
creator: Dan Jones
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
description: Edward III’s siege of Calais was a pivotal moment in the Hundred Years’ War. Dan Jones argues that it bears comparison with one of the most brutal clashes of the modern era
encoded: One August morning in 1346, an English army led by King Edward III slumped, exhausted, on a bloody battlefield in northern France, near the forest of Crécy. During the previous two days, the English had destroyed a larger, fresher army commanded by the French king Philip VI. The fighting had been vicious: at least 1,500 French knights lay dead, along with thousands more ordinary soldiers. “Never since the destruction of great Troy had there been such mourning,” wrote one poet. Edward had pulled off a near-miraculous victory. It was several years since he had first claimed to be king of France as well as England, fuelling the struggle that today we call the Hundred Years’ War. Now his cause was vindicated: Philip VI was on the ropes, and Edward just had to decide how to strike his next blow. Or rather, where. The road to the battle of Crécy had been hard. On 12 July, Edward – accompanied by his 16-year-old eldest son, the ‘Black Prince’ – had landed 15,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy. For six weeks this vast army had marched through France. At first they had rampaged: burning their way through the Norman countryside in a campaign of terror known as a chevauchée. Then they had gone on the run, chased by Philip’s army, who were determined to drive them out of France for good. So although at Crécy the English had won a famous victory, the king had a tough decision to make. He wrote back to England in triumph, declaring that “our expedition has been very long and continuous. But we do not expect to depart the kingdom of France until we have made an end of our war.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/10/GettyImages-587494258web-717fbcb.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 16th-century depiction of French king Philip VI who, despite defeat at Crécy, was determined to drive the English out of France. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)" title="A 16th-century depiction of French king Philip VI who, despite defeat at Crécy, …

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Jonathan Sumpton on the Hundred Years’ War: “It was Joan of Arc who persuaded the French that they could win”
type: item
date: 2023-10-31T09:33:47.000Z
creator: Rob Attar
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
description: Jonathan Sumpton speaks to Rob Attar about the final volume in his epic history of the Hundred Years’ War, which reveals how the French turned the tide against the English monarchy.
encoded: Your book is titled Triumph and Illusion. Whose was the triumph, and what was the illusion? It’s deliberately ambiguous. The English were on top at the beginning of the period [1422], but they quickly declined and lost everything they’d gained over the previous decade. They then deceived themselves into thinking that there was some way in which they could conserve at least part of what they’d conquered. There were triumphs and illusions on the other side, too. Eventually, the French did triumph: they excluded England from every part of France except Calais. But they had their own illusions. They felt that the English had no support in France except from traitors, but the striking thing is that the English had a lot of support in the areas that they occupied until they started losing, particularly in Normandy. This was a very early example of a military occupation, and the English absolutely grasped the fact that they had to win the hearts and minds of the subjects in order to survive. They did that, initially, simply by providing an effective government and a working system of law. This had been completely missing in previous decades because France was in the middle of a civil war, and neither party to that war could supply that effective government. As you alluded to there, when we’re talking about the Hundred Years’ War, France was not united, was it? That’s absolutely right. The English only ever got a secure foothold in France when it was divided by civil war. The 15th century witnessed the most serious civil war that France had ever experienced – between supporters of the Duke of Burgundy and supporters of the monarchy [led by Charles VII, still known as the Dauphin] – and the English got into France under the cover of that war. The Hundred Years’ War continued until, in the 1450s, the French were able to suppress domestic rebellions. They firstly detached the Burgundians from the English cause in the 1430s, then they progressively reduced the aristocracy to po…

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Queens in the Age of Chivalry
type: item
date: 2022-11-14T14:02:32.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
description: Bestselling historical author Alison Weir shares the dramatic stories of five 14th-century queen consorts – from Marguerite of France to Isabella of Valois
encoded: The 14th century was an era of high drama in England – from the toppling of two kings and the Hundred Years’ War to the Black Death and Peasants’ Revolt. Speaking with Emily Briffett, bestselling historical author Alison Weir charts the dramatic lives and tangled legacies of five queen consorts during the turbulent ‘Age of Chivalry’. Alison Weir is the author of Queens of the Age of Chivalry (Vintage, 2022) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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Why Henry VI’s reign was such a disaster
type: item
date: 2022-11-08T06:21:51.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
subject: Hundred Years War
description: King Henry VI fell foul of the French, his soldiers, his own advisors, and centuries of historians. Yet, writes Lauren Johnson, perhaps his greatest enemy was the revered warrior-king who is commonly lauded as one of England's greatest monarchs and left him the throne 600 years ago, his own father...
encoded: In Westminster Abbey, the tomb of Henry V is hard to miss. Towering above the mosaic-encrusted tomb of St Edward the Confessor and his royal successors, for centuries Henry’s final resting place was topped by a shield, helm and warhorse’s saddle. All are symbols of the martial glory of a man many still consider to be the best English king of the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, in the Lady Chapel behind, tucked away and noticed by almost no one, is a small wooden pew-end representing Henry V’s successor, and only child, Henry VI. Can anything more aptly demonstrate the reputations of this father and son? Henry V loomed over his offspring from the grave, and in his father’s shadow Henry VI grew up stunted, emotionally and politically. Read more | Henry V's reputation: 5 facts you might not know about the king's softer side On the 600th anniversary of his death, Henry V’s triumphs are still rehearsed in productions of the eponymous Shakespeare play. His appears to be the ultimate underdog success story. Eldest son of a Lancastrian usurper, Henry V united England to claim the French throne, overcame substantial odds to win the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and was rewarded at the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, where he was named heir to the French kingdom and married Princess Catherine of Valois. Revered as “the flower in his time of Christian chivalry”, he died on campaign, aged 35 in 1422, leaving a nine-month-old son who shortly after was proclaimed King Henry VI, of England and France. Henry VI’s life also gained Shakespeare’s attention, but in the three plays bearing his name he is an insubstantial figure with few lines, completely overshadowed by more dynamic characters, chief among them his queen, Margaret of Anjou. Where Henry V’s reign is a litany of triumphs, his son’s reads like a top trumps of failure: he lost the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses, was twice imprisoned by his Yorkist rivals and died, almost certainly murdered, in the Tower of London shortly aft…

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