Enjoy Instantly Henry V: Playboy Prince To Warrior King Scripted By Anne Curry Ready In Publication Copy

Curry provides a pleasingly concise yet comprehensive biography of Henry V in this edition from the Penguin Monarchs series, Beginning with his early days as the debauched playboy prince, Henry indulges his carnal pleasures and befriends Lollard John Oldcastle who would later be repackaged by Shakespeare as Falstaff.
Henry grows increasingly impetuous and disapproving of his moribund fathers rule but he waits in the wings and achieves reconciliation with him before he dies.


Upon his ascension, Henry is a changed man he pursues his regal duties in earnest and is soon revered for his piety and his indomitable military prowess.
Indeed, Henry becomes the consummate warrior king, He is not only adroit in martial affairs, but he is shrewd and diplomatic in negotiation as well, He seals an emphatic victory for England against the French in the battle of Agincourt defying all the odds, his determined style of command, guile and tactical astuteness prove superior.


He is magnanimous to those who accede to his will, and ruthless to those who show recalcitrance, He is then betrothed to the young maiden Catherine, daughter of the French king Charles VI: whose tenuous grasp on sanity left France vulnerable throughout this period.
Catherine provides Henry with a male heir, and then, without warning and with the same incisive brutality he had delivered to others, Henry is struck dead at the age of.
i am firmly convinced after reading this henry v was the most competent man to ever rule england and sort of france ,stars

This bitesized account manages to chronicle in good detail the key events and some lesser known facts regarding the short life of Henry V.


One can only speculate the ramifications for European History had the ambitious English monarch consolidated his influence as heir to the Kingdom of France.
Compared to other books in this series, a conventional slimline biography, Covers the basics of everything, ideal for an introductory biography, Anne Currys Henry V: From Playboy Prince to Warrior King is a slim biography of one of the most celebrated English kings that forms part of the Penguin Monarch series.
There is a lot to recommend it, The biography itself is onlypages long not including notes, further reading or index, so it is succinct and able to be read in one day.
Despite this, Currys approach is thorough and provides insights into Henry Vs character, actions and reign,

I am not a qualified historian or anywhere close to thinking myself as an expert, but there were a couple of things Curry spoke of that seemed to contradict other things I had read about Henry Vs life and reign.
For instance, I thought it was generally accepted that during his fathers exile, the twelveyearold Henry was part of Richard IIs household, but Curry says he wasnt.


It may be that Currys research is more recent and groundbreaking than the other biographies I have read, or simply a matter of historians having a difference of opinions over evidence.
But its important to note, however, Henry V: A King for his times

Short but straight to the point, This is the bestsummary and breakdown of Henry V reign, Highly objective, precise and factual, Anne Curry leaves nothing left unchecked, If you're already familiar with the story, there's jogging nothing new for you to learn here, However, it's an essential book for you to read because it is an instant memory refresher that will reinvigorate your interest in this time period and bring out the historian in you.

Much like the battle scar on his cheek, the legacy of Henry V has been scarred by fiction and selective reporting, The real Henry V continues to elude us, Anne Curry shines a light on him, showing us a more complicated and troubled man than any of his namesakes, including his father,
If there is any moral to be found in his tale, it's that we're not meant to understand him nor hail him as a hero though his determination and military prowess does merit admiration or swing the pendulum the other way and condemn him for being yet another medieval warlord seeking glory for himself and his kingdom.
We can condemn his actions and criticize his taciturn nature without painting him with broad villainous strokes in the name of 'fairness', Rather, this is an appeal to reason and for objectivity when it comes to Henry V and all the other players involved in this violent and backstabbing battlefield which Henry willingly thrust himself in.
Henry V's invasion of France, in August, represented a huge gamble, As heir to the throne, he had been a failure, cast into the political wilderness amid rumors that he planned to depose his father.
Despite a complete change of character as king founding monasteries, persecuting heretics, and enforcing the law to its extremes little had gone right since.
He was insecure in his kingdom, his reputation low, On the eve of his departure for France, he uncovered a plot by some of his closest associates to remove him from power, Agincourt was a battle that Henry should not have won, but he did, and the rest is history, Within five years, he

was heir to the throne of France,

Anne Curry explores how Henry's hyperactive efforts to expunge his past failures, and his experience of crisis, which threatened to ruin everything he had struggled to achieve, defined his kingship, and how his astonishing success at Agincourt transformed his standing in the eyes of his contemporaries, and of all generations to come.
An comprehensive short biography of King Henry V, Anne Curry has written extensively about the Battle of Agincourt and that research informs the book but she also includes lesser known information about Henry V including his book collection Henry enjoyed Chaucer and other English language authors and patronage of the Bridgettine monastic order.
Curry concludes that Henry was "one of England's busiest kings," an accurate assessment considering his achievements in war, diplomacy and politics before his early death at the age of thirtyfive.
A fascinating readrounded up
This was short, concise and well paced,.rounded up
maybe ill actually read the play at some point The author of numerous much thicker books about Agincourt offers a quick but dense survey of Henry V's life, referring only briefly to Shakespeare when necessary to debunk some of the outrageous myths.
The general sense is that as with most of his "history" plays, Shakespeare concertinaed events for dramatic purposes, with the wedding to Catherine happening some time after the key battle rather than as though she was simply a prize for his victory.
But overall in following the distillations of the same chronicles which are still the bedrock of historical research into Henry V, Shakespeare's play is more accurate than some of his other works.
This was a lot more manageable for me than the Henry IV Penguin Monarch, Henry V had a much shorter life, so that helped, It was well written and easy for me to follow, not having any previous knowledge, outside Shakespeare, Although it is rather sad that he died so young and you can't help wondering if the War of the Roses would have happened had he not died so young, leaving Henry VI a baby.
one of the very best from this series especially for the period when he was effectively regent of France, Not my usual type of book, being non fiction and historical but once I got into it, it was surprisingly enjoyable, A very succinct book outlining the entirity of Henry V's life, A good start to looking into Henry V I'm studying him for college, There's a lot of information anbout all aspects of Henry, from his military skills to his attitude which is good it doesn't just focus on Agincourt.
Highly recommend if in need of an informative and engaging book, A decent account of Henry's life but I'm not a huge fan of it reading like a series of annals, The parts about France are the best bits for sure! A brilliantly composite narrative of Henry V's short life and reign, King for just underyears, Henry's life was eventful and significant, It was he, with his victory at the Battle of Agincourt in, his retaking of Normandy inand the signing of the Treaty of Troyes inthat left him as the heir and regent of the French throne.
The realisation of Edward III's ambition more thanyears earlier, He was an able and charismatic leader, intelligent, capable of multi tasking with a fervent attention to detail, Perhaps what is most remarkable about Henry was not just that he won the crown of France, but that he endeared himself to the French by his firm but fair rule.
This was a style of Kingship that Henry strongly believed in, often pardoning those who opposed his rule, and placing even those who were not necessarily sympathetic to his rule in positions of power.
Had his life not been cut short at justperhaps the double monarchy of England and France would have succeeded and the History of Western Europe would have been very different.
We will never know. However the many successes of his short reign have left him as one of the most beloved and admired of Medieval England's Kings, .