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The first twenty years (1377-97) of Richar II's reign was characterised by war and rebellion, show trials, scandalous royalty, horrible murders, attempts to solve the Irish question and the making of England's oldest alliance. This richly-documented period offers exceptional opportunities and challenges to students, and the editor has selected material from a wide range of sources: well-known English chronicles, foreign chronicles, and legal, administrative and financial records. This book describes the complex domestic and international situation which confronted the young king, and offers guidance on the strengths and weaknesses of the reign's leading chronicles. Students of Richard II's reign are blessed with numerous written sources. This reign saw the last great flowering of medieval chronicle-writing.
that both the Danish and English kings faced at the outset of the period was the restoration and reformation of royal authority. Most historians and students are familiar with the fact that Henry II’s reign ended a period of instability and civil war in England, with Henry succeeding to the throne in 1154 as King Stephen’s rightful heir as set out in the treaty of Winchester. In 1157 Valdemar I of
that suggests that they are the same work. The two are of course separate texts. The first is the multi-authored compilation of didactic poetry about the falls of English kings, lords and pretenders to power between the reigns of Richard II and Edward IV. 3 The second is Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton’s Gorboduc , one of the earliest examples of classical tragedy and
precedent for such a claim. Modern historians often discuss Anglo-Welsh relations in the Middle Ages in terms of domination and conquest, that is, English domination and conquest. The relationship between the English kings and the Welsh rulers has been seen as one of superior to inferior on the basis of, among other things, the evidence of the visits of Welsh rulers to the king’s court, an
Ralph Knevet's Supplement of the Faery Queene (1635) is a narrative and allegorical work, which weaves together a complex collection of tales and episodes, featuring knights, ladies, sorcerers, monsters, vertiginous fortresses and deadly battles – a chivalric romp in Spenser's cod medieval style. The poem shadows recent English history, and the major military and political events of the Thirty Years War. But the Supplement is also an ambitiously intertextual poem, weaving together materials from mythic, literary, historical, scientific, theological, and many other kinds of written sources. Its encyclopaedic ambitions combine with Knevet's historical focus to produce an allegorical epic poem of considerable interest and power.
This new edition of Knevet's Supplement, the first scholarly text of the poem ever published, situates it in its literary, historical, biographical, and intellectual contexts. An extensive introduction and copious critical commentary, positioned at the back of the book, will enable students and scholars alike to access Knevet's complicated and enigmatic meanings, structures, and allusions.
blue. Not even military commanders, princes, or kings were safe from the new danger. With the arrival of the cannon, therefore, it was essential for both sides to possess it; this led to a technological race to make better and more efficient weapons, which in turn increased the frequency of their use. Perhaps the most celebrated English victory was the battle of Agincourt (1415), immortalized for centuries by Shakespeare’s Henry V. The English king’s invasion of France was designed to reclaim lands lost during the previous fifty years. The battle illustrates the
needed for the English king’s crusade. Nor does such a document survive from 1200, when the focus of William’s oath was simply to preserve John’s life and kingdom against all men. One would be inclined to suggest that the man whom the English king most wanted William to give assurances about was Philip Augustus. Indeed it seems clear that the king of Scots, shortly after John
, because imperial lands bordered France and thus the English king’s alliance with Otto had threatened to squeeze Philip’s domains in a sort of pincer movement. 18 The peace concluded between John and Philip near Le Goulet thus did what one would perhaps expect from a peace treaty. No issues were left unresolved and there is no notion here that hostilities could continue while at
. Probably the two most well-known such examples from the late twelfth century are the release from captivity of William the Lion, king of Scots, and of Richard I, king of England. The Scottish king, captured by Henry II’s justiciar at the battle of Alnwick in 1174 and paraded throughout the English king’s dominions, was forced to make a humiliating peace. William himself became the
written tracts of constitutional interest. In Edward II’s reign the position of English kings became both stronger, with access to greater wealth and more efficient administration, and weaker, through increased need for consent and, ultimately, by the precedent of deposition, for, while the office of king remained intact, the removal of the royal person was no longer unthinkable. In this volume we will take