Book description
Divided Houses is a tale of contrasting fortunes. In the last
decade of his reign Edward III, a senile, pathetic symbol of England's
past conquests, was condemned to see them overrun by the armies of his
enemies. When he died, in 1377, he was succeeded by a vulnerable
child, who was destined to grow into a neurotic and unstable adult
presiding over a divided nation. Meanwhile France entered upon one of
the most glittering periods of her medieval history, years of power
and ceremony, astonishing artistic creativity and famous warriors
making their reputations as far afield as Naples, Hungary and North
Africa. Contemporaries in both countries believed that they were
living through memorable times: times of great wickedness and great
achievement, of collective mediocrity but intense personal heroism, of
extremes of wealth and poverty, fortune and failure. At a distance of
six centuries, as Jonathan Sumption skilfully and meticulously shows,
it is possible to agree with all of these judgments.
Jonathan Sumption is a former History Fellow of Magdalen
College, Oxford. He is the author of Pilgrimage and The Albigensian
Crusade, as well as the two previous volumes in his celebrated history
of the Hundred Years War - Trial by Battle and Trial by Fire. He is
also a practicing QC, well-known for his defence of the Government
before the Hutton Inquiry, and other high-profile cases before the courts.
