Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England - Hardcover

Hanley, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300217455 ISBN 13: 9780300217452

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2016

Synopsis

In 1215 a group of English barons, dissatisfied with the weak and despicable King John, decided that they needed a new monarch. They wanted a strong, experienced man, of royal blood, and they found him on the other side of the Channel: Louis, eldest son and heir of the king of France.

“Louis emerges as a nearly man: nearly King of England, nearly a successful military campaigner, and nearly the man who terminated the Albigensian crusades. But what he nearly did allows for Hanley’s biography to touch on some of the most complex issues of the early thirteenth century.”―Alice Taylor, TLS

In this fascinating biography of England’s least-known “king”―and the first to be written in English―Catherine Hanley explores the life and times of “Louis the Lion” before, during, and beyond his quest for the English throne. She illuminates the national and international context of his 1216 invasion, and explains why and how after sixteen fruitless months he failed to make himself King Louis I of England. Hanley also explores Louis’s subsequent reign over France until his untimely death on the Albigensian Crusade. Published eight centuries after the creation of Magna Carta and on the 800th anniversary of Louis’s proclamation as king, this fascinating story is a colorful tale of national culture, power, and politics that brings a long-forgotten life out of the shadows of history.

About this title

About the Author

Dr Catherine Hanley is a writer and researcher specialising in the High Middle Ages, and the author of War and Combat, 1150-1270: The Evidence from Old French Literature (2003).

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300217455
• ISBN 13: 9780300217452
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352