Conquest

by Juliet Barker

First published 2009

Amazon

4.3(142)

After Agincourt, Henry V returned to France in 1417 and began a far more ambitious conquest. Juliet Barker follows the creation of an English-ruled kingdom across Normandy and northern France, from sieges and negotiated submissions to the Treaty of Troyes, which recognised Henry as heir to the French crown. His early death left the enterprise in the hands of regents governing for the infant Henry VI, while the Valois cause survived under the future Charles VII.

The appearance of Joan of Arc transformed the political and military balance, but Barker shows that England’s eventual defeat was neither immediate nor inevitable. Rival commanders, divided loyalties, taxation, garrisons and the enormous cost of occupation all shaped the long retreat from Henry V’s conquests. Carrying the story to 1450, Conquest explains how an apparently durable English kingdom in France was built, defended and ultimately lost during the closing decades of the Hundred Years’ War.