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Historical person
1293–1350
Philip VI was the first Valois king of France, ruling from 1328 to 1350. His accession was disputed by Edward III of England, helping set the dynastic framework for the Hundred Years’ War.
Philip VI of France also held the offices or ranks of duke, King of France, and count of Anjou. Philip VI of France belonged to the House of Valois. Philip VI of France was born in Fontainebleau and died in Reims.
In Richard Foreman’s Crécy, Edward III’s 1346 campaign has brought the English army deep into France and forced it to give battle against superior numbers. Sixteen-year-old Edward of Woodstock commands the vanguard and must earn the military reputation later attached to the Black Prince. Michael Livingston’s Bloody Crowns argues that an English-centred account of 1337–1453 obscures a larger struggle over France and the political order of western Europe, beginning his narrative in 1292 and carrying it through two centuries of warfare involving England, France, Burgundy, Brittany, Flanders, Scotland and other powers. Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt and Orléans appear alongside dynastic claims, diplomacy, taxation and military reform, with the story continuing to 1492 as Brittany’s absorption and the Treaty of Étaples help establish more recognisable French and English states. Further fictional perspectives on Philip VI of France can be found in Michael Jecks’ Fields of Glory. For broader historical treatment of Philip VI of France, see Gordon Corrigan’s England Expects and Michael Livingston’s The Two Hundred Years War.
Series
The Grail Quest follows Thomas of Hookton, an English archer whose search for the truth about his family becomes entangled with the opening decades of the Hundred Years’ War. The novels move through the capture of La Roche-Derrien, the assault on Caen, the Battle of Crécy, Neville’s Cross,…
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The Master of War series follows Thomas Blackstone, an English archer and later knight, through the Hundred Years’ War. Beginning with the Crécy campaign in 1346, the sequence expands across France, Aquitaine, Brittany, Castile and northern Italy, using Blackstone’s career to show how medieval war was fought through…
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Arrows of Albion follows Martin Kemp, an English archer and sometime mercenary, through the campaigns and border wars of the mid-fourteenth century. Beginning with Edward III’s invasion of France and the Battle of Crécy, the series moves through the siege of Calais, warfare in Brittany and Scotland, Gascon…
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The Accursed Kings follows the French and English monarchies from the final year of Philip IV's reign in 1314 to the capture of John II at Poitiers and the political crisis of the late 1350s. Across seven novels, the direct Capetian line fails, the Valois dynasty takes the…
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The Vintaine series follows Berenger Fripper and a small company of English archers through the changing phases of the Hundred Years’ War. The first three novels cover Edward III’s 1346 campaign, the siege of Calais and the Black Prince’s march to Poitiers; later volumes return to the survivors…
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Men-at-Arms follows William Gower and the intelligence officer Sir Hugh Grey during the early career of Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince. Crécy places them in Edward III’s 1346 campaign and the battle where the sixteen-year-old prince wins his military reputation. Calais resumes the story in 1349, when…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
