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Historical person
1315–1358
Étienne Marcel was provost of the merchants of Paris during the crisis years of the Hundred Years’ War. He became a leading figure in urban resistance to royal authority after the capture of John II of France at Poitiers.
As provost of the merchants of Paris during the crisis of 1356–58, Marcel tried to force institutional reforms on the dauphin Charles; his alliance with rebellious forces and loss of Parisian support ended with his assassination.
In Michael Jecks’ Ashes of Rebellion, John II remains an English prisoner and the young Dauphin Charles struggles against Étienne Marcel in Paris, Charles of Navarre and a peasant uprising in the countryside. In Maurice Druon’s The King without a Kingdom, The dauphin Charles faces Étienne Marcel in Paris, Charles of Navarre's ambitions and the Jacquerie, while the captive king attempts to preserve an ideal of honour that his damaged kingdom can no longer afford.
Periods
Series
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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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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