W. Mark Ormrod examines Edward III across a fifty-year reign that restored royal prestige and made England a major European military power. The book follows Edward’s escape from the control of Isabella and Mortimer, his wars in Scotland and France and the creation of a chivalric court built around victory and dynastic display.
Alongside Crécy, Calais and the origins of the Hundred Years’ War, Ormrod considers Parliament, taxation, the Black Death and the strains of the king’s later years. Family relationships and political image are used to reveal the man behind the warrior ideal and to explain both the durability and eventual decline of his regime.