Louis
The French Prince Who Invaded England
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- £23.99
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- £23.99
Publisher Description
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: astonishingly, the most attractive candidate for the crown of England was Louis, eldest son and heir of the king of France.
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this captivating account, medievalist Hanley (War and Combat, 1150 1270) covers an almost forgotten adventure in which Louis VIII of France (1187 1226) nearly became the king of England. Sandwiched between his formidable father, Phillip II, and his saintly son, Louis IX, Louis VIII is often overlooked. Hanley recounts the events of 1215, when King John was excommunicated and ignoring the Magna Carta, and a group of English barons invited Prince Louis to take the throne. He accepted, and Hanley, judiciously using contemporary chronicles and popular tales, details the 16 months of Louis's invasion. She brings to life the drama's minor participants, reveals the ways fortunes of war were decided by the weather in the English Channel or the sudden death of the pope, and points out the disregard both armies had for the people whose land was being destroyed. Blanche of Castile, Louis's devoted queen, receives her fair share of credit for raising armies and money, and Hanley obliquely contrasts their loving marriage to that of King John and his unhappy wife, Isabelle. Louis was 35 when he became king, and he only lived another three years, dying in the Albigensian Crusade. Scholarly without being stodgy, Hanley's work vividly depicts the texture of the times with an enthralling, novelistic narrative.
