:00:00. > :00:00.mediaval historian and writer Jonathan Sumption.
:00:00. > :00:00.Thundering history at its best, a narrative that becomes a rich
:00:00. > :00:07.tapestry, telling the story of England and France at a time
:00:08. > :00:10.when we were divided, wracked by violent
:00:11. > :00:16.fortunes were intertwined through war and conquest.
:00:17. > :00:20.Jonathan Sumption's fourth volume of his
:00:21. > :00:24.history of the Hundred Years War, there is a last volume to come, has
:00:25. > :00:27.the short and dazzling reign of Henry V at its heart, the warrior
:00:28. > :00:31.king who died at 36 in 1422 when he was about to become King
:00:32. > :00:37.This is history in the grand manner, painting a vivid picture of Royal
:00:38. > :00:40.courts and battlefields, the struggles for the English throne and
:00:41. > :00:43.France in the grip of political chaos.
:00:44. > :00:46.Jonathan Sumption calls this volume Cursed Kings.
:00:47. > :01:07.The Hundred Years War is a phrase that
:01:08. > :01:12.trips off the tongue very easily but as a period, I suspect, it is
:01:13. > :01:17.one that in many people's minds is extremely hazy until they perhaps
:01:18. > :01:20.go to a Shakespeare Festival and see Henry IV parts I and II, Richard II
:01:21. > :01:28.Henry V is the key figure in this volume and just reminds us
:01:29. > :01:34.what the state of England was and the state of
:01:35. > :01:39.England was a relatively small but highly organised country whose
:01:40. > :01:47.wealth was much more at the disposal of the state and it's true in some
:01:48. > :01:50.other European countries that it was a very centralised
:01:51. > :01:56.country with a long tradition of powerful government.
:01:57. > :01:57.This caused huge problems when the powerful
:01:58. > :02:04.But it also meant that on occasions it could achieve
:02:05. > :02:08.tremendous efforts in fighting wars with countries enormously more
:02:09. > :02:11.powerful than itself, like France, which had three times the population
:02:12. > :02:15.of England in the late Middle Ages and at least three times its wealth
:02:16. > :02:16.but whom it nevertheless defeated on two brief
:02:17. > :02:30.occasions before finally being defeated conclusively itself.
:02:31. > :02:33.And Henry V, dead at 36, a young man about to
:02:34. > :02:35.become King of France at
:02:36. > :02:38.the time of his death, emerges from Europe as just as
:02:39. > :02:40.extraordinary a figure as Shakespeare made him seem on
:02:41. > :02:49.He really was somebody whose power to direct men was exceptional,
:02:50. > :02:54.wasn't he? Yes.
:02:55. > :02:58.Henry V had a tremendous force of personality.
:02:59. > :03:03.He had an extraordinary strategic grasp
:03:04. > :03:06.and he had the quality which is probably more important than any
:03:07. > :03:13.He had the ability to seize his opportunities, to
:03:14. > :03:16.understand what he needed to do and to exploit
:03:17. > :03:20.He wore the wounds of battle, of course, on his face so people
:03:21. > :03:24.When he fought the climactic battle, this part of
:03:25. > :03:26.the conflict with France in 1415, how much luck was involved?
:03:27. > :03:33.How easily could it have gone the other way?
:03:34. > :03:35.Oh, it could very easily have gone the other way.
:03:36. > :03:37.The French were enormously superior in numbers,
:03:38. > :03:40.particularly in cavalry, and they lost the battle at least
:03:41. > :03:51.They chose a site which was a disastrous place in
:03:52. > :03:54.which to fight it because it meant that the two armies were confined
:03:55. > :04:04.within a relatively narrow corridor between two areas of dense woodland.
:04:05. > :04:06.And the English archers had a field day.
:04:07. > :04:12.The English archers were an arm of warfare which had no equivalent
:04:13. > :04:15.in France and undoubtedly were one of the main factors behind the
:04:16. > :04:18.English success in battles, not just in Agincourt but on many other
:04:19. > :04:28.occasions during the Hundred Years War.
:04:29. > :04:30.What do you think we learned from this?
:04:31. > :04:37.What do we learn about the process that the two countries
:04:38. > :04:41.At that time in history, how they were
:04:42. > :04:46.Well, the main thing that we learn is the different
:04:47. > :04:49.responses of these two countries to the experience of fighting
:04:50. > :04:50.and this is very significant for their
:04:51. > :05:04.The lesson that the French learned was that the
:05:05. > :05:07.only way in which to defeat foreign invasion and maintain their
:05:08. > :05:09.national independence was to have a very powerful
:05:10. > :05:10.centralised monarchy and restrict its tax-raising
:05:11. > :05:20.And in a sense, therefore, this is the period in which the
:05:21. > :05:23.French state as it existed until the French Revolution was born.
:05:24. > :05:26.Yes, and in important respects as it existed
:05:27. > :05:29.after the French Revolution and still does today.
:05:30. > :05:32.The English on the other hand found that in order to raise
:05:33. > :05:37.money it was actually much more productive and much more suitable,
:05:38. > :05:39.much better way of increasing the King's power to cooperate with
:05:40. > :05:45.And the Hundred Years War, because it was a
:05:46. > :05:48.period when the English kings were very much in need of money,
:05:49. > :05:52.for the period in which parliament really began to acquire the power
:05:53. > :05:54.which it was to have in very large measure
:05:55. > :06:06.Which makes it sad, doesn't it, that certainly at school level the period
:06:07. > :06:11.is, relatively speaking, ignored to such an extent?
:06:12. > :06:23.I think it is sad because there is enormous value
:06:24. > :06:26.in studying a single society and in this country it makes sense
:06:27. > :06:29.for that society to be English or at least British society,
:06:30. > :06:37.And you lose a whole dimension of historical understanding
:06:38. > :06:42.if you only study it in little bits here and
:06:43. > :06:45.little bits there and unfortunately the Middle Ages has lost out from
:06:46. > :06:50.that but it was a period of striking personalities, extraordinarily
:06:51. > :06:55.powerful national movements and a period of very exciting events
:06:56. > :06:57.which we would do well to study if only
:06:58. > :07:05.because of its inherent human interest.
:07:06. > :07:08.There is a dazzling array of source material for this volume.
:07:09. > :07:11.You began the project, your history of the Hundred Years War,
:07:12. > :07:17.You must have spent months in French archives
:07:18. > :07:21.I assume you've done most of it yourself.
:07:22. > :07:24.I don't have any research assistants.
:07:25. > :07:30.I wrote the book for pleasure so it would be silly to
:07:31. > :07:33.delegate the pleasure to someone else, not finding small nuggets
:07:34. > :07:35.of information and documents have a curious way
:07:36. > :07:42.of representing the past.
:07:43. > :07:44.In the public record office there are handbooks which the
:07:45. > :07:47.captain of Calais would have carried about with him on his nightly
:07:48. > :07:53.There are documents in which the clerk says, "It is too
:07:54. > :07:55."perishing cold to go on with this writing.
:07:56. > :08:01.They are trivial but they are wonderful, these crushed leaves
:08:02. > :08:09.You are a justice of the Supreme Court but we're not
:08:10. > :08:10.talking about that today, we're
:08:11. > :08:14.And you were a lawyer, a distinguished lawyer about
:08:15. > :08:19.Well, there is space in most people's life
:08:20. > :08:25.It may be bell ringing, it may be morris dancing,
:08:26. > :08:31.And when will we get the fifth and final volume?
:08:32. > :08:43.Jonathan Sumption, thank you very much.
:08:44. > :08:48.Good evening. Some very mixed weather over the next few days.
:08:49. > :08:52.Tonight we will all get outbreaks of rain, turning heavier towards the
:08:53. > :08:54.early hours of the morning with wetter conditions pushing into
:08:55. > :08:56.Scotland and further