Henry V as Warlord
By Desmond Seward
In this startling reassessment of one of England’s hero kings Desmond Seward gives a portrait very different from Shakespeare’s Henry V.
The cold young military genius who emerges imposed an occupation of north-western France that in some ways harked back to the Norman conquest of England, in others anticipated the Nazis in World War II – with the difference that the English occupation of Paris lasted for seventeen years. The author claims that few western kings have been personally responsible for more bloodshed – Henry’s troops committed atrocities never entirely forgotten by the French people in the regions that were under his control.
Henry’s father had usurped the crown, deposing and murdering Richard II and setting aside the heir. Henry based his own claim to the throne of France on a female descent and in Henry V as Warlord, Desmond Seward argues that the dubious claims to both thrones cast a good deal of light on the king’s psychology; something that has never received sufficient attention.
