First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This ground-breaking and substantive new history considers Richard's reign from a perspective that is as much French as English. Viewing the king himself as a great military commander, it also shows him as a more competent administrator than previously acknowledged. Modern revisionist work allows the authors to correct many misconceptions about Richard's French possessions, and recent scholarship on his rival, Philip Augustus, permits examination of the formidable threat that the resurgent Capetian monarchy represented.

The amazing life of Richard I, King of England, known to history as 'Richard the Lionheart', after his reputation for bravery exhibited fighting the 'Saracens' whilst crusading in the Holy Land.

From the city of Calais, on the northern coast of France, one may look over the water on a clear day and see the white cliffs of Dover, in England. At this point the English Channel is only twenty-one miles wide. But this narrow water has dangerous currents, and often fierce winds sweep over it, so that small ships find it hard to cross. This rough Channel has more than once spoiled the plans of England's enemies, and the English people have many times thanked God for their protecting seas.

Originally published in 1949. Lacking the warlike bluntness of his predecessor, Richard the Lionheart, John came to the throne of England at a time when economic forces in the realm were threatening to undermine the very basis of feudal power. The Reign of King John covers his attempts to adjust a political system to cope with this threat and at the same time to assert the hegemony of the monarchy over its chief rivals—the barons and the church—made his reign one of particular importance and significance in English history.

The diary of the second king of the Plantagenet dynasty who lived in England only six months during his ten year reign.

The first in a ground-breaking two-volume history of Henry III's rule "Professor Carpenter is one of Britain's foremost medievalists...No one knows more about Henry, and a lifetime of scholarship is here poured out, elegantly and often humorously. This is a fine, judicious, illuminating work that should be the standard study of the reign for generations to come."--Dan Jones, The Sunday Times Nine years of age when he came to the throne in 1216, Henry III had to rule within the limits set by the establishment of Magna Carta and the emergence of parliament. Pacific, conciliatory, and deeply religious, Henry brought many years of peace to England and rebuilt Westminster Abbey in honor of his patron saint, Edward the Confessor. He poured money into embellishing his palaces and creating a magnificent court. Yet this investment in "soft power" did not prevent a great revolution in 1258, led by Simon de Montfort, ending Henry's personal rule. Eminent historian David Carpenter brings to life Henry's character and reign as never before. Using source material of unparalleled richness--material that makes it possible to get closer to Henry than any other medieval monarch--Carpenter stresses the king's achievements as well as his failures while offering an entirely new perspective on the intimate connections between medieval politics and religion.

Anyone who has seen The Lion in Winter will remember the vicious, compelling world of the Plantagenets and readers of the romance of Robin Hood will be familiar with the typecasting of Good King Richard, defending Christendom in the Holy Land, and Bad King John who usurps the kingdom in his absence. But do these popular stereotypes correspond with reality? In this sweeping narrative, celebrated historian Frank McLynn turns the tables on modern revisionist historians and shows these larger-than-life characters as they really were - crusading, fighting vicious wars in France, negotiating with the papacy, engaging in ruthless dynastic intrigue, often against each other: in Richard's case, even holding the kingdom together when fighting in the Holy Land; and in John's, losing Normandy, catastrophically agonising the barons over Magna Carta and losing the Crown Jewels in the Wash.

This new history is the first to tell the story of Magna Carta ‘through the ages’. No other general work traces its continuing importance in England’s political consciousness. Many books have examined the circumstances surrounding King John’s grant of Magna Carta in 1215. Very few trace the Charter’s legacy to subsequent centuries and even fewer look at the fate of the physical document. Turner also underlines its great influence outside the United Kingdom, especially in North America. Today, the Charter enjoys greater prestige in the United States, the land of lawyers, than in Britain. U.S. citizens claim Magna Carta as a source of their liberties, guaranteeing ‘due process of law’ and condemning ‘executive privilege’.