He argues that Henry was in a precarious position, facing political and personal challenges that would have threatened his legitimacy and even his life. Jones argues that the battle, while a historic victory, was also a “calculated gamble” that could have easily backfired. He uses the Battle of Agincourt as a case study to illustrate his broader argument that the English monarchy was more fragile than often perceived.

Laurence Olivier as King Henry V in the 1944 eponymous film adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous text Victory at Agincourt in the Hundred Years’ War led to domination of France for the next 14 years, but also sowed the seeds of the later Wars of the Roses and decades of damaging civil wars. It inspired Shakespeare’s history play, which immortalised Henry’s triumph nearly 200 years later with the “happy few”, “band of brothers”; and “Once more unto the breach, dear friends” – all of which would influence Winston Churchill’s own rhetoric during the Second World War. And there would be film adaptations, the most important being made during those dark days of global conflict, starring Laurence Olivier and released in late 1944 as the Allies fought to liberate Europe. All in all, it’s difficult not to characterise Henry V as one of the most influential figures in the long history of this island nation.And Jones’s brilliant new biography of the man his friend and mentor Dr David Starkey calls “England’s Napoleon” is a riveting read, written in the present tense for immediacy and galloping along at a frantic pace. No wonder the tattooed 43-year-old, who lives in Surrey with his wife and their three children, is described by Guns N’ Roses bassist and history fanatic Duff McKagan as a “badass history writer”. After 14 big books, including best-selling accounts of the Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses that straddle Henry V’s reign, plus two thrilling novels set during the Hundred Years’ War, this feels like the story Jones, an unabashed fan, was destined to write. “But to be honest, I was very apprehensive,” he admits. “There’s a lot written about him already.” Such anxieties were unfounded. Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England’s Greatest Warrior King, published next week, is medieval history you don’t need a degree to follow. Enlightening and entertaining, Henry comes across as a surprisingly relatable figure, despite the six centuries that separate him from modern readers. As Jones recounts, he was a man of deep contrasts; a successful warrior king who was also creative, artistic and bookish; and a monarch who often made mistakes and poor decisions regarding friends, yet unerringly emerged triumphant. “He was very intelligent, and he has a great enthusiasm for war,” Jones says. “And much as we’d like not to characterise the Middle Ages as a totally barbaric time, being a successful warrior was very high on the list of things a king needed to be. “But Henry also understood you could only afford to go to war if you were seen to provide justice at home. The great seal had the king as warrior on one side, and the scales of justice on the other. That’s what the job was about: justice and defence of the realm, interpreted in quite an aggressive way – unusually meaning to smash the French. “It’s not very complicated but Henry had a long apprenticeship in both, first sent to Wales as a young teenager to learn the ropes of warfare in the struggle against [Welsh rebel] Owain Glyndwr. Then he rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck into the fiscal reality of government when his father’s ill. It’s great training for his own kingship.”

Trending Henry also enjoys a healthy dollop of good luck. When his father Henry IV usurped the English throne from Richard II in September 1399 – imprisoning his cousin in Pontefract Castle where he was starved to death aged just 33 after an epic falling out – his son went from being a privileged scion of the House of Lancaster to heir apparent during one of the most turbulent times of a tumultuous age. “From that moment when he’s 13 years old, his life changes on a sixpence and he becomes, not just the heir to the Lancastrian noble dynasty, but the heir to the throne itself,” says Jones. “Then there’s this moment when he’s 16 and he nearly dies from the arrow and apparently God saves him. There are several other incidents where he’s saved from plotters, poisoning, assassination, anti-Lancastrian plots. But it’s not just his miraculous survival. “The particular time he comes to the throne coincides with one of the most chaotic periods in French medieval history, with the madness of Charles VI and the vicious wars between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. “It’s the almost full collapse of the French state. France is partitioned and the government collapses.You have a foreign invader in the north and a dauphin in the south. So Henry is fortunate to come to the throne at that particular moment, but what is history except the object lesson of right person, right place and right time?” Jones’s book gives almost equal weight to Henry’s time before and during his kingship. Previous books focused more on his reign. But Jones believes much of his character and later actions can be traced to his childhood. He says: “Henry grows up at a very odd and unusual time, when the memory of his great-grandfather, Edward III, this bravura king who did so much to restore England to stability and dominance in France and so on, is still very strong. “But Edward’s successor, Richard II, is literally the opposite of what a king should be, at his most histrionic and insane. “Then Henry sees his father struggling with the tragic consequences of usurpation and becoming increasingly convinced he should never have done it. Yet, Henry is going to inherit the throne legitimately. He’s got his head screwed on and he sees clearly what has to be done.” All of which, according to Jones, makes Henry a perfect blend of these two largerthan- him was life characters – and most true to his great-grandfather’s vision of kingship. “He takes the best from Richard II who, although terrible at being king, is wonderful at public spectacle, and from his father, a dogged, diligent monarch who was plagued by ill health. “It’s a bit like you’ve got the media savvy of Donald Trump and the propriety of Biden – without the craziness of the former or the decrepitude of the latter.” Henry, explains Jones, is also blessed by the fact he only reigned for nine years – inheriting the throne at 26 and dying suddenly of sickness aged 35 – leaving a legacy that could be embellished and immortalised by Shakespeare. Yet even Agincourt remained a total gamble. Having led his army to France, the sensible thing after the surrender of French forces following the Siege of Harfleur in August and September 1415 would have been to cut his losses and return to England. But Henry refused. “He alone said, ‘No, we’re going to march to Calais.We’ve got to show that we’re more than just sniping at individual targets on the coast. I’ve got to come home with something more than this’,” says Jones. “And it turned out to be a terrible idea until two minutes after the Battle of Agincourt when it turned out to be the greatest idea of all time. But this is what great leaders like Henry do, they gamble and they get lucky.”

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