I love reading about the Plantagenets and find them far more interesting than the Tudors. Of course there were several more Plantagenet kings after Richard II, but Jones does explain why he chose to end the book at this point. Dan Jones tells the story of not only Henry II’s reign, but the reigns of all the Plantagenets who followed, up to and including Richard II who was deposed in 1399. It was the son of Matilda and her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, the future Henry II, who was England’s first Plantagenet king. This led to the period of English history known as The Anarchy, a civil war with the country divided between supporters of Henry’s daughter, Matilda, and of his nephew, Stephen. The book begins in the year 1120 with the wreck of the White Ship in which King Henry I lost his only son and heir. It’s a very long book at almost 700 pages but as the book covers two centuries of history that’s not surprising! The type of non-fiction books I find myself drawn to tend to be books about history or biographies of historical figures I’ve read a few of these recently and The Plantagenets by Dan Jones is one of the best I’ve read. As someone who has always read mainly fiction, I have been making an effort to read more non-fiction.
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