The Eagle and the Hart
The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
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From an acclaimed historian and author comes an epic history: the dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose lives played out in extraordinary parallel, until Henry deposed the tyrant Richard and declared himself King of England.
Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare's most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor.
Richard had birthright on his side, and a profound belief in his own God-given majesty. But beyond that, he lacked all qualities of leadership. A narcissist who did not understand or accept the principles that underpinned his rule, he was neither a warrior defending his kingdom, nor a lawgiver whose justice protected his people. Instead, he declared that "his laws were in his own mouth," and acted accordingly. He sought to define as treason any resistance to his will and recruited a private army loyal to himself rather than the realm--and he intended to destroy those who tried to restrain him.
Henry was everything Richard was not: a leader who inspired both loyalty and friendship, a soldier and a chivalric hero, dutiful, responsible, principled. After years of tension and conflict, Richard banished him and seized his vast inheritance. Richard had been crowned a king but he had become a tyrant, and as a tyrant--ruling by arbitrary will rather than established law--he was deposed by his cousin Henry, the only possible candidate to take his place.
Henry was welcomed as a liberator, a champion of the people against his predecessor's paranoid despotism. But within months he too was facing rebellion. Men knew that a deposer could in turn be deposed, and the new king found himself buffeted by unrest and by chronic ill-health until he seemed a shadow of his former self, trapped by political uncertainty and troubled by these signs that God might not, after all, endorse his actions.
Captivating, immersive, and highly relevant to today's times, The Eagle and the Hart is a story about what happens when a ruler prioritizes power over the interests of his own people. When a ruler demands loyalty to himself as an individual, rather than duty to the established constitution, and when he seeks to reshape reality rather than concede the force of verifiable truths. Above all, it is a story about how a nation was brought to the brink of catastrophe and disintegration--and, in the end, how it was brought back.
About this Author
Helen Castor is an acclaimed medieval and Tudor historian. Her first book, Blood and Roses: The Paston Family in the Wars of the Roses, was longlisted for what is now known as the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and won the English Association's Beatrice White Prize. Her next two books, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth and Joan of Arc: A History were both on numerous Best Books of the Year lists and made into documentaries for BBC television, and Joan of Arc was longlisted for the PEN America/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. She has one son and lives in London.
Reviews
"Among the front rank of writers producing thoughtful and engaging popular history, Ms. Castor . . . examines complex events and an extensive cast of personalities in clear, uncluttered prose. . . . [A] richly textured re-creation of an era in which chivalric ideals coexisted with deeds of treachery and brutality." --Wall Street Journal
"The Eagle and the Hart is a meticulous account of the precariousness of kingship and the psychology of power. It is also a rattlingly good story, told with scholarship and humanity by one of our finest historians." --Helen Carr, The Spectator
"A luminous 600-page study of the Plantagenet cousins who between them generated the plots for three of Shakespeare's history plays." --The Guardian
"It is the measure of her genius for narrative and character that the tale she tells does not remotely suffer from comparison with Shakespeare. Two men of remarkable but opposed talent, yoked together in mutual hatred, in death as in life, each doomed forever to be defined by the other, here is tragedy indeed. There is no book published this year, novels included, that I found richer in character, no plot more taut." --Tom Holland, Spectator Best Books of the Year
"The book is astonishingly good. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is both a gripping, moving, deeply humane study of two contrasting cousins, and a clear-eyed dissection of late medieval England's polity." --Dan Jones, History, Etc.
"An utterly gripping and compelling tale of a deadly rivalry, told with Helen Castor's characteristic verve and exceptional scholarship. The intrigue, turbulence, and sheer drama of the Plantagenet age is brought vividly to life throughout. One of the best history books I've read in years." --Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I
"The Eagle and the Hart brings the 14th century to life in all its gaudy colour, terrifying bloodletting, and high drama. A book to feast on." --London Evening Standard
"[An] exhaustively researched and beautifully written account . . . The Eagle and the Hart reads not just as a political epic but as a timely reflection on both the dangers of egomaniacal rulers and the challenges facing those who replace them." --Katherine Harvey, The Times (UK)
"The Eagle and the Hart is packed with drama and incident, but it's also written with an electrifying sense of the tensions between individuals and institutions, innovation and tradition, legitimacy and tyranny. This is a masterpiece of narrative history." --Matthew Lyons, The Telegraph
"Helen Castor is the historian's historian and the writer's writer. She combines exceptional scholarship with acute psychological insight and gorgeous, pulsating prose. The Eagle and the Hart is a tour de force: a thrilling tale of royal rivalry and a brilliant dissection of the dark heart of political power--both in the 14th century and for all time." --Jessie Childs, author of The Siege of Loyalty House
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