Amber Books Audio

For almost 350 years the Plantagenet family held the English throne - longer than any dynasty in English history - and yet its origins were in Anjou in France, French remained the mother tongue of England's monarchs for 300 years, and only in its family's final decades did English rather than French become the language the king used in official correspondence.Furthermore, although the family managed to remain in power for so long, this was not without kings being deposed, ransomed and imprisoned, or without sons plotting against their fathers for the throne and wives turning against their husbands.The Plantagenets is an accessible book that tells the whole narrative of the dynasty, from the coronation of Henry, Count of Anjou, in 1145 to the fall of Yorkist Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. But in charting the fortunes of the family, the book explores not only military victories and defeats across Europe, on crusade and in the British Isles, but how England and its neighbours changed during that time - how the authority of Parliament increased, how laws were reformed, how royal authority could struggle with that of the Roman Catholic Church, how the Black Death affected England, and how universities were founded and cathedrals built.The Plantagenets is an expertly written account of a people who have long captured the popular imagination.

"...and they laid all waste with dreadful havoc, trod with unhallowed feet the holy places, dug up the altars, and carried off all the treasures of the holy church. Some of the brethren they killed; some they carried off in chains; many they cast out, naked and loaded with insults; some they drowned in the sea." -Simeon of Durham, A History of the Community of DurhamBeginning in 789 CE, the Vikings raided monasteries, sacked settlements and invaded the Atlantic coast of Europe and the British Isles. They looted and enslaved their enemies, terrorizing all whom they encountered.But that is only part of their story. Sailing their famous longboats, they discovered Iceland and North America, colonised Greenland, founded Dublin, and also sailed up the River Seine and besieged Paris. They settled from Newfoundland to Russia, conquered eastern England, and fought battles from Ireland to the Caspian Sea. They traded walruses with Inuits, brought Russian furs to Western Europe and took European slaves to Constantinople. Their graves contain Arab silver, Byzantine silks and Frankish weapons and artefacts.The Viking Warrior examines these fearsome warriors through their origins, social structure, raiding culture, weapons, trading networks and settlements.