The Eagle and the Hart

The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV

Helen Castor

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Hardback

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English

Simon & Schuster
15 October 2024

Biography: general; History

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.

By: Helen Castor
Imprint: Simon & Schuster
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 170mm, Spine: 43mm
Weight: 816g
ISBN: 9781982139209
ISBN 10: 198213920X
Pages: 576
Publication Date: 15 October 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

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 for The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV

"PRAISE FOR BLOOD AND ROSES: ""A master of every weapon in the modern historian's arsenal . . . Castor has made the whole century live again."" --New York Times Book Review ""A gripping family saga . . . Page-turners are rarely written by scholars of the 15th century, but Castor wears her learning admirably lightly. Blood and Roses is nothing less than a ripping yarn."" --Independent (UK) ""Beautifully paced and splendidly retold . . . Popular history at its best."" --Publishers Weekly (starred review) PRAISE FOR JOAN OF ARC: ""Convincing and gripping . . . A highly satisfying biography . . . Castor's great coup is in framing this biography within another context. . . . It puts the women back into the story. . . . Castor's book is an important way of returning Joan's 'star' to the realm where it belongs, the human one."" --New York Times Book Review ""A book that shows vividly what Joan meant to those in her own time, politically and militarily . . . Fascinating."" --New Yorker ""Popular history at its best: pacy, clear and undergirded with a formidable array of scholarly footnotes. Helen Castor shows how well it can be done."" --Daily Telegraph PRAISE FOR SHE-WOLVES: ""An accomplished and elegant historian."" --New York Times Book Review ""A gripping book . . . She-Wolves is a superb history of the powerful women who have surrounded England's throne, combining blood-drenched drama, politics, sex, and swordplay with scholarly analysis, sympathy for the plight of women, and elegant writing."" --Daily Telegraph (London)"