Regardless, the book is very interesting and I’m glad I’ve read it. Henry Bolingbroke, the one who will be Henry IV, was a Plantagenet too, even though he was not descendant from the first son. The book ends with Richard II, as he considers that with Richard II the direct line of Plantagenets kings dies. Henry II (Matilda’s son) was the first Plantagenet king, named so because his father, Geoffrey, would wear a common broom (planta genista) flower. Of course, there are only 600+ pages to cover almost 300 years of tumultuous history, so it was expected. The book starts at the time of Henry I, after he lost his heir on the White Ship, the war between Matilda and Stephen is mentioned, but without a lot of details, only to put the story in context. Jones’ style of writing is wonderful, not too scholarly, but to the point, not too focused on fiction and without making loads of assumptions. I’ve enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend it. Despite its size, I would recommend it to anybody, not only those who are very interested in history. The book presents the history of the time in a very interesting way.
It is presented as a family story, making it easy to read, just as a novel. I saw it described as “a family portrait of the Plantagenet kings from Henry II to Richard II”, and that is very accurate. The Plantagenets by Dan Jones – The Kings Who Made England.
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