Dan Jones: The Astonishing Rise of Henry V

This event will take place in the British Library Knowledge Centre Pigott Theatre. It will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person (physical) or to watch on our platform (online) either live or within 48 hours on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out in the confirmation email you receive after booking. 

Henry V reigned for only nine years and four months, and died at the age of just 35, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond. The victor of Agincourt was remembered by the likes of Shakespeare as the acme of kingship, a model to be closely imitated by his successors. Churchill called him ‘a gleam of splendour in the dark, troubled story of medieval England’. 

In the new biography by best-selling historian Dan Jones, Henry is fascinating but hard to pin down. He was a sometimes brutal warrior, yet also creative and artistic. He made many mistakes, yet always seemed to triumph when it mattered. As king, he saved a shattered country from economic ruin and secured England’s borders; in foreign diplomacy, he made England a serious player once more but his conquests in northern France sowed the seeds for generations of calamity at home, in the form of the Wars of the Roses. 

Dan Jones is joined in conversation by British Library Curator of Medieval Manuscripts, Julian Harrison. 

Doors and Bar open at 18:00. If you’re attending in person, please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event. The event will be followed by a book signing. 

Half price tickets available for Members, Students, Under 26 and other concession groups. 

Dan Jones is the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of many non-fiction books, including The Plantagenets, The Templars, and Powers and Thrones and now Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England's Greatest Warrior King. He is a renowned writer, broadcaster and journalist. He has presented dozens of TV shows, including the Netflix series Secrets of Great British Castles, and writes and hosts the podcast This is History. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. 

Image of Dan Jones by Peter Clarke. Detail of miniature of Henry, Prince of Wales, offering or receiving a book. The kneeling man is perhaps John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Taken from Thomas Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, Arundel 38, f. 37. Held and digitised by the British Library. 

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