Dan Jones has quickly established himself as one of Britain’s favourite and most prolific young historians.
Since 2009, he has published 14 books, including 2012’s The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England, and in 2022, he released his first work of fiction, Essex Dogs, the first of a trilogy. In TV, he boasts the creation of several documentary series for Channel 5. He has also written for The Times, The Telegraph, The Spectator, The New Statesman and GQ, and continues to write columns for the London Evening Standard.
Why did we invite him on?
We have a wish list of historical stories that we want to cover on our show, and while we’ve done a good job so far of ticking them off, one has sat waiting for years.
The Hundred Years’ War.
Despite being the longest military conflict in European history, its key events, main players, and consequences are firmly the domain of history nerds. The general public seems to know very little about it. We include ourselves in that.
We’ve wanted to have Dan back for some time, and this just so happens to be one of his areas of expertise. As far as guest and subject go, it’s a match made in heaven.
What did we learn?
Let’s start with the most important question: is the Hundred Years’ War why we hate the French?
”It’s certainly one of the ways that that relationship is shaped. You see it now, even in sporting events. If England were to play France in this World Cup, you can guarantee there would be a montage package ahead of it that would somehow reference the Hundred Years’ War, something about the plucky English taking on the French nobility and winning. Is it why we hate the French? I’m not sure it’s the reason, but it’s part of the story.”
Going back seven centuries, we encounter an England largely different from our own. France likewise. These are less recognisable as ‘nations’ as we now understand them, and more as “personal fiefdoms held together by monarchs.” Monarchs who held competing claims over one another’s kingdoms. It is that tension that, ultimately, starts the war.
”The war starts over a very specific incident. For decades, there had been squabbles between the kings of England and France, particularly over Gascony [an English-controlled territory in southwest France]. In 1328, there is a succession crisis over the French crown, and the young king of England - Edward III - got in his head that a way to solve it would be to claim to be the king of France himself. He decides that that would be his excuse for an expansive war, and also something he can use as a bargaining chip. Just under a decade later, he makes that claim officially.”
From 1337 onwards, kings of England perpetually made their claim to be king of France, and repeatedly found themselves going to war to enforce it. But already, what a diversion from the status quo. It invites the question: how radical was Edward III? What is his reputation in the annals of history?
