Lionheart and Lackland
  • Published: 3 December 2007
  • ISBN: 9780712694179
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $55.00
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Lionheart and Lackland

King Richard, King John and the Wars of Conquest

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The truth behind Richard the Lionheart and Bad King John - brilliantly readable, scrupulously researched and full of powerful story-telling

Anyone who has seen The Lion in Winter will remember the vicious, compelling world of the Plantagenets and readers of the romance of Robin Hood will be familiar with the typecasting of Good King Richard, defending Christendom in the Holy Land, and Bad King John who usurps the kingdom in his absence. But do these popular stereotypes correspond with reality?

In this sweeping narrative, celebrated historian Frank McLynn turns the tables on modern revisionist historians and shows these larger-than-life characters as they really were - crusading, fighting vicious wars in France, negotiating with the papacy, engaging in ruthless dynastic intrigue, often against each other: in Richard's case, even holding the kingdom together when fighting in the Holy Land; and in John's, losing Normandy, catastrophically agonising the barons over Magna Carta and losing the Crown Jewels in the Wash.
  • Published: 3 December 2007
  • ISBN: 9780712694179
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $55.00
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Frank McLynn

Frank McLynn is a highly regarded historian, who specialises in biographies and military history. He has written over 20 books, including critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon and Richard the Lionheart. Other books include 1066, Stanley, 1759, and Marcus Aurelius. He is a graduate of Wadham College, Oxford, and London University, where he obtained his doctorate.

Also by Frank McLynn

Genghis Khan
The Road Not Taken
The Burma Campaign
Marcus Aurelius
Heroes & Villains
1759
1066
See all

Praise for Lionheart and Lackland

Brilliantly entertaining... Fascinating and brilliantly detailed

Nottingham Evening Post

I finished this book thoroughly convinced by McLynn's thesis about Richard and John, and his book kept me locked to its pages for four hours at a stretch without even stirring to switch on my kettle

Murrough O'Brien, Independent on Sunday

Brilliant... a good example of how fresh scholarship can illuminate dusty but vital corners of history

The Good Book Guide

Marvellously readable and strikingly opinionated... McLynn clearly relishes putting the boot into the villain of his piece... This is popular history as it should be written: full blooded, yet firmly grounded in scholarship

Nigel Jones, Literary Review

History at its most readable

Bookseller

A rattling good read

Spectator