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‘Sumption is that rare and precious thing: a serious, decent, honest thinker . . . and one of our finest historians.’ Dan Jones, Sunday Times

‘Gripping and eminently readable . . . a compelling justification for the enduring value of historical narrative.’ The Times

‘Unsurpassed, and probably unsurpassable.’ Daily Telegraph

In this final volume of his epic history of the Hundred Years War, Jonathan Sumption tells the story of the collapse of the English dream of conquest, from the opening years of the reign of Henry VI until the loss of all of England’s continental dominions except Calais thirty years later. This sudden reversal of fortune was a seminal event in the history of the two principal nation-states of western Europe, ending four centuries of the English dynasty’s presence in France and separating two countries whose fortunes had once been closely intertwined, creating a new sense of national identity in both. The legacy of these events would influence their divergent fortunes for centuries to come.

Behind the clash of arms stood some of the most remarkable personalities of the age: the Duke of Bedford, the English Regent who ruled much of France; Charles VII of France, who patiently rebuilt his kingdom after the disasters of his early years; the captains populating the pages of Shakespeare – Fastolf, Montagu, Talbot, Dunois and, above all, the extraordinary figure of Joan of Arc who changed the course of the war in a few weeks at the age of seventeen.

‘The Hundred Years War ends in England’s agonising defeat – but triumph for Jonathan Sumption . . . There is no doubting his achievement. It is, as everyone says, a “monumental” work.’ Spectator

Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption, OBE, PC, FSA, FRHistS (born 9 December 1948), is a British author, medieval historian, barrister and former senior judge who sat on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018 and on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal between 2019 and 2024.

Sumption was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012, succeeding Lawrence Collins, Baron Collins of Mapesbury. Exceptionally, he was appointed to the Supreme Court directly from the practising bar, without having been a full-time judge. He retired from the Supreme Court on 9 December 2018 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Sumption is well known for his role as a barrister in many legal cases. They include appearances in the Hutton Inquiry on HM Government’s behalf, in the Three Rivers case, his representation of former Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers and the Department for Transport in the Railtrack private shareholders’ action against the British Government in 2005, for defending HM Government in an appeal hearing brought by Binyam Mohamed, and for successfully defending Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in a private lawsuit brought by Boris Berezovsky.

A former academic, Sumption wrote a substantial narrative history of the Hundred Years’ War in five volumes. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2003 New Year Honours and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA). In 2019, he was appointed a Fellow of the Society of Writers to His Majesty’s Signet (FWS).