Faber Faber The Hundred Years War Vol 5 Triumph and Illusion.

The Hundred Years War #5

by Jonathan Sumption

Triumph and Illusion is the final volume of Jonathan Sumption's epic history of the Hundred Years War. It tells the story of the collapse of the English dream of conquest from the opening years of the reign of Henry VI, when the battles of Cravant and Verneuil consolidated their control of most of northern France, until the loss of all their 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. It brought an end to four centuries of the English dynasty's presence in France, separating two countries whose fortunes had once been closely intertwined. It created a new sense of national identity in both countries. 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 from Paris and Rouen; Charles VII of France, underrated in both countries, who patiently rebuilt his kingdom after the disasters of his early years; the captains who populate 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.

Genres: History, Medieval History, Medieval, Military History, European History, Nonfiction, War

992 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2023

About the author

The son of a barrister, Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption attended Eton then Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with first-class honours in history in 1970. After being called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1975, he became a Queen's Council in 1986 and a Bencher in 1991. He is joint head of Brick Court Chambers and was appointed to the UK Supreme Court in 2011. He has written numerous books on history and is a governor of the Royal Academy of Music.

Reviews

[Mervyn Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm only a third of the way through. But already this is shaping up to be another masterpiece. The problem now is to come up with some new superlatives to describe it. Magnificent, monumental, magisterial, even beyond magisterial have all been used. Repeatedly. If anyone is in any doubt about the depth of the research, take a look at the endnotes and bibliography. It's absolutely staggering. Sumption must've read nearly every primary and secondary source there is. And then presented it in a writing style that is as entertaining as it is measured. One detects a slight anglocentric approach. But this volume - and the other four - are works of unparalleled genius. I've read that Robert A Caro's fifth volume of Lyndon Johnson is also out this year. Not sure how true that is. But if it is, what a year! Anyway, back to Joan of Arc...

...She's just been burned at the stake. In his summary, Sumption calls her extraordinary. But in the preceding chapters he tends to downplay her influence. I'm not suggesting there's a contradiction here. She can be extraordinary, but not have the prominence she was given subsequently when the myth of Joan of Arc was established. The Duke of Burgundy is playing silly beggers now...

Money, money, money, or rather the lack of it, is the real enemy of the English. It's sad how much time, effort and resources were wasted fighting this seemingly endless war. All the pain, despoliation and destruction. Anyway, up to p.430. Or 1433 if you prefer to measure it that way. And yes, it's still a work of genius.

It looks like the English are about to lose Paris. The fact that they occupied it in the first place still seems amazing to me. I thought only the Germans did such things! Joking aside, I don't see the point of all these oaths and treaties. If you were rich enough and powerful enough you could get yourself out of anything you swore or signed, once it became personally advantageous for you to do so. Plus ca change I suppose. I exclude Charles of Orleans, who ended up spending 25 years in an English prison.

We've hit the 1440s and the English are running out of money, manpower and mates. The beginning of the end has long been nigh. Even if you didn't know the ending, it would've taken a miracle for the English to turn the situation around from here. What they needed was another Henry V. And lots and lots of money. What they had instead was a callow Henry VI and Cardinal Beaufort's dwindling fortune.

1449. We're reaching the denouement. If you're English look away now.

Entering the last 100 pages there's a debacle in Normandy and rebellion in England. It's incredible how quickly the English position has collapsed. To be fair it had been doing so for a good 10 or 15 years before now. Still they manage to dredge up money and men. But with 5000 killed at the Battle of Formigny and the Battle of Castillon still to come the country is bankrupt and bare-boned.

And done...Finishing a book like this is like coming to the end of a great meal. There's a lovely warm feeling of saiety and satisfaction tinged with regret that the feast has ended and there're no more courses to come. But the books exist. And can (and will) be read again and again. I just hope Sumption has time to write his book on the Dreyfus Affair. What a scholar. What a writer.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, a confession: I have not read volumes 2-4 of Jonathan Sumption’s staggering multi-volume history of the Hundred Years War. I read and reviewed volume one over a year ago but with the release of volume five last year I decided to skip straight to the end. Since I’m currently writing a book on the end of the Hundred Years War this was the volume most relevant to my current research and I wanted to get right to it. This is also the part of the war that has received the least coverage in English, so I was very excited when I heard it was finally coming out. Most English language histories of the Hundred Years War skip over the very end of the war with only the lightest of detail – everything that comes after Jeanne d’Arc is summarized in just a few pages. I was keen to read Sumption’s lengthier take on both la pucelle and what followed.

I have previously been on record as not being the biggest fan of Sumption’s work. I believe his commitment to providing a strict narrative of the history of the war puts his work in an awkward middle space. It is too long and dense to be desirable or suitable for most general readers, but it doesn’t really engage in historiographical analysis or other scholarship to really be an academic reference work. While I preferred Triumph and Illusion to Trial by Battle, I still think these critiques remain relevant. Triumph and Illusion is purely narrative history, and as narrative history it’s pretty good and certainly very detailed, but it doesn’t put forward much in the way of interesting theories or arguments, and it certainly isn’t a useful introduction to wider scholarship. Triumph and Illusion can also more easily stand out as an important work on the Hundred Years War because this is a part of the war that has been crying out for a more detailed study. Trial by Battle covered the start of the war, an area where there are many other histories that can compete with it in terms of quality. While I think in some ways this book is too narrow, I do have to credit Sumption with providing a relatively clean narrative of an extremely complex and chaotic period in Anglo-French history and as a guide purely to the chronology of this period it is excellent.

While on the whole I liked Triumph and Illusion and I found it to be quite informative, there were some parts of it that I was less than impressed with. Sumption’s depiction of Charles VII and Jeanne d’Arc particularly underwhelmed me. While Sumption manages to be mostly non-partisan in his writing, which is appreciated and not a universal trait of historians of the period, when writing about Jeanne d’Arc he clearly aligns himself with an older school of scholarship that is far more hostile to her and presents her as entirely a pawn of wider forces. This is where I think you can see how Sumption is writing primarily from his reading of the primary sources with less interest in the wider scholarship. Jeanne d’Arc is one of the most written about people of the Middle Ages and there are numerous ways to view her short life. However, Sumption doesn’t really present any of them to the reader. He provides a very narrow view of her that I found rather underwhelming, repeatedly emphasizing the moments when she was excluded from key decisions and reliably presenting very hostile views. He quotes hostile accounts of her, sometimes without mentioning who the author was or even providing a citation, which I found incredibly frustrating. He is of course allowed to provide his own interpretation of Jeanne but I don’t feel like he does due diligence in explaining his position - he is telling you his version without feeling an obligation to justify it.
King Charles VII is one of the most impenetrable French monarchs. He spent much of his time in isolation and did not leave a large body of evidence describing his opinions, plans, or even his general mannerisms. This has made understanding him and interpreting his tumultuous reign very difficult. Sumption chooses to take the line that Charles was a monarch largely moved about by forces beyond his control. This is hardly an indefensible position, but I don’t think Sumption does enough to really dig into who Charles VII was and to consider the various ways we can interpret his life. As with Jeanne d’Arc, there is no variety present, Sumption has his quite narrow take and does not do very much to justify it.

This one is really just a pet peeve of mine, but Sumption also makes some very strange choices when it comes to name spelling, often using the spellings one would expect from a book written nearly a century earlier. This gives his writing the feeling that it is much older than it is and reinforces the idea that he is trying to be to the Hundred Years War what Gibbon is to the fall of Rome. It made me feel like I should have blown a layer of dust off the book before I started reading it, even if in many ways the actual evidence within is quite modern. The style and attitude feel very old.

I would be more inclined to recommend Triumph and Illusion to people than I am Trial by Battle, but that is largely because there is so little else that competes with it in this space. If you want histories of the end of the Hundred Years War in English, you really are starved for choice. Juliet Barker’s Conquest covers this period, but only for Normandy. Malcolm Vale wrote on several related topics but usually only in specifics and most of his work is long out of print and very academic. I still find Sumption to be at times tedious and not as deep as I would like, but at least in this case he is probably the best available option for reading about what is a genuinely fascinating period in Anglo-French history.

If you're interested, you can read more of my book reviews at: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blo...

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A chivalrous performance by Jonathan Sumption in delivering the fifth and final volume to his series on the Hundred Years War! In "Triumph and Illusion," Sumption tracks the gradual, and then quite rapid, decline of English mastery over the Ile de France, Normandy, and Gascony, leaving all but Calais as a trace of English dominance under King Henry V in the 1420s. By the conclusion of the war, King Henry VI and the English have learned the lesson of many nations and empires - it is one thing to win battles, land, and peoples; it is quite another, and much more difficult, to assimilate them (or even keep them under nominal sovereignty). Tied together by a nascent nationalism and fervent Christian passion with French royalty, King Charles VI succeeds in reuniting the French lands on the continent, turning France towards a more authoritarian and centralized state that will last until the unleashing of revolution in 1789.

The most obscure but noble figure to emerge in this book is perhaps the Duke of Bedford. Saddled with the legacy of Henry V, Bedford acts as regent to young Henry VI and oversees a hold on Normandy that, while tenuous, seems the best of all possible outcomes. Bedford wrings revenue out of the Norman lands and region around Paris, and almost succeeds in breaking the back of Charles VI's struggling Kingdom of Bourges at the siege of Orleans. The contingency of history is best captured by that siege - absent Joan of Arc, or more troops on the English side, perhaps the English would have succeeded in laying waste to the key city on the Loire, scattering Charles VI's forces and leading to further English dominance in the French heartlands. That, of course, is not how history turned out.

The Hundred Years War can seem so foreign, so remote. But perhaps not - fighting for glory or reputation is not so strange even in the 21st Century, as countries like the United States are driven to war by populaces enamored with revenge. Letting go of past victories was just as hard for Henry VI's governments as it was for countless invaders in modern wars, not wishing to backtrack on a prior history of success.

Sumption has delivered a tour de force. The books are laden with details, figures, and facts about finance and regions long since disappeared. History at its best informs the present; Sumption's books go a long way towards understanding the subsequent history of England, France, and the rest of Europe.

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the fifth and final volume of Jonathan Sumption’s history of the Hundred Years War. By common convention, this war between England and France (and a variety of minor feudal units) began in 1337 and lasted until 1453. That is 116 years by my count (although the actual time period was a bit longer). Lord Sumption took 45 years to complete his account. I am very glad that he kept himself healthy and managed to finish. This is the definitive account of the Hundred Years War. There are other books, of course, but this is the leading work without any question. It is impossible to summarize these volumes and unnecessary to worry about spoilers. Seriously, who would I offend by letting it out that England lost the war (even though it seemed to win many of the major battles). There is so much going on here that each and every chapter would likely qualify as a separate monograph with sufficient work up.

What to say about this work? Let’s start with the length of the war. To put things in a modern context, it would be like identifying a war that began in 1914 (or a year or two earlier), lasted until 1918 (or a few years later in some places), then paused until 1937 and picked up until 1945, to be followed by an extended standoff or “Cold War” which lasted until 1990 (or 1994, when Russian troops finally left Germany). But that is only eighty years!! Do we throw in the Ukrainian wars? …just imagine nearly continual wars for over a century. Actually fighting continued after the end of the war in England (which moved into the “War of the Roses” and in France which suffered further internal conflicts) and Ukraine. While the long war informally ended in 1453, it did not officially until the Treaty of Picquigny in 1475.

Tactics and technology - Many simplified accounts of the war focus on three major battles: Crecy, Potiers, and Agincourt (also Sluys perhaps as a naval battle). In many accounts, the early big battles were won by the value of the English longbow as a deciding weapon and the development of appropriate tactics against French crossbows and mounted knights. As Sumption’s works show, however, there were lots of battles — this long war was almost certainly a source for stories like “Game of Thrones”. As technology and tactics evolved, the battles changed too. These volumes show how all of the components of these medieval battles are layered and interactive. Without understanding that, it is vary difficult to make sense of all that warfare.

Economics and warfare — there is probably a temptation to apply an economic lense to the Hundred Years War. I agree with Sumption’s position that a traditional economic interpretation of the conflict is not useful and probably muddies up the works. It is doubtful that these wars improved national productivity, GDP, or other measures one might choose. The concept of the nation was still hundreds of years away and rulers did not primarily focus on the welfare of the ruled. Once you throw in the idea of opportunity costs and negative externalities, it is really doubtful that these wars provided much if any social benefit to anyone apart from a few clear exploiter/winners.

Organization and culture — A key takeaway from Sumption’s work is that for big nations like France to triumph, they needed centralized organization and controls, along with the means to collect taxes and fund operations. England started off relatively centralized but also small (compared to France). By the end of the wars, France has a centralized monarchy that could collect taxes and spend. They also had an increased sense of being French, which help draw disparate parts of the nascent nation together. (You can thank Joan of Arc for that - it’s a long story.)

There is lots more to take away from this. I will try to think more about it and expand as I can.

This is a chore to work through but it is perhaps the best history I have ever read bar none.

[History Today]

With Triumph and Illusion Jonathan Sumption has, after more than three decades’ toil and 4,000 pages, brought his epic five-volume history of the Hundred Years War to its conclusion. In this final volume he takes us from 1422 – the year in which Henry V died having achieved spectacular successes – to 1453, when his son, Henry VI, endured total loss. From a French perspective, the dates represent the ignominious death of the insane Charles VI and the ultimate victory of his son, Charles VII.

The denouement of the war is more interesting than its messy origins, when the death of Charles IV of France in 1328 marked the end of the Capetian dynasty and its replacement with the Valois one. This situation, coupled with the never-ending tensions between England and France (the former still holding Gascony, the latter probing into this territory under its aggressive new monarch, Philip) created an opportunistic moment for Edward III of England to claim the French throne through his mother, Isabella of France. That England could sustain the war, if intermittently, against a population perhaps six or seven times its size for more than a century is remarkable; but the outcome was surely inevitable (or as ‘inevitable’ as history allows). Sumption charts the English downfall, misled by delusion, and France’s triumph in enormous detail to show how this happened.

Henry V’s remarkable victory at Agincourt in 1415 seemed to usher in a new period of English dominance on the battlefield and a return to the heady days of Crécy in the 1340s. Together with his Burgundian allies Henry had conquered France down to the Loire Valley, leaving the disinherited dauphin Charles trying to claw back his land and title; the provisions of the 1420 Treaty of Troyes had seen the infant Henry VI of England also made King of France in the Dual Monarchy. Despite Henry V’s early death in 1422, England continued to do well in France for a few years under the capable command of his brother, the Duke of Bedford. In Sumption’s telling, Bedford is a rare protagonist commended for his positive qualities: ‘a capable administrator and an astute politician with an incisive mind’, the ‘beak-nosed’ Bedford ‘managed to combine an affable manner with an imposing presence and a habit of authority’. But despite his victory at the often overlooked Battle of Verneuil in 1424 (‘the bloodiest fight of the Hundred Years War’, in Sumption’s view, in a field of strong contenders) even Bedford could only hold the line for so long.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

Sean McGlynn teaches medieval and early modern history at the University of Plymouth at Strode College.

[Rindis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final volume of Sumption's history of the Hundred Years War does exactly what one would expect. Another eight-hundred pages on a bit more than twenty years of history. It's excellent stuff as always, but I do feel like it's a bit lacking. Sumption has always been light on the personalities of the people who haunt the pages of his history, and this more evident here, where both Charles VII and Henry VI are hard figures to understand.

Of course, his main strengths continue in this volume: Clear recounting of narrative history, and attention to the details of finance, recruiting, and wasted motion that inevitably rob large armies and successful campaigns of any ability to bring a large war to its close.

In particular, English finances are in poor shape thanks to all the borrowing Henry V had to do to finance his campaigns in France. However, he had finally converted England's successes into a real treaty, and gotten a chance to set up an administration across much of northern France. This allowed for tax collection in France to pay for the war in France (well, only part of it, but that was the theory). At the same time, the rump Kingdom of Bourges has little political power, and less money. Once Charles VII is actually crowned, political capital recovers, which is used to re-impose disagreeable levels of taxation, and the financial situation reverses as England deals with declining revenues at home and abroad.

Indeed, the start of the book in 1422 sees both sides politically crippled. Henry V's heir is eleven months old when he inherits the crowns of England and France, leaving a long regency. The top men are mostly competent, with the Earl of Gloucester being more of a bull in a china shop, but generally kept under control. The real problem is that as the situation grows worse, the main sticking point to negotiations are the English claim to the title "King of France", and no councilor wants to have to explain to his King on his future majority how he lost that title. It's something that needed doing (but may still have been insufficient), but since the King was too young to take the step himself, negotiating it away without him invites a treason charge later. And of course, when Henry VI does grow up, there's no saving Lancastrian France, but there's no talking him out of the title either.

Meanwhile, Charles VII's court is still crippled by the internal divisions of the civil war that let England win much of northern France, and get the Duke of Burgundy in their camp. There are several more rounds of internal fighting and deposed councilors, which continue to waste the political strength of the administration in Bourges. But, even when unpopular, the men at the top are generally competent, and the internal fighting slowly winds down with factions largely swept away. This gives Charles VII the strength to go on the offensive, and erode the English position in many of the same ways as the English had done to the French for the last century, devastating areas, taking individual fortified posts by surprise and destroying the ability to generate revenues from the area (nor generate much of anything else...).

The primary dramatic moment comes early, with the English high-water mark. A controversial campaign has devolved into a punishing siege of Orleans, but despite being painfully overextended, the English are winning the battles. Money is nearly out, the garrison is dwindling, and court in Bourges is contemplating moving east to retain what they can there, but they'd be largely cut off from outside help from Scotland or Castile. Joan of Arc's arrival turns things around, probably more from morale effects as anything else. After the English are defeated at Orleans, the self-confidence of both sides largely swaps, and the crowning of Charles VII just cements this development.

The secondary dramatic moment is the end, when the remaining English positions in Normandy fall in one vigorous campaign. After over a decade of continual losses and ever-deepening financial troubles, there's precious little will left, and the entire area submits with very few people willing to put up with a siege over was has been an increasingly lost cause. For a denouement we get the end of Gascony, a sudden reversal as an English army actually gets there, and then that campaign's collapse. We also see the start of the Wars of the Roses as factionalism in England deepens in the wake of failure.

The series weighs in at about 3580 pages of text covering one hundred twenty-five years. It is possible to go much deeper into the weeds than Sumption does, but outside of the things routinely studied of the war, you truly are in the weeds. In fact, the value of his books is all the things he covers from independent captains holding enemy countryside hostage to details of taxation and loans all put into a single framework. Its a truly amazing and readable series, enjoyable for anyone with an interest from start to finish.

[E Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this series in October of 2022. It contains five volumes, each over 800 pages, 1000 including notes and maps. Nearly two and one-half years later I finished the final book. Lord Sumption is a very good historical writer. Not as lyrical as a William Manchester or charming as Barbara Tuchman, but never dry or dull. This series is a fantastic review of one hundred and eighty years of history, in amazing detail. Great work for anyone interested in Medieval history.

[Laurent Carbonneau · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the risk of repeating myself from past reviews of this series, what a triumph (so to speak). Really one of the best works of narrative history I've ever read, compelling and analytically rich. The whole series is a monumental achievement. If you have even a passing interest in the Middle Ages it is entirely worth the considerable amount of time.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concluding volume of Sumption's masterful history of the long and complex war between England and France that lasted for longer - at varying levels of fervour - than the name given by historians suggests. His learning and scrupulous research are accompanied by readability. A huge achievement, well deserving of five stars.

[Faizan Shahid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This more of a overall review of the entire 5 book series. I wanted to wait until I had finished the series before writing my thoughts. I genuinely think this is an amazing series and have thoroughly enjoyed the months I spent with this series. I am by no means an expert or even an intermediate in the subject and I found it really engaging and easy to follow. Would strongly recommend

[Matthew Carney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strong finish to the 5 volume set. Detailed and informative. Joan of Arc really changed the shape of the whole war, got captured by the English, got ignored by the French, real rough stuff. What a story.

[Comes · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent end to an excellent series. It's about as full of a narrative and look into the period which it covers and outside of the very specific there isn't much of anything missed.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bit of a knackering read in the end but doesn’t miss any event or siege seemingly and all the better for it. I need a lie down and ponder upon a different age and England.

[KOLIN · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Triumph and Illusion: The Hundred Years War" by Jonathan Sumption offers a captivating journey through a pivotal period in European history that I hadn't explored in such depth before. As someone who has sung songs at England football games, debated the intricacies of the 'Auld Alliance' in Scotland, and bantered over Lancaster supremacy with Yorkshire mates, the realization that these historical events actually occurred was continually striking.

Sumption's meticulous research creates a connection to the characters, prompting readers to root for their favorites amidst the tumult of war. The strategic brilliance of figures like the Duke of Bedford, who prolonged England's dominance on the battlefield despite financial constraints, is truly remarkable. Through the narrative, one gains insight into the complexities of Joan of Arc's story, Henry VI's loss of his father's hard-won gains, and Charles VII's relentless pursuit to end the conflict.

I could easily imagine the Battle of Verneuil in 1424 as a cinematic masterpiece.

As a science-loving engineer, delving into the intricacies of history proved to be a fascinating departure from my usual interests. "Triumph and Illusion" offers a compelling blend of scholarly research and narrative flair that will undoubtedly captivate readers from various backgrounds.

[tumulus]

I'll avoid typing out an encomium here since it's wholly unnecessary given that the entire series has been on the receiving end of nothing but unanimous adulation, and rightly so, this is magisterial work and I'll go so far as saying (heretically, perhaps) that this is to the Hundred Years War what Gibbons had hoped, and tried (and failed) to write for the late Roman Empire.