Henry V (1386-1422) has been called the greatest man to ever rule England, no less. British historian Dan Jones agrees with this assessment, but not only due to what is usually valued most about the monarch: his crushing and unexpected victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, a military feat that consolidated English dominance over France. The scholar, author of a new and electrifying biography of Henry V, emphasizes that he was much more than the warrior king who shines in the chronicles of his contemporaries and whom Shakespeare mythologized in his play. To understand why he achieved such dazzling success in his time and the recognition of posterity (he was placed among the legendary Nine Valiant, alongside Hector the Trojan, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, King Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, Joshua, King David, and Judas Maccabeus), one must consider his life as a whole. A splendid but short life: 35 years, of which he reigned for only nine.

In Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England’s Greatest Warrior King (2026), Jones, who doesn’t shy away from fascination with the “slender, strong, athletic, and handsome” Henry, whom a Westminster monk described as “clothed in angelic appearance,” attempts to balance the most-discussed aspect of the character’s life — his reign — with the years of meticulous apprenticeship during a turbulent time of enormous and dangerous political instability. He reminds us that Henry V was not born to be king (his father, Henry IV, ascended the throne after overthrowing Richard II). In Jones’s gripping book, we discover that the young prince received a near-fatal arrow wound to the face in his first battle at Shrewsbury at the age of 16; that he used a ceremonial sword believed to have been wielded by the knight Tristan; that his military planning involved three archers for every man-at-arms; that he was an artist with the harp, or that King Sigismund gave him the preserved heart of Saint George.

Did the real Henry V resemble the one Shakespeare portrayed in three of his plays (Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V), which have been majestically embodied on screen by Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, and Timothée Chalamet? “Shakespeare treats him as a two-part character, the rakish Prince Hal and the more mature King Henry, but that is largely an invention of the playwright, who creates a contrast between the libertine, womanizing, and hard-drinking young man and the splendid king to highlight the latter through the change in personality,” notes Jones, in whom the renowned Cambridge historian is also juxtaposed with a casual, youthful appearance, complete with tennis shoes and elaborate tattoos on his forearms, including a large salamander on his right. “In describing Prince Hal’s personality in the two plays about Henry IV, Shakespeare included elements that are more characteristic of the king’s brothers, John and especially Thomas. Henry V is a more faithful portrayal of the character, but it focuses too much on the Battle of Agincourt, and that is not where the monarch’s greatest interest lies.”

Jones explains that Falstaff, the dissolute mentor and drinking companion of the young prince, is an invention of Shakespeare, although Shakespeare was inspired by Henry V’s friend John Oldcastle (1375-1417), and in fact, that was Falstaff’s original name until the family forced Shakespeare to change it to avoid association with the theatrical character. Oldcastle caused Henry other kinds of trouble by professing the Lollard heresy and committing treason, and was hanged and burned.

Is the real Henry V less interesting than Shakespeare’s? “Not at all, but we must acknowledge that historians have in Shakespeare the best publicist, as is the case with Richard III. Shakespeare wonderfully synthesizes history with enormous drama and romanticism. Although he simplifies a great deal, and we mustn’t forget that he views the medieval past through the distorted lens of the Renaissance and the Tudor dynasty, which he was meant to promote.” The famous Shakespearean scene of Henry the Young taking the crown from his father on his deathbed could have actually happened, the historian points out, as could the Dauphin of France’s insolent joke of sending him tennis balls so he would play instead of thinking about war.

What about Henry’s sexuality? One chronicler said he “burned with the flames of Venus” when he was a prince. Jones grimaces. “He’s not a man of erotic passions; sexuality isn’t a significant part of his personality. His passions are more political than sexual. He’s more of a monk than a king.” Perhaps the historian is influenced by his interest in the Templars, to whom he has dedicated another book (the splendid The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors, 2021), in addition to being the historical advisor for the television series Knightfall. Jones smiles. “Perhaps, but Henry V would have made a good Templar. In fact, his premature death, from dysentery and perhaps smallpox, deprived us of the third act of his biography: he planned to become a crusader and reconquer Jerusalem. All his life he was an extremely pious man. He considered that he was doing God’s work.” The timing of Henry V’s death was very bad: “It created a great power vacuum. His son, Henry VI, was a child. If he had died later, it would have been easier for England.”

Interestingly, when Jones launches into a Shakespearean recitation during the interview, he doesn’t choose the famous speech of the muscular, warrior monarch before entering battle and defeating the French at Agincourt (the celebrated St. Crispin’s Day harangue of the “Band of Brothers”), but rather the sad, melancholic, and devastating speech of Richard II (1367-1400) upon his dethronement, which, ironically, paved the way for the reigns of Henry IV and his son Henry V. “No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs…” Jones (Reading, 44 years old) is surprised when his interlocutor continues the lines: “Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.” It is a singular moment, with the historian and the journalist united by the Bard (now that is a band of brothers) and mimicking that situation in which, in the middle of the Second World War in Crete, the German general Heinrich Kreipe began some verses of Horace and to his astonishment the British officer who had captured him, Patrick Leigh Fermor, continued them.

“Richard II, which tells of the abdication of that monarch and the rise of Henry IV, the father of Henry V, and the Lancasters, is not as well-known as Henry V, but it is my favorite, with those very poetic monologues by Richard,” explains Jones unexpectedly, noting that Shakespeare, “who was able to take an old parchment and bring it to life,” took that particular speech from the source, from an authentic speech by the king when he was a prisoner in the Tower of London.

In any case, the Agincourt speech is far more popular. Jones writes in his book that Winston Churchill had mixed feelings toward the king. Was it envy of his great wartime speeches? After all, Churchill was known for his own, such as “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” “we shall fight on the beaches,” and so on, or for those in which he seemed to paraphrase Henry’s “few.” The historian laughs. “I don’t think it was for that reason, but rather because Henry V’s ambitions in France caused great problems for England in the centuries that followed. In fact, Henry V’s Shakespearean speech was used in the Second World War to boost British fighting spirit during the difficult hours of the conflict, just as the king’s own personality was used in war propaganda, as in Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film.”

In reality, Jones clarifies — and this will surely displease mythomaniacs and die-hard Shakespeareans — it is unclear what the king actually said on that October 25, 1415, riding before his army on a white and gray horse, clad in chainmail and plate armor, sporting, as the chronicles described, a dazzling surcoat with the quartered lions of England and the fleurs-de-lis of France, and a bascinette topped with a golden crown (a helmet that the Duke of Alençon would later smash with an axe in the ensuing battle). Knowing his subject well, the historian doubts that he delivered a lengthy, lyrical, and grandiloquent speech before entering the fray and leans — based on contemporary testimony — toward a shorter and more plausible one: “Come on, lads!” Jones believes that this was more in keeping with his character. “He was very direct, you can see it in his letters; Shakespeare considered the different versions of what he said that day and chose the most pompous one.”

Jones’s book is full of scenes of great violence (the burning at the stake of John Badby, the beheading of the Earl of Arundel, of which it is said that the headless man rose and stood upright “long enough to say an Our Father”). Did his authorship of a series of novels, the Essex Dogs trilogy, set during the Hundred Years’ War, influence his writing of these scenes? “Well, I’ve actually been writing history books for 20 years, and only recently have I started writing historical fiction. Even in my early works, such as those dedicated to the Plantagenets or the Wars of the Roses, my narrative style was quite cinematic. I always strive to use new ways of telling history, and in Henry V I recount his life in the present tense, an unorthodox way of explaining it, but one that brings him closer to us.” Jones adds that he doesn’t believe his novels are influenced by Bernard Cornwell (author of a series from the same period, which includes The Archer’s Tale). “Although I greatly admire Cornwell, who has popularized the medieval fiction genre and whom I thank for his support, and it is the same narrative territory, our approach is different: my novels feature many characters and the depiction of violence is different, closer to that of hooligans.”

A controversial issue concerning Henry V that has damaged his image as a great king is the massacre of French prisoners after the Battle of Agincourt. It’s provocative to ask Jones whether the fact that he had them killed can’t be compared to the massacre of prisoners at Malmedy by SS troops of Kampfgruppe Peiper during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. “I don’t think it’s comparable,” the historian snorts. “They are two different eras, with different laws of war. That was the Middle Ages, and significantly, as the sources of the time show, there was no negative reaction to Henry’s decision, not even from the French themselves (who, incidentally, carried the oriflamme, the banner that signified they would give no quarter). It was understood that the English felt threatened by the possible arrival of another French army, which the prisoners could have joined. The English were clearly outnumbered, and the order to eliminate the captives was considered a military necessity. Comparing it to the SS action at Malmedy makes no sense; there, taboos and the rules of war were indeed broken.”

Jones laughs again when asked if it isn’t a problem for the current British monarchy of the Windsors to look to Henry V as a role model: it must sting for Charles III. “Certainly, Henry V was considered the perfect medieval king; he exercised spectacularly good leadership in times of crisis, and he was very lucky with the support and help he received from his brothers, whereas when you think of Prince Andrew… Although it’s also true that a king from the Middle Ages isn’t the same as a modern one, of course.”

When it’s pointed out that he, Jones, looks more like Hal than Henry V, he laughs again. “Thank you, I take it as a compliment, especially since it refers to Shakespeare’s prince and the real king. I’d rather be seen as a cheerful, lively fellow than a monk.”

Since we’re on the subject, are the Templars on the decline? “People are still fascinated by them and books about them sell well, but it’s true that there hasn’t been a film on the subject for a while, although to show you how much interest they still generate, I met a group in Tennessee who considered themselves Templars.”

Henry V, like other kings and leaders of that time, was a warrior who killed with his own hands and was physically involved in combat. “Yes, and at great risk. Henry was seriously wounded a couple of times and could have died. They commanded from the front lines. Things have changed; I can’t imagine Trump piloting a fighter jet in a wave of attacks on Tehran, but with him, you never know.”

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