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Edward III: A Heroic Failure
Edward III lived through bloody and turbulent times. His father was deposed by his mother and her lover when he was still a teenager; a third of England's population was killed by the Black Death midway through his reign; and the intractable Hundred Years War with France began under his leadership. Yet Edward managed to rule England for fifty years, and was viewed as a paragon of kingship in the eyes of both his contemporaries and later generations. Venerated as the victor of Sluys and Crécy and the founder of the Order of the Garter, he was regarded with awe even by his enemies. But he lived too long, and was ultimately condemned to see thirty years of conquests reversed in less than five. In this gripping new account of Edward III's rise and fall, Jonathan Sumption introduces us to a fêted king who ended his life a heroic failure.
117 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2016
24 people are currently reading
277 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Sumption
31 books113 followersThe 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.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
April 2, 2018
A short critical biography of King Edward III with a strong focus on the Hundred Years' War. Sumption is especially critical of Edward III's approach to finances, arguing that he financed his wars in such a haphazard fashion that a few of his barons, who acted as guarantors for his loans, spent time in debtors prison. Other aspects of Edward III's reign receive less attention. The Black Death plague is only mentioned in passing a few times even though it caused tremendous social change in Edward III's kingdom and resulted in the deaths of three of his dozen children. The Six Statutes are not discussed and I would have liked more analysis about the culture of his court. Edward III's plans for his sons are discussed in the text but not his daughters. A good introduction to certain aspects of Edward III's reign but not a comprehensive biography.
June 16, 2019
Edward III: A Heroic Failure is part of the Penguin Monarchs, a series of short biographies of English monarchs for the general reader, usually around 100-150 pages long. As such, I don’t expect an overly thorough exploration of the life and reign of each monarch.
I approached this entry with that understanding and I wasn’t disappointed. Jonathon Sumption, limited by format and length, focuses mainly on Edward III’s military career, largely his war with France that began the Hundred Years War. This is the area the majority of readers will be interested in the most, I feel, and in keeping with Sumption’s specialisation in the Hundred Years War. However, it does feel lopsided in approach and we find little personal detail about Edward until the final chapter focusing on his later years. The Black Death is also largely ignored in this treatment. That being said, I tend to be more interested in personalities rather than battles so another reader may feel differently.
Sumption’s writing is fine, but not particularly gripping. What typos other readers found in the hardback edition seem to have been corrected for the paperback. I do have a small complaint about the final chapter, in that Sumption will say something that suggests what he’s telling us is not necessarily true and should be doubted but does not give us anything more. For instance, Sumption notes Froissart’s “exaggerated account” of the sack of Limoges by Edward the Black Prince, but does not tell us what actually happened. In another example, he describes Walsingham as “malicious” before discussing Walsingham’s account of Edward III’s death but does not tell us why or what is more likely to have happened.
Whatever my criticisms, this is a decent overview of Edward III’s military career and Sumption’s central argument – that Edward was more “lucky” than a naturally born genius strategist and that he tended to harm his own interests as much as he aided them – makes for interesting food for thought. I picked this up to read a critical view of Edward III as a precursor to eventually reading Ian Mortimer’s hagiographic biography of the same king and wasn’t disappointed.
In short, I do recommend this, but with the caveats listed here, the worst of which is that it’s focused mainly on Edward III’s military career and it’s not especially compellingly written.
I approached this entry with that understanding and I wasn’t disappointed. Jonathon Sumption, limited by format and length, focuses mainly on Edward III’s military career, largely his war with France that began the Hundred Years War. This is the area the majority of readers will be interested in the most, I feel, and in keeping with Sumption’s specialisation in the Hundred Years War. However, it does feel lopsided in approach and we find little personal detail about Edward until the final chapter focusing on his later years. The Black Death is also largely ignored in this treatment. That being said, I tend to be more interested in personalities rather than battles so another reader may feel differently.
Sumption’s writing is fine, but not particularly gripping. What typos other readers found in the hardback edition seem to have been corrected for the paperback. I do have a small complaint about the final chapter, in that Sumption will say something that suggests what he’s telling us is not necessarily true and should be doubted but does not give us anything more. For instance, Sumption notes Froissart’s “exaggerated account” of the sack of Limoges by Edward the Black Prince, but does not tell us what actually happened. In another example, he describes Walsingham as “malicious” before discussing Walsingham’s account of Edward III’s death but does not tell us why or what is more likely to have happened.
Whatever my criticisms, this is a decent overview of Edward III’s military career and Sumption’s central argument – that Edward was more “lucky” than a naturally born genius strategist and that he tended to harm his own interests as much as he aided them – makes for interesting food for thought. I picked this up to read a critical view of Edward III as a precursor to eventually reading Ian Mortimer’s hagiographic biography of the same king and wasn’t disappointed.
In short, I do recommend this, but with the caveats listed here, the worst of which is that it’s focused mainly on Edward III’s military career and it’s not especially compellingly written.
January 13, 2024
The penguin books are a nice bite size of the Kings and queens of England.
October 16, 2024
Another fine introduction to a royal reign and character from Penguin Monarchs. The subtitle of this one, A Heroic Failure, underlines the futility of many of the achievements of a king often considered great. In a way, the whole story is a searing parable against the folly of war through all time.
May 2, 2020
Unbalanced and one-dimensional
This book describes Edward lll's 50 year reign almost entirely in terms of his wars of conquest in Scotland, Ireland and France and the domestic difficulties in raising funds for them. The impact on the hapless population of wringing the funds and manpower from the country is barely discussed.That the Black Death killed maybe 40% of the entire English population from 1348 merits a few sentences. Of his efforts to prevent the surviving peasantry from benefiting in terms of wages and freedom of movement from the resultant labour shortage there is next to nothing.The death from plague of his poor 13yo daughter Joan (whilst being transported to be married off to a Spaniard) doesn't even merit her a listing in the genealogy. The book judges Edward against the criteria of warfare and chivalry he would probably have chosen for himself as the appropriate measures for a king (and finds him ultimately unsuccesful) but does not allow us to consider his impact on the country and people that he ruled.
This book describes Edward lll's 50 year reign almost entirely in terms of his wars of conquest in Scotland, Ireland and France and the domestic difficulties in raising funds for them. The impact on the hapless population of wringing the funds and manpower from the country is barely discussed.That the Black Death killed maybe 40% of the entire English population from 1348 merits a few sentences. Of his efforts to prevent the surviving peasantry from benefiting in terms of wages and freedom of movement from the resultant labour shortage there is next to nothing.The death from plague of his poor 13yo daughter Joan (whilst being transported to be married off to a Spaniard) doesn't even merit her a listing in the genealogy. The book judges Edward against the criteria of warfare and chivalry he would probably have chosen for himself as the appropriate measures for a king (and finds him ultimately unsuccesful) but does not allow us to consider his impact on the country and people that he ruled.
February 14, 2019
February’s Penguin Monarch is complete (remember, one a month).
Edward III. Founder of the Order of the Garter, father to the Black Prince, quintessential medieval French-bashing monarch.
Author Johnathan Sumption is an authority on Edward. He’s the author of the series of books on the Hundred Years War (four written, one to go - I intend to read them all).
Sumption describes Edward as a heroic failure. This is because of his ultimate failure to win the French crown.
I really enjoyed the book. So why only four stars? Some annoying typos and a quote on the back of the book supposedly about Edward III, but actually about his father Edward II. Sloppy editing.
March’s monarch - King Stephen.
Edward III. Founder of the Order of the Garter, father to the Black Prince, quintessential medieval French-bashing monarch.
Author Johnathan Sumption is an authority on Edward. He’s the author of the series of books on the Hundred Years War (four written, one to go - I intend to read them all).
Sumption describes Edward as a heroic failure. This is because of his ultimate failure to win the French crown.
I really enjoyed the book. So why only four stars? Some annoying typos and a quote on the back of the book supposedly about Edward III, but actually about his father Edward II. Sloppy editing.
March’s monarch - King Stephen.
March 8, 2020
A remarkable king reigning for 50 year after his father’s murder. This is a great summary but I was left a little confused by how he fell from an all conquering hero to a bankrupt failure in only a few years. How did he deal with the plague, after all a third of the population died? I need to do some further reading about Edward
May 3, 2024
It's not bad but it's not what I was looking for. It's mostly about his wars with France and occasionally Scotland, and I was wanting to learn a bit more about Edward III as a person and particularly his family life since I'd heard he was (at least for the times) a bit of a family man, possibly in response to his own messy upbringing where his mum and her lover had overthrown his dad (and probably murdered him). Edward's sons only show up to fight in the (endless, endless) wars, his wife doesn't do much of anything really, and Alice Perrers appears for one paragraph.
There's not much about culture or society either - the Black Death happened in the middle of his reign but it's barely mentioned. I get that this is a biography not a work of social history but a third of the population just died! Surely that affected Edward III personally in some way? At the very least it must have made it harder to find soldiers for all those wars!
The author's interest in the subject shows and the prose and short length make for a mostly lively read but it's hard to muster much admiration for a man who keeps invading his neighbours for any or no reason, but I suppose with medieval monarchs that comes with the territory (no pun intended). The author is critical of the king but in a quite sympathetic way, he seems to feel sorry for him as everything falls apart towards the end of Edward's reign.
If you're into military history or maybe the chivalry stuff about the Order of the Garter you'd probably get more enjoyment out of this than I did. Not a bad book just one focussed almost exclusively on topics I don't care that much about.
There's not much about culture or society either - the Black Death happened in the middle of his reign but it's barely mentioned. I get that this is a biography not a work of social history but a third of the population just died! Surely that affected Edward III personally in some way? At the very least it must have made it harder to find soldiers for all those wars!
The author's interest in the subject shows and the prose and short length make for a mostly lively read but it's hard to muster much admiration for a man who keeps invading his neighbours for any or no reason, but I suppose with medieval monarchs that comes with the territory (no pun intended). The author is critical of the king but in a quite sympathetic way, he seems to feel sorry for him as everything falls apart towards the end of Edward's reign.
If you're into military history or maybe the chivalry stuff about the Order of the Garter you'd probably get more enjoyment out of this than I did. Not a bad book just one focussed almost exclusively on topics I don't care that much about.
April 20, 2025
This is very much a book about Edward’s military campaigns in France and Scotland, rather than a personal history. If military history is what you’re looking for, it’ll be a valuable overview, but if you’re reading the Penguin Monarch books for the same reason as me- personality and politics- prepare to be disappointed.
Nothing about his marriage, nothing about policy in England, almost nothing about out his children and absolutely nothing about his daughters, two sentences about Alice Perrers… but an awful lot about battles and finding the money for them.
Nothing about his marriage, nothing about policy in England, almost nothing about out his children and absolutely nothing about his daughters, two sentences about Alice Perrers… but an awful lot about battles and finding the money for them.
June 12, 2023
I’ve learnt that where the Penguin Monarchs series excels is with the lesser monarchs. As a general reader with an interest in history I might want to improve my knowledge of the 19th century, but not necessarily commit a week of my reading life to a 500+ page biography of William IV.
Edward III, however, does deserve that full week. The book focuses almost exclusively on his military campaigns and even then it wasn’t sufficiently detailed. I needed something more substantial.
Edward III, however, does deserve that full week. The book focuses almost exclusively on his military campaigns and even then it wasn’t sufficiently detailed. I needed something more substantial.
October 23, 2023
Another rather good Penguin Monarchs paperback volume. My only slight worry is that the author concentrates massively on relations/ wars with the French, a subject which he has also written highly successful multi-volume books on. In fairness, Scotland gets several mentions, but, apparently, nothing happened in Wales during the Edward’s 50 year reign!
January 1, 2025
This is a quick, little biography of the English king. Professor Sumption packs a lot of detail, explanation, and analysis into 104 pages. This allows the reader to capture the essence of his time's subject, milieu, and personalities. It is interesting and impactful.
December 31, 2019
A solid, brief introduction. The writing sometimes seems a bit abrupt but that's due to the fact that it's intended to be so short.
June 18, 2021
Short but well written account of a king who is far less well known than he ought to be, considering he basically started the Hundred Years War.
April 19, 2022
As with most of the Penguin Monarchs, a nice, easy to read, summary of one of our longer serving kings.
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November 7, 2022Nice summary of Edward's life, and made me want to read more about it, which is what these little introductory book should do. There was a some nice suggestions for further reading at the back too.
December 19, 2023
Pithy, relevant and to the point.
May 18, 2024
Like other books in this series a useful resume of Edward III ‘s reign, but was rather like reading a string of facts that were not put together with much literary skill. Still worth reading though!
June 25, 2025
great read
A concise and easy to read description of the reign and its ultimate failure. The major characters brought to life
A concise and easy to read description of the reign and its ultimate failure. The major characters brought to life
August 7, 2019
This little book offers a valuable insight into the life of Edward III, one of England's most successful kings. Courageous war-hero with ambitions to become king of France, Edward III was described as "heroic failure" because in the end he lived too long and basically outlived his own greatness. Had he died as a young man (in his 30s or 40s) he would have been hailed as the greatest king England has ever had. This was a great book about a great man, and I'll definitely read more from this author.
November 27, 2016
A reasonable and easy summary of Edward III's reign and times.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews