Shakespeare's Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485

In a sparkling, fast-paced narrative, esteemed historian John Julius  Norwich chronicles the turbulent events of fourteenth- and  fifteenth-century England that inspired Shakespeare's history plays. It  was a time of uncertainty and incessant warfare, a time during which the  crown was constantly contested, alliances were made and broken, and  peasants and townsmen alike arose in revolt. This was the raw material  of Shakespeare's dramas, and Norwich holds up his work to the light of  history to ask: Who was the real Falstaff? How accurate a historian was  the playwright? Shakespeare's Kings is a marvelous study of the Bard's method of spinning history into art, and a captivating portrait of the Middle Ages.