Why the Middle Ages Matter

Medieval Horizons

The essential introduction to the Middle Ages by the bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England 
 
We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward and unchanging time characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. By contrast we believe progress arose from science and technological innovation, and that inventions of recent centuries created the modern world. 
 
We couldn't be more wrong. As Ian Mortimer shows in this fascinating book, people's horizons - their knowledge, experience and understanding of the world - expanded dramatically. Life was utterly transformed between 1000 and 1600, marking the transition from a warrior-led society to that of Shakespeare. 
 
Just as The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England revealed what it was like to live in the fourteenth century, Medieval Horizons provides the perfect primer to the era as a whole. It outlines the enormous cultural changes that took place - from literacy to living standards, inequality and even the developing sense of self - thereby correcting misconceptions and presenting the period as a revolutionary age of fundamental importance in the development of the Western world. 
 
Praise for Ian Mortimer: 
 
'The endlessly inventive Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time' - The Times

An account of a profoundly misunderstood period, which shows that the Middle Ages were not marked by violence and superstition. Instead, huge steps in social and economic progress were made, and the foundations of the modern world were laid

This enlightening account shows there was more to the period than plague, superstition and violence

Dr Ian Mortimer is the Sunday Times-bestselling author of the Time Traveller's Guides to Medieval England, Elizabethan England, Restoration Britain and Regency Britain, as well as four critically acclaimed medieval biographies. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998. His work on the social history of medicine won the Alexander Prize in 2004 and was published by the Royal Historical Society in 2009. He lives with his wife and three children in Moretonhampstead, on the edge of Dartmoor.

We tend to think about the Middle Ages as a dark, backward and unchanging time characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. By contrast we believe progress is the consequence of science and technological innovation, and that it was the inventions of recent centuries which created the modern world. 
 
We couldn't be more wrong. As Ian Mortimer shows in this fascinating introduction to the Middle Ages, people's horizons - their knowledge, experience and understanding of the world - expanded dramatically. All aspects of life were utterly transformed between 1000 and 1600, marking the transition from a warrior-led society to that of Shakespeare. 
 
Just as Ian Mortimer's bestselling Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England revealed what it was like to live in the fourteenth century, Medieval Horizons provides the perfect primer to the period as a whole. It outlines the enormous cultural changes that took place - from literacy to living standards, inequality and even the developing sense of self - thereby correcting misconceptions and presenting the period as a revolutionary era, of fundamental importance in the development of the Western world.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England

Ian Mortimer manages to inform and delight in equal measure.

As Mortimer puts it, "sometimes the past will inspire you, sometimes it will make you weep". What it won't do, thanks to this enthralling book, is leave you unmoved

With Shakespeare on hand to give us extra insight into how Elizabethans saw themselves (and what they - often to our eyes inexplicably - found funny), and a society playing out its growing sense of self-awareness as it tiptoes to a modern age, the stage is set for a fresh and funny book that wears its learning lightly

Mortimer brings the same depth and flair to the age of Shakespeare and the Virgin Queen. From dental hygiene to table manners, the findings fascinate - even if we don't wish that we were there

Mortimer's book has something for everyone... His curiosity is boundless and his profound scholarship is leavened by a sense of fun

Entertaining history of the country's landscape, people, religion, health and culture in the 16th century

Ian Mortimer realistically describes the down-to-earth details of everyday living and stirring times in the England before and after the 1590s

Fascinating account of everyday life in Elizabethan England.

It is a magnificent social history, rich and scholarly, but with the verve and intrigue of a great novel.

Mortimer’s intriguing step-by-step guide to everyday Elizabethan life is studded with gems… A delightful book, full of busy research lightly worn, that is as accessible and entertaining a guide as you will find to living in past times.

It’s like Horrible Histories for grown-ups, and I mean that as a compliment

Mortimer unpicks a period of time conflicted in the history books, his vivid portrayal helping in understanding these contradictions

Anyone looking to write a novel about Tudor times would do well to investigate Mortimer’s excellent work...

Mortimer’s Tardis does the job with a welter of detail…

An engaging book that can be read with pleasure

'A fresh and funny book that wears its learning lightly' Independent 
 
Discover the era of William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I through the sharp, informative and hilarious eyes of Ian Mortimer. 
 
 We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? 
 
 In this book Ian Mortimer reveals a country in which life expectancy is in the early thirties, people still starve to death and Catholics are persecuted for their faith. Yet it produces some of the finest writing in the English language, some of the most magnificent architecture, and sees Elizabeth's subjects settle in America and circumnavigate the globe. Welcome to a country that is, in all its contradictions, the very crucible of the modern world. 
 
'Vivid trip back to the 16th century...highly entertaining book' Guardian

Life in the Age of Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton and The Great Fire of London

The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain

The past is a foreign country: this is your guidebook. 
 
If you could travel back in time, the period from 1660 to 1700 would make one of the most exciting destinations in history. It is the age of Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London; bawdy comedy and the libertine court of Charles II; Christopher Wren in architecture, Henry Purcell in music and Isaac Newton in science - the civil wars are over and a magnificent new era has begun. 
 
But what would it really be like to live in Restoration Britain? Where would you stay and what would you eat? What would you wear and where would you do your shopping? The third volume in the series of Ian Mortimer's bestselling Time Traveller's Guides answers the crucial questions that a prospective traveller to seventeenth-century Britain would ask. 
 
People's lives are changing rapidly - from a world of superstition and religious explanation to rationalism and scientific calculation. In many respects the period sees the tipping point between the old world and the new as fear and uncertainty, hardship and eating with your fingers give way to curiosity and professionalism, fine wines and knives and forks. Travelling to Restoration Britain encourages us to reflect on the customs and practices of daily life - and this unique guide not only teaches us about the seventeenth century but makes us look with fresh eyes at the modern world. 
 
'Ian Mortimer is a historical truffle hound... His book is a delightful read.' Sunday Times

Ian Mortimer is among the best: a conjuror who is always bright, engaging and well-informed… Any tour of late 17th-century Britain is guaranteed to be exhilarating. And with Mortimer in charge, one always travels first class

Ian Mortimer is a historical truffle hound… The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain is just such fun to read… Mortimer writes with real freshness and enthusiasm,... His book is a delightful read.

This entertaining tourist guide brings the late 17th century alive…The latest Time Traveller’s Guide will entertain and inform anyone with an interest in this extraordinary period

Thoroughly entertaining… It is crammed with insights, facts and enjoyable anecdotes, which create a sense of the experience of living in Britain between 1660 and 1700… This is a compelling book and one of considerable erudition… This is the book that will provide the most richly colourful account of Britain in this period

Everything you wanted to know about these fair isles between 1660 and 1700... Exciting times.

Mortimer composes his vivid mosaic of life between 1660 and 1700 through the fancied experience of a time traveller

Entertaining and demotic rather than a work of scholarly nitpicking

When it comes to (armchair-based) time travel, he’s your man. If you have yet to experience his in-the-now approach to history, I envy you. What strange words and weird customs you will learn… Our guide’s treatment of the past is, as ever, a case of great knowledge worn lightly. He is by turns funny, scholarly, poignant and almost always fascinating… As a way of meeting our ancestors almost face to face, there is something magical about his writing

Ian Mortimer manages to inform and delight in equal measure

A fascinating and involving angle on history

Words of contemporaries including Pepys, Mariner Edward Barlow and Celia Fiennes bring to life the changes of the period

Irreverent, witty and beautifully democratic, this is a delight.

A superb period to read about… Mortimer describes London brilliantly with its old walls and teeming streets.

Intriguing, informative and entertaining.

The past is a foreign country: this is your guidebook. 
 
If you could travel back in time, the period from 1660 to 1700 would make one of the most exciting destinations in history. It is the age of Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London; bawdy comedy and the libertine court of Charles II - the civil wars are over and a magnificent new era has begun. 
 
But what would it really be like to live in Restoration Britain? Where would you stay and what would you eat? How much should you pay for one of those elaborate wigs? Should you trust a physician who advises you to drink fresh cow's urine to cure your gout? Why are boys made to smoke in school? And why are you unlikely to get a fair trial in court? 
 
The third volume in the series of Ian Mortimer's bestselling Time Traveller's Guides answers these crucial questions and encourages us to reflect on the customs and practices of daily life. This unique guide not only teaches us about the seventeenth century but makes us look with fresh eyes at the modern world.

A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

Superbly lively and filled with telling anecdote.

He has a novelist's eye for detail, and his portrait of an England in which sheep are the size of dogs, 30-year-old women are regarded as so much "winter forage", and green vegetables widely held to be poisonous has something of the hallucinatory quality of science-fiction

[Mortimer] sets out to re-enchant the 14th Century, taking us by the hand through a landscape furnished with jousting knights, revolting peasants and beautiful ladies in wimples. It is Monty Python and the Holy Grail with footnotes, and, my goodness it is fun... The result of this careful blend of scholarship and fancy is a jaunty journey through the 14th Century, one that wriggles with the stuff of everyday life

This is not only an unusual book, but a thoroughly engaging one

After The Canterbury Tales this has to be the most entertaining book ever written about the middle ages

Addressing the reader directly, his aim, triumphantly achieved, is to engage our sympathies with people whose similarities to us are as fascinating as their lives

Ian Mortimer is taking readers on a sense-smacking tour of the 14th century, which is guaranteed to make us wrinkle our noses in disgust and delight by turns

Successfully communicating the extraordinary energy of this vibrant, cathedral-building time

This superb "rough guide" to 14th century England takes a fresh approach to history by thinking of the past not as something simply to be studied, but as something to be lived

To read this book is to be transported to 14th - century England, in the company of a knowledgeable and witty guide. Dr Mortimer's book is a complete social history of medieval England. All you ever wondered about how people lived - and much more - is here

Ian Mortimer puts the little man back into the 14th Century in this sights, smells, sounds and swords-based romp... Fans of popular history and historical fiction will devour it... It is Mortimer's best work to date

Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time

As lively as it is informative. His (Mortimer's) work of speculative social history is eminently entertaining but this doesn't detract from the seriousness and the thorough research involved

The most enjoyable history book I've read all year

This is the history book I've been waiting for: the essential handbook for any would-be Time Lords wishing to travel to the Middle Ages. Thorough, detailed and totally absorbing

A unique and astonishing social history book which is revolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining

Travel back through time this Christmas on a tour of a completely different world: England in the Middle Ages. 
 
Imagine you could travel back to the fourteenth century. What would you see, and hear, and smell? Where would you stay? What are you going to eat? And how are you going to test to see if you are going down with the plague? 
 
In The Time Traveller's Guide Ian Mortimer's radical new approach turns our entire understanding of history upside down. History is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived, whether that's the life of a peasant or a lord. The result is perhaps the most astonishing history book you are ever likely to read; as revolutionary as it is informative, as entertaining as it is startling. 
 
'Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time' The Times 
 
'After The Canterbury Tales this has to be the most entertaining book ever written about the middle ages' Guardian

The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain

A time of exuberance, thrills, frills and unchecked bad behaviour: Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most entertaining period in British history – the Regency

Mortimer's accessible guidebook format brings...[Regency Britain] vividly to life

Ian Mortimer has made this kind of imaginative time travel his speciality.

[An] excellent book... Mortimer's erudition is formidable, and he rarely writes a dull sentence

Andrew Taylor, The Times, *Book of the Week*

[Mortimer] succeeds, rather brilliantly, in making a mass of information accessible and entertaining

Ian Mortimer's Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain tells you all you need to know about criminals, disease, beggars and other late Georgian delights if you ever find yourself visiting the 1790s

Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*

[Mortimer] has already written guides to the medieval, Elizabethan and Restoration periods, and now he's bringing that same mix of telling anecdote and pithy research to Regency Britain, that funny wedge of time squeezed between the Georgians and the Victorians

Thrilling...when you read it, you imagine yourself among your ancestors, and they are as awful and ingenious as we are

Excellent ... Mortimer's erudition is formidable, and he rarely writes a dull sentence ... Georgette Heyer's research for her novels would have been so much easier with this book on her shelf. As for Jane Austen, she would have found in its pages not only her own world, but other Regency worlds she probably never knew existed. And now, two hundred years later, so can we

Every page of The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain is crammed with enlightening information

Put away your Austen: this eye-popping microhistory spares no detail of the slums, squalor and bad dentistry of Regency Britain; a lost world springs from the page

'Excellent... Mortimer's erudition is formidable' The Times 
 
A time of exuberance, thrills, frills and unchecked bad behaviour...Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history - the Regency, or Georgian England. 
 
This is the age of Jane Austen and the Romantic poets; the paintings of John Constable and the gardens of Humphry Repton; Britain's military triumphs at Trafalgar and Waterloo. It was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. 
 
And like all periods in history, it was an age of many contradictions - where Beethoven's thundering Fifth Symphony could premier in the same year that saw Jane Austen craft the delicate sensitivities of Persuasion. 
 
This is history at its most exciting, physical, visceral - the past not as something to be studied but as lived experience. This is Ian Mortimer at the height of his time-travelling prowess. 
 
'Ian Mortimer has made this kind of imaginative time travel his speciality' Daily Mail

10 Centuries of Change on Earth

Human Race

A thrilling tour of a millenium of human innovation

Mortimer is an entertaining guide on this superb time-travel journey of human innovations

An ambitious study of the last millennium

An excellent romp through the past millennium of British (and particularly English) history… Highly entertaining, well written and packed with lively characters and surprising facts.

I loved this book... It will enable you to understand your past, your place in it and that of your ancestors as never before. A modern classic

Provocative and enjoyable... Almost every page of this engaging book sets your mind racing

Original and fascinating... It is a planetary ride which Mortimer offers us in his tour of ten centuries. It is exhilarating to time-travel with him

It feels as though he has put his heart and soul into it and readers of his other books will enjoy it for its scope and energy

Written in his usual accessible yet quirky style Mortimer proves his worth as the best upmarket tour guide to the hidden mysteries of the past that we have

On his whirlwind tour of western history through the part millennium, he takes his readers on an entertaining and thought-provoking journey

Smarten up your discussion technique with this fascinating book by a universally-known historian… This is history made real

This is an entertaining and thought-provoking book for anyone who likes to argue about history

In this brilliant idea for a book…Ian Mortimer treats us to an exhilarating time-travel ride

Perfect for history buffs or for those who want to know a little more about the world we live in

[Mortimer] draws a wide circle of investigation, employing his well-stocked mind, wide curiosity, verve, humour, telling turn of phrase and a proven ability to clarify and intrigue by making unlikely conjunctions and connections

We are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, woman’s rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition. 
 
Sweeping through the last thousand years of human development, Human Race is a treasure chest of the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, for better or worse, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no one could ever have predicted. 
 
But which of the last ten centuries saw the greatest changes in human history? 
 
History’s greatest tour guide, Ian Mortimer, knows what answer he would give. But what’s yours?

1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

An epic account of King Henry V and the legendary Battle of Agincourt, from the author of the bestselling Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England.

Ian Mortimer's 1415: Henry V's Year of Glory is compelling, exuberant and erudite - combining the vivid drama of medieval character and battle with the vigour of revisionist history

Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Young Stalin

Mortimer creates a new and convincing likeness of medieval England's most iconic king

Mortimer writes biographical history with formidable energy and panache... This is the most illuminating exploration of the reality of fifteenth-century life that I have ever read

Ian Mortimer... has virtually single-handedly put medieval history back in the hands of ordinary readers, combining scrupulous research with a wonderfully iconoclastic approach to storytelling

Ian Mortimer's decision to tell this story in diary format, giving us an almost day-by-day account, would not have suited every historical study, but in this instance was a stroke of genius. The danger would have been excess of extraneous detail, but Mortimer's instinct is superb and what we get instead is the mythical hero-king- immortalised by the Lawrence Olivier film- rendered suddenly human and close. 
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The immediacy of the format makes Henry real and flawed; a disturbing and compelling individual.

Mortimer creates a convincing new likeness

immerses the reader in the heady drama and the dull routine of a 15th century king's life

Dr Ian Mortimer is the author of the bestselling Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, eight other books and many peer-reviewed articles on English history between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was awarded the Alexander Prize (2004) for his work on the social history of medicine in seventeenth-century England. In June 2011, the University of Exeter awarded him a higher doctorate (D.Litt.) by examination, on the strength of his historical work. He also writes historical fiction, published under his middle names (James Forrester). He lives with his wife and three children on the edge of Dartmoor, in Devon. For further information about him and a full bibliography, see his website: www.ianmortimer.com.

Henry V is regarded as the great English hero. Lionised in his own day for his victory at Agincourt, his piety and his rigorous application of justice, he was elevated by Shakespeare into a champion of English nationalism for all future generations. But what was he really like? Does he deserve to be thought of as 'the greatest man who ever ruled England?' 
 
In Ian Mortimer's groundbreaking book, he portrays Henry in the pivotal year of his reign. Recording the dramatic events of 1415, he offers the fullest, most precise and least romanticised view we have of Henry and what he did. 
 
The result is not only a fascinating reappraisal of Henry; it brings to the fore many unpalatable truths which biographers and military historians have largely ignored. At the centre of the book is the campaign which culminated in the battle of Agincourt: a slaughter ground designed not to advance England's interests directly but to demonstrate God's approval of Henry's royal authority on both sides of the Channel.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England Brain Shot

BRAIN SHOTS: the byte-sized guide to a completely different world: England in the Middle Ages

Social history is popular enough but I have read nothing quite like this. It is written in the manner of an extremely well-informed but chatty guidebook...This is not only an unusual book, but a thoroughly engaging one

This superb "rough guide" to 14th century England takes a fresh approach to history by thinking of the past not as something simply to be studied, but as something to be lived.

Ian Mortimer has BA and PhD degrees in history from Exeter University and an MA in archive studies from University College London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998, and was awarded the Alexander Prize (2004) by the Royal Historical Society for his work on the social history of medicine. He is the author of three medieval biographies, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, and The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King, published in 2003, 2006 and 2007 respectively by Jonathan Cape. He lives with his wife and three children on the edge of Dartmoor.

The past is a foreign country: this is your guidebook. 
 
Imagine you could get into a time machine and travel back to the fourteenth century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? Should you go to a castle or a monastic guesthouse? And what are you going to eat? What sort of food are you going to be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? 
 
This is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: revolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail, and startling for its portrayal of humanity in an age of violence, exuberance and fear. 
 
BRAIN SHOTS: the byte-sized guide to a completely different world: England in the Middle Ages

The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March

The Greatest Traitor

The first biography of the evil genius and rebel baron who deposed and murdered Edward II.

Mortimer's book roars, races and sings... with a sense of passion and drama and an unrelenting pace

Ian Mortimer's exacting standards of scholarship mean that this book will undoubtedly remain the standard authority on its subject

Dr Ian Mortimer is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England and The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England, as well as four critically acclaimed medieval biographies, and numerous scholarly articles on subjects ranging in date from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. 
 
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998. His work on the social history of medicine won the Alexander Prize (2004) and was published by the Royal Historical Society in 2009. He lives with his wife and three children in Moretonhampstead, on the edge of Dartmoor.

The first biography of the rebel baron who deposed and murdered Edward II. 
 
One night in August 1323 a captive rebel baron, Sir Roger Mortimer, drugged his guards and escaped from the Tower of London. With the king's men-at-arms in pursuit he fled to the south coast, and sailed to France. There he was joined by Isabella, the Queen of England, who threw herself into his arms. A year later, as lovers, they returned with an invading army: King Edward II's forces crumbled before them, and Mortimer took power. He removed Edward II in the first deposition of a monarch in British history. Then the ex-king was apparently murdered, some said with a red-hot poker, in Berkeley Castle. 
 
 Brutal, intelligent, passionate, profligate, imaginative and violent: Sir Roger Mortimer was an extraordinary character. It is not surprising that the queen lost her heart to him. Nor is it surprising that his contemporaries were terrified of him. But until now no one has appreciated the full evil genius of the man. This first biography reveals not only the man's career as a feudal lord, a governor of Ireland, a rebel leader and a dictator of England but also the truth of what happened that night in Berkeley Castle. 
 
‘Mortimer's book roars, races and sings... with a sense of passion and drama and an unrelenting pace’ Daily Telegraph

The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation

The Perfect King

From the bestselling author of 1415, comes the story of King Edward III, who - like Elizabeth and Victoria after him - embodied the values of his age, forged a nation out of war and re-made England.

An excellent biography; entertaining as well as informative

A fascinating portrait.  At times, the reader seems almost able to reach across time and touch this man

In producing this fine biography, Mortimer has succeeded magnificently, and has gone a long, long way towards restoring Edward III to his proper place as one of the great makers of this nation

Ian Mortimer...has virtually single-handedly put medieval history back in the hands of ordinary readers, combining scrupulous research with a wonderfully iconoclastic approach to storytelling

Dr Ian Mortimer is the author of the bestselling Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England and Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, eight other books and many peer-reviewed articles on English history between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was awarded the Alexander Prize (2004) for his work on the social history of medicine in seventeenth-century England. In June 2011, the University of Exeter awarded him a higher doctorate (D.Litt.) by examination, on the strength of his historical work. He also writes historical fiction, published under his middle names (James Forrester). He lives with his wife and three children on the edge of Dartmoor, in Devon. For further information about him and a full bibliography, see his website: www.ianmortimer.com.

From the bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, comes the story of King Edward III, who - like Elizabeth and Victoria after him - embodied the values of his age, forged a nation out of war and re-made England. 
 
He ordered his uncle to be beheaded; he usurped his father's throne; he started a war which lasted for more than a hundred years, and taxed his people more than any other previous king. 
 
Nineteenth century historians saw in Edward the opportunity to decry a warmonger, and painted him as a self-seeking, rapacious, tax-gathering conqueror. Yet, in this first full study of the King's character and life, Dr Ian Mortimer unveils that behind the strong warrior king was a compassionate, conscientious and often merciful man - resolute yet devoted to his wife, friends and family, and the father of both the English nation and the English people. 
 
'A fascinating portrait. At times, the reader seems almost able to reach across time and touch this man' - The Economist

The Life of England's Self-Made King

The Fears of Henry IV

One of Britain's most gifted historians tackles the turbulent reign of Henry IV, bringing the first Lancastrian king back from obscurity

From the saviour of the realm to the subject of multiple attempted assassinations in the space of six years. King Henry IV's reign was characterised by his fear and paranoia, but above all a continued quest for survival. 
 
The son of John the Gaunt, Henry was seen as a confident, well-educated, generous, and spiritually fervent young man. And, in 1399, having ousted the insecure tyrannical Richard II, he was enthusiastically greeted as the new King of England. 
 
However, therein lay Henry's weakness. Upon assuming the crown, he found himself surrounded by men who would only support him as long as they could control him. When they failed, they plotted to kill him. 
 
Long characterised as a treacherous murderer for slaying Richard II, Henry IV's achievements as king have been played down throughout history. However, in this fascinating examination of his reign, Ian Mortimer revaluates what Henry managed to accomplish against all adversity as king. Provoking a social revolution as well as a political one, he took a poorly ruled nation into a new, Lancastrian dynasty, and, while perhaps not the most glorious king England has ever had, he certainly proves to one of the bravest. 
 
'[Mortimer] has... a vivid historical imagination which lends colour and excitement to his pages' Literary Review

[Mortimer] has an instinctive sympathy for the men about whom he writes, a real understanding of the mentalities of late medieval England, and a vivid historical imagination which lends colour and excitement to his pages

Mortimer's book is a success and tells an important story very well

[It] possesses the rare combination of clarity, liveliness, balanced judgement, erudition without pedantry, and scholarship founded on his own research among primary sources

The book is at its most compelling in conjuring a sense of place or occasion

In June 1405, King Henry IV stopped at a small Yorkshire manor house to shelter from a storm. That night he awoke screaming that traitors were burning his skin. His instinctive belief that he was being poisoned was understandable: he had already survived at least eight plots to dethrone or kill him in the first six years of his reign. 
 
Henry IV had not always been so unpopular. In his youth he had been a great chivalric champion and crusader. The son of John of Gaunt, he was courteous, confident, well-educated, generous, devoted to his family, musical and spiritually fervent. In 1399, at the age of thirty-two, he was enthusiastically greeted as the saviour of the realm when he ousted from power the insecure and tyrannical King Richard II. 
 
But therein lay Henry's weakness. He had to contend with men who supported him only as long as they could control him; when they failed, they plotted to kill him. Welsh, French and Scottish adversaries also tried to take advantage of his questionable right to the crown. Such overwhelming threats transformed him from a hero into a duplicitous murderer: a king prepared to go to any lengths to save his family and his throne. 
 
That legacy of unrest has defined Henry's subsequent reputation. Henry's notoriety in the sixteenth century was such that merely to write about him was to risk imprisonment in the Tower. Shakespeare was forced to downplay his achievements, and instead to present his adversary Richard II as the wronged man. But what Henry actually provoked was a social revolution as much as a political one. Against all the odds, he took a poorly ruled nation, established a new Lancastrian dynasty, and introduced the principle that a king must act in accordance with parliament. He might not have been the most glorious king England ever had, but he was one of the bravest, and certainly the greatest survivor of them all.

Ian Mortimer

This intimate portrait of a thousand-year sweep of England’s history that – through the architectural prism of one ordinary house – conjures up the lives of the long dead and offers insights into a seemingly unfathomable past. An intriguing and compelling book

Dan Cruickshank, author of The English House

This book tells the story of Mearsdon, the house where Ian Mortimer lives in Moretonhampstead, on the edge of Dartmoor. We very rarely have a continuous account of a particular place over a long stretch of history, but Mortimer has a documentary record of all the owners who lived there since the 1260s – although the origins of the building probably date back to the eleventh century. 
 
Blending the broadest national history and the most intimate local events with a description of changing daily life from the Norman Conquest to the present day, Mortimer acquaints us with the people who passed through the house – from its first known owner, John the Palmer, to the folklore collector Charlie Laycock, who turned the house into a museum in the early twentieth century, to Mortimer’s family living there today. And along the way he shows how national events – from the Black Death to the Prayerbook Rebellion, from the Civil Wars to the two world wars – affected a rural community in deepest Devon over a time span of 900 years. 
 
The result is fascinating social history like no other. Bringing to it the brilliant imagination and storytelling gifts that made his Time Traveller’s Guides such a huge success, Mortimer introduces us to lords and merchants, ale brewers and peasants, clergymen and murderers, to create a continuously evolving story. Seeing through its windows, we not only glimpse at the people who lived in the house over the ages; we also see through their eyes as they look out at the changing world around them.

Ian Mortimer

Praise for Through the Windows of an Ordinary House: A History of England

This intimate portrait of a thousand-year sweep of England’s history that – through the architectural prism of one ordinary house – conjures up the lives of the long dead and offers insights into a seemingly unfatho ...

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Ian Mortimer’s Time Traveller’s Guides

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