Timothy Venning, An Alternative History of Britain: The Hundred Years War (Krug)

Timothy Venning

An Alternative History of Britain: The Hundred Years War

(Pen & Sword, 2013) 256pp.  £19.99/$39.95

100 Years War

The title of Venning’s series, An Alternative History of Britain, may be somewhat misleading; Venning’s goal is not to create some sort of alternative narrative of the Hundred Years War derived from the fabrication of ahistorical realities. Rather, Venning attempts to reassess the Hundred Years War by posing questions that challenge our understanding of not only what happened, but also the relative significance of the underlying realities – both nuanced and sweeping – that dictated the ways in which history did unfold.

Venning begins with a brief introduction, in which he presents an overview of the conflict as well as some of the pertinent questions pursued in later chapters. The book is organized into five chapters corresponding to the reigns of the English kings involved in the war: Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI. Each chapter begins with a general question (e.g. “what if Richard II had not succeeded as a ten-year-old?”) and then is subdivided into sections that further dissect and analyze key situations or dilemmas of the reign (e.g. “The Ricardian collapse: what if Richard had fled rather than surrender?). Venning’s chapters are dense, and assume a high level of familiarity with the details of the Hundred Years War; someone lacking this knowledge would find the book challenging to follow. Indeed, Venning demonstrates a mastery of the main secondary and primary sources (though the constant misspelling of W.M. Ormrod’s name as “Ormerod” in the notes and bibliography is quite jarring and one hopes it is merely a result of poor copy editing). However, the book lacks a conclusion and thus ends rather abruptly without a reiteration to the reader of Venning’s overall goal for his book, or the contribution of his methodological approach to the corpus of scholarly investigations of the Hundred Years War.

Questions concerning “what if [name of important person] hadn’t died” appear to occupy much of Venning’s analysis. The first chapter concludes with a lengthy exposition of the impact of the survival and succession to the throne of the Black Prince, to whom Venning refers in this section as “Edward IV”; Venning posits that with the Black Prince on the throne, both domestic and foreign crises that plagued Richard II’s reign may have been mitigated (31-38). Venning indulges in this sort of “what if” scenario in chapter three more than in any other chapter. Much – perhaps too much – of the chapter is predicated on the premise of Richard II not dying in 1399. By extrapolating from this alternate historical reality, Venning at the very least diminishes the significance of several of the major events and developments under Henry IV, or hypothesizes entirely different outcomes, such as a Ricardian-backed rebel victory in 1405 leading to the deposition of Henry (96).  Venning later applies this same scrutiny to the effects of Henry V’s early death: had Henry lived, what would the long-term impact be, particularly for the Tudors? Here Venning’s musings extend to the possibility that Henry could have taken a mistress – possibly Welsh – and fathered children with better claims to the English throne than the Tudor line (198). On the other hand, at times Venning does raise stimulating questions that can be addressed without resorting to alternative history, such as positing whether the war was even winnable for the English after 1422, regardless of whether Henry V had lived, due to concerns over resources (135). The last three chapters suffer somewhat from the repetition of certain details. For example, the author notes at least three times in chapter four that Henry V’s birthplace was Chinon, and similarly repeatedly mentions the inability of early-fifteenth-century cannons to be effectively decisive in sieges.

Examining the possible ramifications of changed historical realities may shed additional light on the pivotal role certain events or developments played in the actual history of the Hundred Years War, and indeed may provoke additional questions and discussion about the significance of key contributing historical elements of this period. However, seeking to create alternative scenarios is not altogether productive, and Venning fails to articulate clearly either the value of his methodological approach to the study of the Hundred Years War or the new contribution his book provides to the body of extant scholarship.

Ilana Krug
York College of Pennsylvania
[email protected]

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