| dc.description.abstract | The intent behind Blood Cries Afar: The Forgotten Invasion of England 1216 was to be the
first book to study the French invasion of England in 1216 and the first to offer a military
narrative and analysis of its events. In completing the study, a clear understanding is
conveyed of the course of fragmented and frequently confusing and neglected events.
The large French expeditionary force that landed in England in May 1216 allied with
baronial rebels against King John to divide the country for eighteen months. For a year the
French occupied and ruled the richest one-third of England, including the capital, London
(which remained in their hands for the entire duration of the occupation). At one point, as
many as two-thirds of the English baronage recognised the French leader, Prince Louis (heir
to the Capetian throne in France) as their monarch; King Alexander II of Scotland travelled to
Dover to pay homage to him as King Louis I of England. The invasion was ended by military
means, not political ones.
The neglect of this major invasion event, which came close to being a second Norman
Conquest, is a telling one. In part this is due to its events unfolding over the end of King
John’s reign the start of and Henry III’s (as a minor), and also because it remains in the
shadow of Magna Carta from a year earlier. Thus in the few places where the invasion has
been investigated, its treatment has been partial, disjointed and brief. This book shows how it
was that a succession of military events led to the point that the French were able to launch a
full-scale invasion and how the invasion and subsequent occupation was defeated militarily.
In so doing, it emphasizes strongly the primacy of military events over political and
diplomatic ones, and offers a detailed analysis of campaigning in the early thirteenth century.
It offers the most comprehensive account and analysis of a number of engagements, some of
which have been almost completely neglected or overlooked entirely.
The book also offers fresh insights, context and arguments on the following: Richard
I’s and England’s foreign policy; the military leadership of King John; the first re-issue of
Magna Carta; Louis’ campaign and planned last-stand; the fluidity of castle warfare; ravaging
as a precision weapon; the impact on non-combatants and the role of atrocity; the importance
of the invasion to nascent English identity. But most of all, its chief significance is that it
offers the first, full-length and military study of events that dominated England from the
sealing of Magna Carta in June 1215 to the end of the invasion in September 1217. | en_GB |
