Despite its many peculiar and violent turns, Sumption tells us the story straight. His skill throughout all three volumes so far has been to treat the conflict as a civil war between kingdoms that were intimately connected by blood, culture and history. The European context — lacking in many studies of this period — is at the heart of his work. The action shifts seamlessly from the Scottish marches to the plains of Navarre and the papal states and captures the experience of ceaseless, vicious war at every level of society.
In its breadth, political acumen and adherence to the art of simple storytelling, this is History with a capital H. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, Sumption would have been in good company. But there’s no getting away from the fact that this volume alone is a 1,006-page account of a mere 30-year interim between more exciting episodes in a distant war. It’s the sort of commercial nightmare that no mainstream publisher except for Faber would consider. I have no idea how, even at £40 a pop, it will be possible for anyone to turn a buck on this book.
Yet these are vulgar thoughts. What Sumption is producing is a monumental and complete work. When this history is finished, there will be no need of another for at least a generation. Everyone else may as well pack up.
The only question that remains is when he will get around to finishing his masterpiece. Volume I appeared in 1990. It is now out of print, though you can buy it on Amazon and eBay. Volume II came out in 1997. Sumption had better get his skates on. At the rate he’s going there will have to be five or, like Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, six volumes. He has a busy day-job, but at this rate we won’t see his brilliant story completed until some time in the 2030s.
Then again, that may not be a bad thing. Even Sumption’s youngest readers will, by then, be wondering what on earth to do during their impending retirement. Well, here’s the answer.
Dan Jones’s Summer of Blood: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 will be published on 30 April (Harper Press, £20).
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