The mystique of Henry V remains as powerful as ever

A rare portrait of King Henry V of England painted in the early 16th century shows him in profile. This unusual angle may have served two purposes. One was as a rather outdated emulation of Italian profile portraiture, with its blunt references to the might of imperial Rome; the other was to hide a disfiguring scar from a dangerous wound suffered at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.

Henry was only 16 at the time of the battle, and it was a brutal way to earn his spurs. An arrow had penetrated his cheek six inches and lodged at the back of his skull. He was lucky to have survived both the wound and its treatment. But Henry was on the winning side; the defeated forces of Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy were cut down ruthlessly.

Dan Jones begins, ends and frequently refers to this occasion in his adrenalin-fuelled biography of Henry V – understandably. This was a decisive moment in the young Henry’s extraordinary life, in which his future mercilessness matched his achievements. Indeed, a unique feature of this account is that half of it is devoted to Henry’s formative years.

Written in the historic present, it is a labour of love – not necessarily for Henry’s character, but for his fascinating life and deeds. Jones’s Henry is the king of popular renown, an unsurpassed soldier and general, but also someone prone to contradictions, and misjudgments of those closest to him. This makes him all the more interesting as a ruler and a high-achieving, if flawed, man.

There is an element of insecurity, too, in this most resolute of characters. His Lancastrian father, Henry IV, was a usurper, who almost certainly had the Yorkist King Richard II murdered, thus creating the origins of the Wars of the Roses.