Henry: V

Legend—popularized by Shakespeare—paints the young prince as a riotous wastrel, running with the infamous Sir John Falstaff in the taverns of Eastcheap, roistering and thieving before miraculously transforming into a sober king. The historical record is less theatrical but more interesting. Young Henry was, in fact, a seasoned military commander by his teens, fighting the Welsh rebels under Owain Glyndŵr and proving himself a ruthlessly effective soldier. If he had a wild streak, he kept it carefully hidden beneath a cloak of Lancastrian duty. When his father died in 1413, Henry V inherited a poisoned chalice: a crown insecure, a treasury depleted, and a nobility still nursing old grudges. Yet the new king moved with breathtaking speed. He reburied the murdered Richard II with royal honors to heal old wounds, arrested his own friends (the so-called "Southampton Plot conspirators") without mercy, and united the warring factions of the Lancastrian and Yorkist houses behind a single, galvanizing goal: war with France .

What followed was not a battle but a slaughter. Arrows flew at a rate of ten per second, turning the French cavalry into pincushions. Knights in full plate armor drowned in the mud, suffocated under the weight of fallen comrades, or were dispatched by English archers wielding lead mallets. Henry, fighting in the thick of the melee, took a blow to the helmet that nearly felled him—but he stood his ground. Henry V

By 1420, the French were broken. The Treaty of Troyes was one of the most astonishing documents in medieval history: Henry V was named heir to the French throne, disinheriting the Dauphin (the French prince). He married Catherine of Valois, the French king’s daughter. For a brief, brilliant moment, it seemed that England and France would be united under one crown. But history is cruel to conquerors. Henry V never sat on the throne of France. While campaigning against holdouts loyal to the Dauphin, he fell ill—likely with dysentery—at the siege of Meaux. He died on August 31, 1422, at the age of just 35. If he had a wild streak, he kept