Books by Christopher Given-Wilson

This series [pushes] the boundaries of knowledge and [develops] new trends in approach and understanding. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW

'He seems to have laboured under an almost child-like misapprehension about the size of his world. Had greatness not been thrust upon him, he might have lived a life of great harmlessness.'The reign of Edward II was a succession of disasters. Unkingly, inept in war, and in thrall to favourites, he preferred digging ditches and rowing boats to the tedium of government. His infatuation with a young Gascon nobleman, Piers Gaveston, alienated even the most natural supporters of the crown. Hoping to lay the ghost of his soldierly father, Edward I, he invaded Scotland and suffered catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. After twenty ruinous years, betrayed and abandoned by most of his nobles and by his wife and her lover, Edward was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle and murdered - the first English king since the Norman Conquest to be deposed.

Fresh approaches to one of the most important poems from medieval Scotland.

The priorities of medieval chroniclers and historians were not those of the modern historian, nor was the way that they gathered, arranged and presented evidence. This book examines how medieval writers such as William of Malmesbury and Adam of Usk treated chronology and geography, politics and warfare, heroes and villains.