Unruly: The Number One Bestseller ‘Horrible Histories for grownups’ The Times

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CLEVER, FUNNY, MAKES YOU THINK QUITE DIFFERENTLY ABOUT HISTORY' DAN SNOW, HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER The psychological impact of this was particularly tough on Henry VI and, at the news of the collapse of England’s position in France, he too collapsed and was reduced to an inert blob, needing to be fed and washed and moved about for over a year. Worryingly the country was better governed during that year than at any other time during the reign.

Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts You may be thinking that there’s more about James Bond in this extract than you expected. Sorry. But my point is that giving Bond a sad and lonely end casts a shadow over every other moment in his life that we’ve seen portrayed. Everything Bond undergoes in every other film – every moment of suavity, action, humour or seduction – is happening to a man destined to die young, heartbroken and alone. CLEVER, AMUSING, GLORIOUSLY BIZARRE AND RAZOR SHARP. MITCHELL – A FUNNY MAN AND A SKILLED HISTORIAN – TELLS STORIES THAT ARE INTERESTING AND FUN. HERE IS HORRIBLE HISTORIES FOR GROWNUPS’ GERARD DEGROOT, THE TIMES This article was amended on 16 October 2023 to remove a reference that was inconsistent with the Guardian’s style guidelines. The book was very well researched and was written in a mostly engaging way, some of the info is complicated if you are not already into medieval history but this book made it easy to read and understand. It seems like he has researched the topic well. He also draws some interesting conclusions about the time. All in all this was a five star experience of a book to readDogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. I can't recommend this book enough. Very funny and interesting, it is above all a proper work of history' - Charlie Higson Just to repeat, David Mitchell is a comedian and an actor, NOT a historian* and as the title suggests, this is a ridiculous book, NOT a serious one. The stories he is telling us -starting from nonexistent, mythical King Arthur and finishing with Elizabeth I - are still mostly accurate, but as they are viewed through the lens of the 21st century, they are also out-of-context, incomplete and incongruous. It's a given. Mitchell is openly judgmental, uses the benefit of hindsight mercilessly and serves it all with lots of scathing humour and swearing. Edward’s penchant for forceful solutions extended into the administrative arena where, Mitchell suggests, he waged a “war on nuance”. The same could be said of Mitchell’s portrayal of a sovereign whose reform of English law and currency mark him out as one of our nation’s most complex and important. This doesn’t really matter, though: like many of the characterisations in Unruly: A History of England’s Kings and Queens, presenting Edward as the medieval world’s answer to Robin Smith is accurate enough, and strikes a lively alliance between those oldest of enemies: good humour and narrative history. I wasn't expecting or hoping that this would be a serious book after all i have seen DM on the box i thought i was in for an account steaming with the wry sarcasm we know him for, somthing along the lines of Terry Jones fabulous history books of perhaps the humor of the horrible history's.

I don’t think anyone other than David Mitchell could have written this book. It’s clever, funny and makes you think quite differently about history we thought we knew’ DAN SNOW, HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER If you are interested in what he really thinks, I very much recommend reading his book or -as I did- listening to him narrating it. It was a great experience. Mitchell clearly knows his history, with a book that owes as much to Monty Python as it does to Simon Schama' - Andrew MarrA later ruler, King Stephen, owed his throne to the time he spent quivering in a bog – and in this case I mean a privy. Had he, as an ambitious minor prince, not suffered a sudden, violent bout of food poisoning while on board a ship in Barfleur harbour in 1120, he wouldn’t have disembarked before it headed into the Channel and sank. Everyone on the ship died except for a solitary Norman butcher, and among the watery dead was the heir to the throne. So, when King Henry I died 15 years later, Stephen’s path to kingship had been cleared by diarrhoea. He hurried to Westminster and got himself crowned, then had one of the most unsuccessful reigns in English history, entirely dominated by a savage civil war. It’s also fair to say that, although he is not a doctorate level historian, Mitchell’s depth of knowledge about the history of his country is impressive. On Norton’s chat show, he mentioned that writing the book became his obsession during the pandemic. It shows. His exposition of the details of each monarch’s rein is extraordinary, especially given the number of the players who shared a name. There are lots of Edwards, Henrys, and Richards, as well as a few Matildas, Elizabeths, Marys, and Margarets. How this happened, who it happened to and why the hell it matters in twenty-first-century Britain are all questions David answers with brilliance, wit and the full erudition of a man who once studied history - and is damned if he'll let it off the hook for the mess it's made of everything. Discover who we are and how we got here by listening to comedian and student of history David Mitchell's UNRULY: A History of England's Kings and Queens - a thoughtful, funny exploration of the founding fathers and mothers of England, and subsequently Britain.

CLEVER, FUNNY, MAKES YOU THINK QUITE DIFFERENTLY ABOUT HISTORY’ DAN SNOW, HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER A funny book about a serious subject, UNRULY is for anyone who has ever wondered how we got here – and who is to blame. Between 1880 to 1920, British colonial policies in India claimed more lives than all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China and North Korea combined. Who knew a history of England’s rulers could be this hilarious? A brilliantly entertaining romp through monarchs’ i

Whilst the length means that Mitchell cannot go into the intricacies of his period, he makes sure to investigate in greater detail some very interesting elements in every period he covers. This is also brilliant if you are looking for your next obsession... as we are given a test for every point of time in England from the legend of Arthur all the way to the death of Elizabeth I. Discover who we are and how we got here in comedian and student of history David Mitchell's Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens - a thoughtful, funny exploration of the founding fathers and mothers of England, and subsequently Britain. Forget about an audiobook, Mitchell ought to do a video in which he, in character as Mark Corrigan from Peep Show, poshly declaims while pacing his shoebox Croydon flat. He might particularly enjoy reading this passage about why it’s unnecessary to decide between the awfulness of King Stephen and Queen Matilda: “They were both twats. They may not have been able to help being twats – the mores and values of their times and of their class may have made them twats. But they were twats and terrible things happened as a result.” How this happened, who it happened to and why it matters in modern Britain are all questions David answers with brilliance, wit and the full erudition of a man who once studied history – and won’t let it off the hook for the mess it’s made. Still, our ends often overshadow us. History bristles with examples of people who died in poverty despite being great artists or musicians or having invented vulcanised rubber. The penurious demise casts a pall over their achievements. It can make their efforts seem futile – those people get defined by the injustice of fate. Similarly when the people meeting grisly ends are nasty, we can feel that justice has been done – but that doesn’t make sense either. What happened to Adolf Hitler in the end was no less than he deserved, but it didn’t restore justice. It didn’t make everything OK.