The King Without a Kingdom

The King Without a Kingdom
Maurice Druon

‘This was the original GAME OF THRONES’ George R.R. MartinAvailable for the first time in English, THE KING WITHOUT A KINGDOM is the seventh and final volume of The Accursed Kings series.The reign of the Capetian kings has ended and John II, ‘The Good’, second of the Valois dynasty, has taken the throne.Under his leadership the Hundred Years War, one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts in history, escalates and England and France begin to tear each other apart.Cardinal Périgord, narrating the drama, shows us a monarch as vain and cruel as he is incompetent. Under his turbulent reign, warring factions plunder the land, famine threatens the people and the Black Death spreads far and wide. France is bleeding to death around the new king.

Copyright (#ulink_e261b6f6-5fe2-51a4-8874-a9128787a6f6)

HarperVoyager an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Maurice Druon 1977

This translation copyright © Andrew Simpkin 2014

First published in French as Quand un Roi perd la France

Cover Layout Design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Jacket digital illustration © Patrick Knowles

Jacket photograph © Antiquarian Images (map)

Maurice Druon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007491377

Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780008159443

Version: 2016-03-01

Epigraph (#ulink_742f80c7-9bca-583c-8249-c51322d1059e)

‘Our longest war, the Hundred Years War, was merely a legal debate, interspersed with occasional bouts of armed warfare’

PAUL CLAUDEL

Contents

Cover (#u7330f638-a263-5fb2-bacb-0786ec75e256)

Title Page (#u379d5c78-2c42-5f13-bb68-97f8762a15bc)

Copyright (#ub2776626-68bc-5423-bf09-3bc3e793b59a)

Epigraph (#u7f4d70f5-16f4-57b7-8858-a07fbcaad871)

Foreword (#u8385e567-5373-5338-90bc-27a62a406250)

Author’s Acknowledgements (#u32113964-a7a5-5cd5-aa4b-0ada0e43dec8)

Family Tree (#ua21c517f-9333-5b5d-bcda-7666f4f00cd3)

Map (#uf1804d23-b1d8-5ac2-b0c2-54a44e8c649e)

Prologue (#ua82e6d46-53b3-548c-ba28-d59bcb81e4ce)

Part One: Misfortunes Come From Long Ago (#u60c4439c-e045-5f21-aa4c-11f5b5b6cb51)

1. The Cardinal of Périgord thinks … (#u542440e0-5ea3-520c-97cc-843771fe08eb)

2. The Cardinal of Périgord speaks (#u75a4df5d-a55a-5d28-9b77-7da5338e0f85)

3. Death knocks on every door (#u2a81106d-4f98-5f10-8391-97f4c1ec58fd)

4. The Cardinal and the Stars (#u8b08b81c-b74b-545f-8f98-585631fc9ca2)

5. The Beginnings of the King they call The Good (#ub70f3102-234f-554d-a7c7-c1933961225a)

6. The Beginnings of the King they call The Bad (#u7a68fa80-825e-5c9a-baa5-2cad0503da35)

7. News from Paris (#u632e739c-5607-54fe-9ea0-12cc9611e0fe)

8. The Treaty of Mantes (#ub4b06b04-5e9c-5a64-98cf-45a7a8865420)

9. The Bad in Avignon (#litres_trial_promo)

10. The Annus Horribilis (#litres_trial_promo)

11. The Kingdom Cracks (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Two: The Banquet of Rouen (#litres_trial_promo)

1. Exemptions and Benefits (#litres_trial_promo)

2. The Anger of the King (#litres_trial_promo)