Shadow King cover art

Shadow King

The Life and Death of Henry VI

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Shadow King

By: Lauren Johnson
Narrated by: Jennifer Ness
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £19.99

Buy Now for £19.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A thrilling new account of the tragic life and troubled times of Henry VI.

Firstborn son of a warrior father who defeated the French at Agincourt, Henry VI of the House Lancaster inherited the crown not only of England but also of France, at a time when Plantagenet dominance over the Valois dynasty was at its glorious height. And yet, by the time he was done to death in the Tower of London in 1471, France was lost, his throne had been seized by his rival, Edward IV of the House of York, and his kingdom had descended into the violent chaos of the Wars of the Roses.

Henry VI is perhaps the most troubled of English monarchs, a pious, gentle, well-intentioned man who was plagued by bouts of mental illness. In Shadow King, Lauren Johnson tells his remarkable and sometimes shocking story in a fast-paced and colourful narrative that captures both the poignancy of Henry's life and the tumultuous and bloody nature of the times in which he lived.

©2019 Lauren Johnson (P)2020 Head of Zeus Europe Great Britain Historical Politics & Activism Royalty England France Tudor King War

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Winter King cover art
Edward II cover art
The Norman Conquest cover art
Richard II cover art
Lancaster and York cover art
The Thirty Years War cover art
The White Ship cover art
A Brief History of Britain 1066-1485 cover art
The Burgundians cover art
The Dissolution of the Monasteries cover art
King of the North Wind cover art
The Count of Virtue cover art
Crécy cover art
Devil-Land cover art
The Red Prince cover art
The Borgias cover art

Critic reviews

“The best life of Henry VI now in print.” (Dan Jones)

“Vivid, absorbing and richly detailed.” (Helen Castor)

“A well-crafted moving account of a tragic reign.” (Michael Jones)

All stars
Most relevant
An excellent biography of one of England's (and briefly France's) most out of their depth kings, which does a very good job of balancing the Yorkist viewpoint at the same time.

My only gripe is the baffling performance of the narrator. Her voice is pleasant and clear, however she randomly stops mid sentence to pause for no apparent reason, giving a weirdly stilted William Shatner style cadence. There are also several inconsistent pronunciations, most notably with Burgundy variously going by "Bur-gun-dee", "Bun-gun-dee", and "Bah-gur-dee". Several French place names are said with over the top French accents while others sound like Del-Boy trying to say them. There's also a weird habit of mixing up the Henries and Edwards (somewhat understandable with there being so many involved in this story) but at one point Henry VI is stated as going up his adversary "Henry IV" - his long dead grandfather who he never met - instead of "Edward IV", the cousin who stole his crown.

Fair enough, mistakes can be made and no one is truly perfect, but this was more than the odd mistake here and there - it was consistent throughout. It does almost seem as though the audio might have been rushed through without being fully reviewed.

Excellent Book, Weird Performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a wonderful work about a decent well meaning man who led England to ruin both politically and militarily. The author does an excellent job of combining empathy for Henry as an individual and the circumstances he inherited with an unsparing evaluation of his utter failure to address any of the problems facing England. I have read/listened to many books on wars of York and Lancaster and this book ranks up there as one of the very best. Henry is placed squarely in the context of his times and all the leading protagonists are also. In the end you end up feeling sorry for most of the people who tried and tried to make a success of Henry's reign and to maintain the House of Lancaster in power. Even the Yorkist lords appear to have tried but Henry was just never going to be even a semi competent king. But it does provide the basis for a wonderful work of both scholarship and biography

Stunning biography of a terrible King

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting book , enjoyed the listen, performance is excellent. Highly recommend this book if you love medieval history.

Performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The content is terrific but there are a few problems with the performance. Whilst the voice of Jennifer Ness is easy to listen to, and then itself very pleasing and not at all irritating, there are problems with pronunciation. Alnwick is pronounced as it is spelled and not as it should be, a·nuhk. Anselm is Anslem. I know this sounds picky, but over the length of the book, repeated mispronunciations do become very irritating. Surely there is a producer who can put the narrator right on these things. Surely the author listens to it and offers feedback. There are many more examples that don’t jump to mind. I really can’t blame the narrator who reads beautifully otherwise. But the producer must check out these pronunciations.

Well researched but a few problems with the performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found the silly voices used by the narrator very irritating. Also her constant mispronunciation of places such as "Alnwick" grated on my nerves. Her halting delivery was a distraction, putting pauses halfway through sentences making them disjointed also rankled. Such a shame as the book was thorough and well written.

Awful narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found Shadow King to be a very accessible telling of the life of Henry VI. I've read quite a few histories of this period and often found them to be impenetrable, the Wars of the Roses can be very confusing blur of names and titles. I feel the success of Johnson's book lies in her ability to look at Henry VI as a person, and through trying to understand the man it makes it far easier to understand the turbulent period that he ruled over (and didn't when he was incarcerated!).The clearly extensive research is also complemented and brought to life by Johnson's natural storytelling. My only slight quibble would be with some of the pronunciations of names and places, but in the grand scheme of things that's a very small quibble indeed. I would highly recommend Shadow King

Engaging exploration of this troubled King

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very well performed. I thought I knew my History, no idea that Henry directly involved.

Unexpectedly Fascinating.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What a great book. Lesser known history narrated brilliantly and written in an engaging way. Can recommend!

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Such a great listen and love that each chapter is not too over long.

Great listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It is understandable if a writer is slightly biased towards their subject; however, in this case it was so much so that it became irritating and twisted some facts as well. Everything bad or negative thing is Yorkist propaganda, and she makes out the Yorkists as ruthless monsters. Based on this book, Henry was an unfortunate man, victim of circumstances, nothing whatsoever was his fault. Full of double standards, when the Yorkists executed Lancastrians, it was unjust and cruel, when it was the other way around, it's sad but just. At this point I almost stopped listening. Even if you have sympathy for someone, you should still at least try to be impartial I think.
The performance was not too bad, sometimes she mispronounced words, but that didn't bother me too much.
If you want a more full and less biased picture about Henry and the Wars of the roses, look for another books.

Biased

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews