His main European opponent, Charles V, ruled the Spanish and Holy Roman empires and had designs on Italy, which were shared by France’s Francis I. Though an “outsider” and the sole non-Christian, he shared their aims: expanding his realm through a bankrupting series of wars, persecuting dissenting sects, and killing rivals. The most powerful was Suleiman the Magnificent. Neither overly intelligent nor humane, they promoted the well-being of their subjects if it didn’t interfere with their personal desires.
All of them reigned long and died in their beds. British polymath, TV personality, and historian Norwich ( Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History, 2015, etc.) delivers lively biographies of all four characters. In fact, their energy and Europe’s turbulence were nothing new, but they were fascinating figures: France’s King Francis I, England’s King Henry VIII, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Suleiman the Magnificent, leader of the Ottoman Empire. With a cast list that extends from Leonardo da Vinci to Barbarossa, and from Joanna the Mad to le roi grand-nez, John Julius Norwich offers the perfect guide to the most colourful century the world has ever known and brings the past to unforgettable life.In the decades after 1500, four energetic rulers jockeyed for pre-eminence in a turbulent Europe. Individually, each man could hardly have been more different – from the scandals of Henry’s six wives to Charles’s monasticism – but, together, they dominated the world stage.įrom the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a pageant of jousting, feasting and general carousing so lavish that it nearly bankrupted both France and England, to Suleiman’s celebratory pyramid of 2,000 human heads (including those of seven Hungarian bishops) after the battle of Mohács from Anne Boleyn’s six-fingered hand (a potential sign of witchcraft) that had the pious nervously crossing themselves to the real story of the Maltese falcon, Four Princes is history at its vivid, entertaining best. Each looms large in his country’s history and, in this book, John Julius Norwich broadens the scope and shows how, against the rich background of the Renaissance and destruction of the Reformation, their wary obsession with one another laid the foundations for modern Europe.
Four great princes - Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France, Charles V of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent – were born within a single decade.
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