When treason was the last resort

One hundred and fifty years after Anglo-Saxon England was invaded by the Normans, Anglo-Norman England was invaded by the French. On 21 May 1216 King Philip Augustus’ eldest son, Louis the Lion, landed at Stonor on the Isle of Thanet, kissed a crucifix, planted it in the ground and began an 18-month war for the English crown. He had been invited to England by a group of barons who wished to replace King John as punishment for repudiating the terms of Magna Carta. The war Louis waged, although ultimately unsuccessful, was a damned near thing.

Sean McGlynn’s new book calls this England’s ‘forgotten invasion’, although in recent years Hollywood has been trying to remind people about it. The climax to Ridley Scott’s recent Robin Hood movie had Russell Crowe mugging about on Dover beach, fighting off the French hordes; Jonathan English’s rather better Ironclad was set around the violent siege of Rochester castle the autumn before Louis’s arrival.