In this important new work Ian Mortimer examines some of the most controversial questions in medieval history, including whether Edward II was murdered, his possible later life in Italy, the weakness of the Lancastrian claim to the throne in 1399 and the origins of the idea of the royal pretender. Central to this book is his ground-breaking approach to medieval evidence. He explains how an information-based method allows a more certain reading of a series of texts. He criticises existing modes of arriving at consensus and outlines a process of historical analysis that ultimately leads to questioning historical doubts as well as historical facts, with profound implications for what we can say about the past with certainty. This is an important work from one of the most original and popular medieval historians writing today.

Ian Mortimer is the author of the bestselling The Time-Traveller's Guide to Medieval England. He holds BA, PhD and DLitt degrees from the University of Exeter and an MA in archive studies from UCL. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (by whom he was awarded the Alexander Prize in 2004), and has worked for the Historical Manuscripts Commission and the universities of Exeter and Reading. Among his other publications are a series of four interlinked historical biographies collectively covering English politics 1300-1415 and a revolutionary study of medicine in seventeenth-century England.