Anyone who has read Shakespeare’s immortal “chronicle plays” is sure: King Edward III was a model of nobility, Richard III was an unprincipled murderer, the frivolous and charming Henry V was a brilliant commander, Henry VI was a gullible simpleton. But what does all this have to do with it? has to do with historical reality? In his study “The History of England and Shakespeare's Kings,” which is equally interesting for historians and literary scholars, as well as for everyone familiar with the works of Shakespeare, Sir John Julius Norwich analyzes how authentic the images of English monarchs of the 14th–15th centuries are correspond to the interpretation of the great playwright.