Daisy, Princess of Pless, 1873-1943: A Discovery Book

First off - this isn't quite the political overview of England as it's title would suggest. If you're coming into medieval English history with no background, I'd recommend starting somewhere else (or, maybe even better, keeping a good genealogical chart on hand). This one is a little light on the factual details and assumes you know the general outline of who everyone was and generally what they did. You won't get a meticulous outline of the precise claims to the throne held by Stephen and Matilda or a detailed breakdown of John's financial misfortunes.

With that in mind, this is a really fun book and avoids lots of the pitfalls that sometimes plague more traditional political overviews. First off, it's a fun read and it presents a reasonable amount of information to take in. Lots of political histories rapidly turn into huge info dumps that make reading it in more than small pieces nearly impossible without having all the facts slip right out of your head a few days after finishing. This book isn't going to tell you every detail about English government. But it does present its chosen information really well and very engagingly, and you'll probably remember most of it. It's all structured around the idea presented in the subtitle - that English history at this point was shaped by periods of foreign influence through the Normans, the Angevins, and the Poitevins, but that simultaneously an increasing idea of 'Englishness' was starting to emerge. It's not a perfect structure, but it does give the book a nice sense of cohesion.

It does a couple of specific things really well. Clanchy is very good at presenting various sides of a debate. English history is full of contentious subjects (the importance of the Norman conquest, whether John was an idiot or not) and this work does a nice job of outlining the different schools of thought in a fair way without seeming wishy-washy. Clanchy is fairly opinionated, and is open about that, but he does a nice job of presenting both sides. That said, if you want a nice and traditional trashing of John or Henry III, this is probably not the book for you.

Clanchy also does a really nice job of bringing in chronicle sources. They often get ignored by historians for being biased - which is a fair point - but they're still the best way to get at the heart of a time period and what (a very specific group of) people thought about what was going on. So the fact that Clanchy brings in contemporary opinions in addition to the modern interpretations of each monarch not only makes for a more balanced and source-based take on the matter, but it's also just really interesting. Medieval chroniclers are loads of fun, and tell some great stories. It also allows for some nice little asides about how English writers / chronicles varied from their continental counterparts (spoiler alert: they tended to be especially sarcastic).

Also, Clanchy unsurprisingly does a great job of demonstrating how language affected English government during the period (Clanchy's more famous book, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066 - 1307, delves more deeply into this idea). There are great little asides about the development of the English language and how simply writing stuff down drastically changed how government functioned.

Overall, not a comprehensive introduction, but a good and readable one.