Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption

"It is one of the paradoxes of England’s medieval history that in spite of its strong central institutions it was known mainly for its chronic political instability."

"Success is admirable in a king, but failure is compelling and usually better recorded."

"The Tuscan poet Dante Alighieri had a simple explanation for England’s problematic status in fourteenth-century Europe. The difficulty, he thought, lay in their national character. The English were a proud and covetous people, ever eager for conquest and incapable of remaining peaceably within their own borders. Dante’s opinion echoed the conventional sentiment of his day, which regarded England as a society to which violence and aggression came naturally."

"Charles understood better than his father or his adversary that the chief material of war was money."

"Finance was always Edwards III’s weak point. He had little understanding of the problems of taxation or credit and was bored by administration. He tended to fund his enterprises on a hand-to-mouth basis, without budgets or forecasts."

"He had achieved spectacular victories in the field and in the conference chamber. But the treaty of Brétigny, which marked the high point of his achievement, could never have represented a permanent settlement. The circumstances which produced it were too extraordinary. So Edward was condemned to see thirty years of conquest reversed in less than five. After a lifetime devoted to conquest in Scotland and France, he ended his reign with precisely the territory that he had started with. He died leaving his realm exhausted by intensive taxation and persistent military failure. He had healed the bitter divisions which he had inherited from his father, but bequeathed others to his successor, Richard II, which would one day contribute to his destruction."

"Edward III had always greatly overestimated the help that conspirators and malcontents could bring him."

"In chess, the capture of the king marks the end of the game. In politics, it may be only the beginning."

"Hong Kong, once a vibrant and politically diverse community is slowly becoming a totalitarian state. The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly... Intimidated or convinced by the darkening political mood, many judges have lost sight of their traditional role as defenders of the liberty of the subject, even when the law allows it"

"England, however, was endowed with a precociously advanced system of government which made its kings powerful beyond anything warranted by its comparatively modest resources. Unlike France, which had developed as a nation by the gradual coalescence of ancient autonomous provinces, each with its own distinct political and cultural traditions, England had been conquered in the space of a few years in the eleventh century by the Norman kings, who had created a centralized, unitary state and settled it with a new, alien aristocracy. Three centuries later, Englishman still had a highly developed notion of public authority."

"Some of the troops had been conscripted, the last occasion when compulsion played a significant part in the recruitment of Edward’s armies. But most of them were volunteers serving for adventure, honour and money. This remarkable reversal of the English nobility’s traditional objection to foreign military service was arguably Edward III’s most significant achievement."

"Edward III’s claim to the crown of France was a bargaining counter, to be surrendered as part of a permanent territorial settlement. Edward always had an exaggerated idea of its value, just as he had an unrealistic view of the strength of his bargaining position generally. He would pass the next decade trying to exploit his victory at Crécy and discovering how much more complicated the world really was."