That moment – even in fictional form – illustrates just how much the Tudors’ world view was shaped by that of the Plantagenets, the dynasty that had reigned before them. Henry VIII had a number of goals in making war on France early in his reign. High among them was his wish to cast himself as a new Henry V. That Henry had well and truly smashed France, extending the power of English kings into Paris and claiming the French crown for his heirs under the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420). This was the high point of the Plantagenets’ Hundred Years War. It remained burned into the Tudor psyche deep into the middle of the 16th century.