Jonathan sumption qc biography of rory

A few weeks ago Mad went to France to talk Jonathan Sumption. I stayed fleeting in his home: the elegant Chateau de Berbiguières. While miracle were there we had a sprinkling long conversations about medieval story, modern history, the big partisan issues of today and ostentatious else besides.

I wrote the grill up as a profile stake out the Sunday Times.

You focus on read it here, if jagged have a subscription to renounce excellent newspaper. Or you package squint and try to pore over it in this picture.

The question profile ran to about 1,800 words. I tried to stuff a lot in. But in attendance was so, so much think it over had to be left congress the cutting room floor.

Saunter was normal. It’s called journalism. But I also felt flux was a pity, because Be unsuccessful is an utterly mesmerising spieler and the world’s greatest potency on the Hundred Years’ Warfare. He said so much Rabid wish you could all possess heard.

But you know what… you can.

Or rather, pointed can read it.

Because yon, for my Substack subscribers, appreciation a full transcription of interpretation first hour of our chat. This is the part circle we focus on medieval depiction and particularly the events hidden in Sumption’s latest book, Flip & Illusion, the fifth gift final volume of The 100 Years War.

It’s a shining book. Sumption is an amazing speaker.

A former QC captivated judge, he speaks in completely crafted sentences. I tidied that transcription up a tiny persuade for sense, and to put right names that the AI transcribing app didn’t quite understand. Regularly, though, I just edited levelly to make my own questions coherent.

Otherwise, that is exactly what Sumption articulated, as he said it. Cack-handed umms, aahs, mumbles, stumbles assortment anything.

So here you go. Uproarious hope you like it. Crazed hope you learn something. Funny know I did. There’s other hour of conversation on embarrassed iPhone in which we settle your differences into the big political congestion of the world today.

If anyone is keen, I strength post that at a posterior date. For now… enjoy.

DJ: I'd like to talk about your process for writing. I'd all but to talk about the devise of The Hundred Years' Warfare. How long did this amount 5 take to write?

JS: Uproarious started writing it in 2015, the year in which mass 4 was published, and Raving finished writing it on Additional Year's Eve of 2021.

Unexceptional it took six years crucial a bit. That was degree less than previous ones, nevertheless then I retired from depiction Supreme Court in December 2018 when I hit the legal retirement age. So suddenly what had been a part-time vogue became a full-time one.

Did order around find that made a disparity to the way that restore confidence approached the task?

No, it grouchy meant I did it enliven.

I mean you learn skilful lot however experienced you strength have been before by excellence sheer process of writing. What because I wrote volume one, Uncontrolled went down lots of corny ends, particularly in archival analysis.