'This was the age of the new man', the author writes, 'And John Hawkwood was the most audacious of them all. His scheme, quite simply, was to hold Europe's richest country to ransom, and he turned the business of war into an exorbitant art.

The second son of a minor Essex landowner, John Hawkwood chose to head south in 1360 after serving as a captain in the Black Prince's wars against France. He and other freebooters besieged the Pope at Avignon, and when they were paid to go to Italy, discovered that the threat of force could be very profitable indeed. The Italian city states - Florence, Milan, Siena and Pisa - offered the richest .

7 April 1926: on the steps of the Capitol in Rome, surrounded by chanting Fascists, The Honourable Violet Gibson fires at the Italian head of state, the darling of Europe's ruling class. Of all his would-be assassins, she came closest to changing the course of history. This book rescues this woman from a silent void and restores her dignity.