Dr Sophie Ambler Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy, is the Gold Award winner of the Military History Matters Book of the Year for 2021, for The Song of Simon de Montfort: England’s first revolutionary and the death of chivalry. Readers of Military History Matters vote annually for the awards from a short list of the year's top military history titles.

Dr Ambler is a Lecturer in Later Medieval British and European History and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In November 2020 she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in History to advance her research.

Dr Ambler's interests span the central and later Middle Ages in Europe and the Holy Land, her two broad areas of research are political ethics and military history.

Her work is part of a major research strength in the Department of History in the field of war and diplomacy across time.

The Song is a history of the nobleman who, between 1258 and 1265, seized power from King Henry III and established a radical regime to govern in his stead. Examining the revolution in the context of crusading culture across Europe and the Middle East, the book shows how Montfort cultivated his reputation as leader and came to amass a vast following, before he and a host of his men were cut down on the battlefield at Evesham in 1265.

Described by Dan Jones as 'a bold and brilliantly written reassessment of one of (British) history's most misunderstood figures ... alive with human detail and acute political judgement', and by Estelle Paranque as 'gripping, detailed and ingenious ... [and] a compelling and thrilling story', The Song has been hailed as 'one of the finest medieval biographies of recent years' by The Times.

Dr Marco Wyss, Director of the CWD commented, "many congratulations to CWD Deputy Director Dr Sophie Thérèse Ambler on winning this prestigious award for her book The Song of Simon De Montfort. This is a wonderful achievement, which reflects not only Dr Ambler’s scholarly excellence, but also the CWD’s expertise in Medieval and Military History!”

The Song of Simon de Montfort: England’s first revolutionary and the death of chivalry, is published by Picador.