The Plantagenets wanted to rule both England and France (and fought the Hundred Years War to try to accomplish this), so it hardly counts. I hated “The Scarlet Pimpernel”, “Scaramouche” was a much better book.
My point was that there was a time - several hundred years from the Norman Conquest on - when the English and French nobility were the same people.
I agree with you about the books. I think it’s because “Scaramouche” was written by a man, and men generally produce better adventure novels. Women writers want you to like the characters, especially the heroine, too much.