King John - A King Beset

There are fewer books more pleasant than those that draw you in to dispel your set of preconceptions and received hardened assumptions about a historical figures. At least I think this to be true after reading "The Maligned Monarch" by Alan Lloyd (1972) a biography of King John with a difference - the presentation of this dark king as not so bad after all.

John was hampered by a prejudiced press of clerical dudes - he couldn't do anything right by them due to the complicated relationship between he, his archbishops, and his pope. Following a king that hardly acknowledged England as somewhere important (Richard), John was to travel the country coast to coast, in peace time as an adjudicator and as a the Royal Commander in the war against the 25 barons. Many of the myths regarding John were fanciful fabrications by such as Matthew Paris, a chronicler always looking for a good story.

John made some serious mistakes, including starving a noblewoman and her son to death, but Lloyd asserts that he was quite the man of his rough times. Jean Plaidy's "Prince of Darkness" set out all the horrific stories chapter by chapter - and I am glad I read her take before this biography, as Lloyd refuted each horrific story in turn.

Oh and then there was the baronial war and that Magna Carta thing - a charter celebrated far beyond its due - only affecting freemen (one-quarter of the population) for one thing - and that warm day at Runnymede didn't solve the differences between baron and king. John kept his side of the bargain and seemed to bend backwards to try to bring peace to his land under his control.

Why is Richard the Lionheart celebrated as chivalrous although he shafted his Queen Berengaria, and John, by account a loving husband with a brood of children to carry on in the 13th century, is vilified as a faithless womanizer? It is all in the propaganda of the times.

Another note - John inherited a financial mess after Richard bankrupted the nation when it collected untold riches to ransom him after his capture in Germany. Henry VI inherited a financial mess after Henry V all but bankrupted England in search of chivalric empiric glory. Glory takes money, but such a cost.

A Secret Alchemy

Let me say first that "A Secret Alchemy"(by Emma Darwin) is a moving trance-like work of historical and contemporary fiction. Presenting parallel unfoldings of the tragic story of Anthony Woodville at the mercy of Richard of Gloucester (Richard III) and of the heart-twisting homecoming of a professor of history studying the books of Anthony and his sister Queen Elizabeth (Woodville), this work left me breathless.

There is a leap from the study of the books in their possession to a narrative revealing how Anthony and Elizabeth felt about the cruel blows of irreversible history as they walk toward their fates. Their story is laid out alongside Professor Una's leap from living in childhood memory connected to a professional press to her discoveries of the intricacies of her own past, including both that of the press that is in a position to be saved from ruin, and also her connection with one Mark who, though an outsider to the press, is a man central in its story. Books are life. The alchemy is the leap.

Anthony Woodville is noble, sympathetic, a martyr among many to being on the wrong side when that side changes with time. Elizabeth, who impresses me more in each novel she appears in, is faced with the worst torture of all, that of not knowing the fate of her prince children. The 15th century characters are breathing, as well as those in the 20th century. The descriptive language is well done, to be savored. The story is strong, especially in its conclusions. This book must be the best of the fictive attempts to solve the riddle of the Princes in the Tower.

Initial Thoughts on Richard II

I was made better acquainted with Richard II by reading Jean Plaidy's "Passage to Pontefract", her handling of the story of John of Gaunt and Richard of Bordeaux, who became the second of that name on the death of his grandfather, Edward III.

This book was a retelling of the history serially, with little extraneous material. Actually, it was like reading a history book with the characters strengthened into fiction. What characters they were! - senile Edward III and his rapacious paramour Alice Perrers, Good Plump Queen Philippa, the wanton turned troubled Fair Maid of Kent, the ambitious (how many times were we reminded) John of Gaunt, a wonderful and treasured Catherine Swynford, down to the quite complex figure of Richard II. History of course is written by the winners, and the Lancastrians may have exaggerated the depth of this monarch's ineptitude.

Another Martyr to the Cause

The Tudor Dynasty, one haunted by a need to perpetuate itself if ever there was, had a number of martyrs to the Cause. Anne Boleyn and the anti-Anne, Jane Seymour, are among the number. In a sense, Henry VIII himself had a life and value system driven by the need to provide an heir, thus he was a martyr of sorts too.

"Plain Jane", by Laurien Gardner (who I gather is also Jennifer Ashley), is a cut above a romance novel, and a level or two below masterful historical fiction. Jane's "plainness" is an attribute beaten to death, and is one that defines her. In truth, (I think) this attribute is her greatest strength, as a foil to the erstwhile fascinating Anne, and its concomitant virtuousness perceived is as strong a draw to Henry as Anne's bewitching smile was. Whatever. Sometimes I see the Six Wives as types enslaved by the Tudor dilemma and victims of the tragedy of not delivering the required societal result for which they were chosen. Jane is the one that delivers, but she has to pay with her life anyway.

The Jane in "Plain Jane" was in the bind of all of the wives, not to be able to question the boss with any long range success, as seen by her defense of a ransacked nunnery which elicited the statement from Henry that he could kill her off too if she opposed him.

Plain Jane was virtuous but not insipid. Of the wives, she may be the least documented, and the treatment in this novel is thus welcome.

Anne Boleyn in her own words

I just read "The Lady in the Tower" by the mistress, Jean Plaidy. Anne tells her story, and one is drawn in by her wisdom in hindsight. She writes/tells from the time when she lives and now her life is done, to paraphrase Chidiock Tichborne. Such a vantage point has made her quite perceptive, especially regarding her imperious behavior around Henry VIII, a man she admits she never loved. Well, he really wasn't that lovable, I should think.

Unlucky in love and embittered thereby - Henry Percy of the North being an early beau, she feels that Henry prevented their union so he could have this tasty morsel to himself. She traded any hope for further love for ambition, a quality that stood her in good standing in her relationship with Henry Tudor. The result is resounding success at getting her way with the King, but at such a cost to the nation, and a knife edge of danger, though she believes the necessary son will result from their relationship.

One may regard Anne as something of a silly woman, but Plaidy's take on her introspection, however late, is very engaging and believable. Basically, she was in over her head, and only in looking back she sees the power of the despot she was dealing with, power over her very life.

Please Accept...

...my apologies for lack of posts lately. I have accepted a new position in municipal government and this sea change has taken up the very most of my energies. I have read "The King's Grace" by Anne Easter Smith, and found it to be enjoyable. While there are some thoughts about what it means to be a bastard in late Medieval England, and the employment of a scarcely known character to be the main character of a historical novel, I haven't the energy to put them together at this point.

Thank you for reading...hope to be back soon!

More on William Marshal

I just finished reading "The Greatest Knight", Elizabeth Chadwick's take on the story of William Marshal. There was a lot of horse coaching and tricking out which reminded me of some male friends who are addicted to their cars. I started reading "car" for "horse" and could channel the emotion of man and beast. As one who never has sat astride a horse (only a pony at the Bronx Zoo), the fact that I could sense the feeling of what it must have been like for a knight such as William Marshal is a testament to Chadwick's writing.

As I was first introduced to this knight in "Devil's Brood" by Sharon Kay Penman, I knew what to expect in Chadwick's character delineation. And I was not disappointed, there were no lapses in strength of character, though there were lapses in Marshal's fortunes. He served first Henry the Young King until a specious slur engendered by jealous fellow knights caused Henry to send him packing. But Marshal was there at his deathbed, and took up the Cross to honor him with a journey to Jerusalem. Similar events unfold in his life in service to the Angevins. His loyalty to his king, whoever it may be at the moment, is his defining attribute.

At the beginning of Marshal's life he was an endangered hostage under King Stephen. When his father, an unfortunate cuss, broke with the conditions and left William to die, Stephen did not kill him. And so the figure that held England together upon the death of King John could easily have been someone else without the innate stamping of the code of chivalry.

This was a good book, well drawn characters, believable intimate scenes, lots of handsome horses. I understand it will be available in the US in the early fall. Maybe then it will get the attention here that it has earned.