Tag: book review

Book Review: “The Last Knight” by Norman F. Cantor

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the-last-knight-9781439137581_lgWhen we think of knights, we often think of shining armor, King Arthur and his fabulous court, fair maidens, and of course chivalry. These are considered to be literary ideals, almost too fantastic to be real. However, knights did live in the Middle Ages into the 14th century where some of the greatest knights lived. One is known as The Black Prince; the other was John of Gaunt. Both were brothers, sons of Edward III, the one who helped launch the Hundred Years’ War with France. The Black Prince might have a pretty cool nickname, but the one who really stole the show was John of Gaunt. The subject of Norman F. Cantor’s book “The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era” is none other than the third son of Edward III, John of Gaunt.

Now I know what you are thinking, why do a book review for about someone who lived in the 1300s when this blog is focused on the Wars of the Roses and the Tudors. The answer is simple. It is because John of Gaunt and his children with his third wife and mistress Catherine Swynford would create the Beaufort line, the same family of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, the founder of the Tudor Dynasty. It was also with John’s first wife Blanche of Lancaster, that the line of Lancaster was formed. He may have only been a third son but he became one of the wealthiest men in Europe and his family would shape the future of England forever.

Cantor, in this book, explores the world that John of Gaunt called home. What was it like in not just in England but in all of the medieval world? What about religion and literature? What was life like for women and knights in court? All of these aspects are explored throughout this book as well as elements in John of Gaunt’s life that made him unique, including his wealth and becoming King of Castile after he married his second wife Constance. Through wars and plagues, politics and rebellions, exploration and the beginning of the Renaissance, John of Gaunt navigated through it all.

It sounds like a very complex time, however, Cantor has a way of explaining it all in such a way that is both engaging and educational. Cantor through his writing style makes it easy to understand John of Gaunt’s legacy, not only is his time but how his legacy affected even our time. It was through his patronage that men like Chaucer and John Wyclif were able to complete their best works.

Shakespeare gave John of Gaunt a very patriotic speech, “this sceptre’d isle…This other Eden, demi-paradise”. Shakespeare was speaking as though John of Gaunt was an old man, reminiscing about the good times as the younger generation was taking over like Henry Bolingbroke and Henry the Navigator. Cantor brings to life the legend of John of Gaunt. Towards the end of his book, Cantor nicely sums up John of Gaunt’s life:

Above all, Gaunt’s taste for war, his frenetic energy, and his physical strength, as well as his love of women and his wealth and lifestyle, set the model for European aristocratic behavior, which went unchallenged until the nineteenth century and is still the pattern for all effective and durable social elites. (Cantor, 239).

John of Gaunt was a Renaissance man of his times. He wasn’t just some old man of Shakespearean lore. Cantor makes John of Gaunt and his world of the Middle Ages come alive. If you want to learn more about John of Gaunt, his family, and his world, Norman F. Cantor’s book “The Last Knight” is the book for you.

 

Sources

Cantor, Norman F. The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.

Book Review: “Edward VI: The Lost King of England” by Chris Skidmore

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51uPYqC767L._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_When we think of the Tudor rulers, we think of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I. However, there was another king who ruled for only five years and was Henry VIII’s only legitimate male heir, Edward VI. Most people think that Edward was a mere pawn of his government officials but is that accurate? Chris Skidmore tackles that question of who was the real Edward VI in his book “Edward VI: The Lost King of England”.

We all know the story of how Henry VIII wanted a male heir and how Henry dealt with his wives, Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, when they couldn’t produce male heirs. It was Jane Seymour who was able to give birth to Henry’s heir Edward on October 12, 1537, although she died shortly after. From the beginning of his young life, Edward was coddled and his education was carefully considered. Edward was living a comfortable life of a prince, but that all changed when on January 28, 1547, Henry VIII died and at the tender age of nine. Chris Skidmore put this young king’s life into perspective:

The legacy of Edward’s reign is one of the most exciting political histories of the Tudor age, from which few appeared unscathed. His untimely death cut short a life that, forged in the remarkable political circumstance of his childhood, would have left us with a very different Tudor England than that fashioned under the female monarchies of Mary and Elizabeth (page 9)

Some of the few men who were in charge of Edward’s well-being while he was making the transition from boy to king were Edward Seymour Duke of Somerset, Edward’s maternal uncle, John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, and John Cheke, Edward’s tutor.  Edward Seymour was the Lord Protector and the older brother of the somewhat infamous Thomas Seymour. Edward Seymour and John Dudley would later come to hate each other and most of Edward’s short reign consisted of the two men fighting each other for the right to help Edward run the kingdom, as well as fight rebellions that would spring up to try and throw the country into chaos.

John Cheke, as Edward’s tutor, taught the young king about the Protestant faith that was mw00459making a foothold in England. Most people think that Henry VIII was the one who helped bring the Protestant faith to England when he broke away from Rome. Henry VIII might of helped get the reform started, but Edward VI was the one who took the Protestant movement and was willing to make it known throughout England, even if it meant facing against his most formidable foe, his half-sister Mary who was a devout Catholic.

This was the world that King Edward VI lived in until he died on July 6, 1553 at the age of fifteen. Even after he died, he threw chaos into the succession that his father planned out by placing his cousin Lady Jane Grey on the throne instead of Mary. It did not last long but the six day reign of Lady Jane Grey was Edward’s choice and his alone. By the end of his life, Edward was becoming his own man and no one would stand in his way.

In “Edward VI: The Lost King of England”, Chris Skidmore brings the reader into this complex world of this young king both inside his court and what the laws he enacted did to the common people. Skidmore illuminates this once forgotten king whose life was cut short by tuberculosis and shows us how much of a reformer king he truly was. Edward may have been young but he was an intellectual who made up his mind just like his father. This book gives us a different view of religion and politics during this time. Edward VI will never be lost or forgotten after this book.  

Book Review; “The Queen’s Agent: Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England” by John Cooper

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51FnxQ9BN5L._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_When we think about spies, we often think of modern examples like the ones we see in movies. However, spies and their spymasters have been working hard to protect their countries and their rulers for centuries. For Queen Elizabeth I, the only man she could trust to be her spymaster was Sir Francis Walsingham. But is it fair to call Walsingham as only Elizabeth’s “spymaster”? That is the question that John Cooper tries to answer in his book “The Queen’s Agent: Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England”. Who was Sir Francis Walsingham and what did he do to help his queen and his country?

First and foremost, Walsingham was a Protestant. This is very important to understand because, in this time, your religion determined where you stood on certain political and international issues. Walsingham would flee to universities in other countries while Mary I was queen, he would help Huguenots in France during the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, and helped Elizabeth navigate through her marriage prospects.  In the religious quagmire that was Europe at this time, it was Walsingham and Elizabeth who stood by their Protestant faith and would help the Reformation on.

As Secretary of State, it was Walsingham who helped set up the national defenses against the invading Spanish Armada and helped crack the code of the Babington plot that tried to put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne of England. Walsingham would also help solve the “Irish issue” and help make colonization in America possible. Walsingham and Queen Elizabeth I would often butt heads on issues, but in the end, they would come to a compromise that would benefit the entire country. Through all of this were men that Walsingham could trust, and some he thought he could but they turned out to be double agents for other countries. Walsingham had to navigate it all to protect his beloved queen and country.

John Cooper navigates the complex web of Walsingham’s life and his spy system to seek the truth about the man who became a legendary spymaster. There was a lot of information, but Cooper was able to organize the book in such a way that it was not overwhelming. This book had many twists and turns, as any good book about espionage would, however, the one thing that I wish Cooper would have included was a list of names and what they were known for. For me, it would have made the web a little less complex.

Overall, I found this book very enjoyable. Before this book, I did not know a lot about Walsingham or what he did for Elizabethan England. Walsingham was not just a spymaster, he was so much more and Protestant Elizabethan England would have been lost without him and his actions. If you want to learn more about Sir Francis Walsingham, the complex Europe world with Protestants versus Catholics, or espionage in Elizabethan England, this is the book for you.

Book Review: “So Great a Prince: The Accession of Henry VIII 1509” by Lauren Johnson

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51xezQP1DTL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_There are some books that leave a very good impression on you. Books that even when you stop reading it and move to another, you keep thinking about it. For me, this is one of those books. “So Great a Prince: The Accession of Henry VIII 1509” by Lauren Johnson is a page turner, but not because of the main character Henry VIII, but because Johnson writes about how the average citizen was affected by the accession of Henry VIII.

 

Johnson breaks down the book into chapters based off of important days and times for medieval society: Lady Day, Easter, St. George’s Day, May, Midsummer, Lammas, All Saints and All Souls, Christmas, Plough Day, and Shrove. Unlike our modern calendar, Lady Day was the start of the new year which was on March 25th and for this book, its theme was new beginnings with the death of Henry VII.

 

Each chapter in this book not only has a specific day or time, but it has a theme such as religion, education, death/ illness and the judicial system. Johnson is able to give a new perspective on this time with the amount of research she had done to make this book possible. She tells the stories of the King and his court but she also tells the stories of the common person. Common people like Alice Middleton, the wife of a mercer who would later marry Thomas More, and John Rastell who was a coroner, had his own legal practice and a printer.

 

In this book, Johnson reminds us that 1509 may have been a big deal for the Tudor monarchy, but for the common people, it was just another year. Johnson makes this perfectly clear by saying:

 

Through the eyes of those who lived through it, we can experience the wealth of a world that was vibrant, vivid and exciting, where London streets fluttered with cloth-of-gold to welcome a new king, the shrines of Canterbury Cathedral groaned under the weight of precious stones and vast pageants played out the ideals and fears of communities across the country. A world of peace and of danger. Of prosperity and plague. A world that would be swept away during the course of its young king’s reign. (page 3)

 

Johnson is able to masterfully give us a snapshot into the world of the young king. I found myself  so enthralled by this book. I felt like Johnson wrote this book in such a way that it feels like you could walk the streets of London during 1509. We all know the facts about this time from the perspective of the monarchy, but the monarchy was only one piece to the puzzle that is this time. This book was so educational and entertaining at the same time. Johnson is a new historian, but she is making a big impact with this book. If you really want to understand the world that the Tudors lived in from the commoner to the king, this is a definite must-read. It will be a book you want to read again and again.  

Book Review: “Game of Queens: The Women who made Sixteenth-Century Europe” by Sarah Gristwood

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When one thinks about strong women in the sixteenth century, many turn their 51mfzqo6PTL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_attention towards women like Elizabeth I, Isabella of Castile, Katherine of Aragon, Mary I and Catherine de Medici. These seemed like extraordinary examples of power that stretched the boundaries on what was right and acceptable for women of the time. That, however, couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the sixteenth century in Europe was filled with powerful women who do not get the attention that they deserve. In Sarah Gristwood’s book “Game of Queens: The Women who made Sixteenth- Century Europe”, we are shown that it really wasn’t the men who had control, but their wives and daughters.

 

Diplomacy is often described as a chess game and in the case of the sixteenth century, that could not be more accurate. This was the century of political games, the importance of marriages, wars galore and religious reforms. It all started off with women like Isabella of Castile of Spain and Anne de Beaujeu of France; powerful women who would not only influence their own children but girls who would come into their homes to learn how to be strong royal wives. Anne of Beaujeu wrote a manual for noblewomen, including this piece of advice:

“And nothing is firm or lasting in the gifts of Fortune; today you see those raised high by Fortune who, two days later, are brought down hard.”

 

This would come to describe the lives of the women who would follow throughout the rest of the sixteenth century. Most of them had to act as regents for their sons or male relations. Others were wives of kings who tried to change their countries for the better and either succeeded or failed miserably. It was the women in the beginning and the middle of the century that would pave the way for the more infamous queens like Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth Tudor, and Mary Queen of Scots.

 

Sarah Gristwood was able to combine this complex game of women political chess with sixteen protagonists into a masterful biography to give a better understanding of how sixteenth century Europe worked. This was a sisterhood of queens with mothers teaching daughters on how to survive in the courts. These women were connected by blood and by marriage, however it was how they used the lessons of those who came before them which would define them.

 

Sarah Gristwood could have made sixteen separate biographies, but by combining all of these stories into one book, it shows how each country and each ruler truly depended on one another. In a world where male heirs were few or died young, it was the women who had to step in and make Europe ready for the future. The sixteenth century was the changing point for European history and it was the women who had to navigate the complex field to keep Europe from completely falling apart. This book is the story of powerful women who helped make Europe the powerhouse it would become in the sixteenth century and how they did it.

Book Review: “Death and the Virgin Queen: Elizabeth and the Dark Scandal that Rocked the Throne” by Chris Skidmore

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41sbrm3axHL._SX328_BO1,204,203,200_On September 8, 1560, a young woman’s body is discovered at Cumnor Place alone at the bottom of the stairs with her neck broken with no other marks on her body. This would have been declared an accidental death by normal people, however the woman was anything but a normal woman; this was the wife of Robert Dudley, Amy Robsart. It was because of who she was and who her husband was that people speculated that foul play was afoot.

 

For centuries, the death of Amy Robsart has caught the imagination of many people, including Chris Skidmore. In his book “Death and the Virgin Queen: Elizabeth and the Dark Scandal that Rocked the Throne”, Skidmore takes a deeper look into this mysterious death of Amy Robsart. If you have read Alison Weir’s “Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley”, you will enjoy the way that Skidmore writes this book because it is very similar. The quote that really summed up his researching approach towards this mystery is as follows: “ For the historian, the truth is neither impossible nor improbable: it can only be, quite simply, whatever remains.”

 

Skidmore starts off by explaining the relationship between Amy and Robert before Elizabeth became Queen. These were two people who were in love, but once Robert Amyrobsartbecame the Master of the Horse for Elizabeth, Robert changed. He was at home less and Amy had to take over the household affairs. It is through letters that Amy wrote that Skidmore is able to paint a picture for us about how their household worked. The day that Amy died was very peculiar in the fact that she wanted to be left alone; her husband was with the Queen miles away. The original jury found that this was a case of accidental death, however Skidmore decided to take a deeper look into the case. He decided to explore the possibility of accidental death by stairs, the possibility of a medical explanation on why Amy could have fallen down the stairs,  and he found the original coroner’s report, which portrays a different story. The amount of research Skidmore pours into this one accidental death is admirable. The one issue I have with the book is the fact that he describes the type of staircases and the details of the coroner’s report but he doesn’t show pictures of these things so it’s a bit hard to visualize what he is talking about.

 

The story about Amy’s death, however does not end with her death, in fact it only starts the rumor mill around Robert Dudley’s involvement. As Dudley gets closer to Elizabeth and has his affairs with Douglas Howard and Lettice Knollys (who would become his second wife), rumors fly and comparisons are made to Amy. People did not like the fact that Robert was so close to the Queen and was thinking about marrying Elizabeth. People started to believe that Robert killed his wife in order to marry the Queen and so slanderous writings about Dudley were being passed around, including the Leicester’s Commonwealth.

 

In this book, Chris Skidmore channels his inner history detective in order to discover the truth about the death of Amy Robsart. There is something so fascinating about the mystery of her death that has kept the interest in it alive for so long. Skidmore’s book is a fantastic introduction to the death of Amy and the effects that her death on those who she cared about, especially her husband Robert Dudley. If you enjoy Tudor mysteries, the relationship between Robert Dudley and Queen Elizabeth, or Amy Robsart, this is the book for you. 

Book Review: “Black Tudors: The Untold Story” by Miranda Kaufmann

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51qBzQ5iN5L._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_I have always enjoyed reading about the Tudor time period and learning new things about it. There have been some titles that have caught my eye and I have wanted to read for quite some time. This is one such books: “Black Tudors: The Untold Story” by Miranda Kaufmann.

Now when I first thought about the title, I was a little shocked. For me growing up in the United States, I have always believed that Africans in England would have been treated like Africans in Spain and the American colonies, as slaves. This, however, is not the case. Miranda Kaufmann reveals a new part of the African story in the time of colonization.

Kaufmann divides the story of Africans in England into ten chapters telling the stories of ten different individuals: John Blanke the trumpeter, Jacques Francis the salvage diver, Diego the circumnavigator, Edward Swarthye the Porter, Reasonable Blackman the Silk Weaver, Mary Fillis a Moroccan convert, Dederi Jaquoah a prince of River Cestos, John Anthony a Mariner from Dover, Anne Cobbie a prostitute, and Cattelena of Almondsbury an independent woman farmer. By showing each of these individuals’ stories, Kaufmann is painting a picture of a larger story of these men and women who came to England from their native Africa. Some came to better themselves, others had no choice in the matter. Some were servants for wealthy families and others were independent men and women who used their skills to make a better life for their families and themselves.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about these men and women. Kaufmann has a way of writing that is both educational and enjoyable. For those who are unaware of what some of these positions were like in the time of the Tudors, Kaufmann breaks it down in a way that is understandable. Kaufmann explains:

“The history of the Black Tudors is an aspect of British history that deserves a wider audience. It shows that when we ask new questions of the past we get new, and often surprising, answers. We thought we knew Tudor England, but this book reveals a different country, where an African could earn a living, marry and have a family, testify in a court of law, or even whip an Englishman with impunity.”

If you want to learn about a new aspect of Tudor society, I highly recommend you read this book. These stories are just as important as the monarchs who capture our imagination on the time. These are the stories of average people trying to survive in the Tudor period.