No comments about The Inventory of King Henry VIII: Transcript of the Inventory (Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History, 23).

2 comments about The Life of David Brainerd (The Works of Jonathan Edwards Series, Volume 7).

1. This is a rare, almost forgotten document depicting life in pre-Revolutionary America during the period when religious enthusiasm swept the colonial frontier. From 1743 to 1747 Brainerd had been a missionary to the Indians. Riding alone, thousands of miles on horseback, he kept a journal of daily events that he continued until the week before he died, at the age of twenty-nine, in Edwards' house. First published in 1749, the book became a spiritual classic in its own time. As the first popular biography to be published in America, it went through numerous editions and has been reprinted more frequently than has any other of Edwards' works. But what has not until now been known is that Edwards made drastic alterations in the original text. He shaped the narrative events to fit his own needs, presenting Brainerd as an example of a man who by example and deed opposed the rationalist, Arminian stance. Because the Yale edition is the first to print that portion of Brainerd's manuscript that survives, set in parallel columns with Edwards' text, these alterations can readily be discerned.



2. David Brainerd's recorded life speaks my heart and breath--my longings for my heavenly home. This is a must read for all as it washes away the deceiving beguilement of trendy Christianity.
   
   Traveling through his pages of life, you witness his true mission that of only knowing Christ and Him crucified, 1 Corinthians 2:1-2. He was one of few who despised this vile world with its entertaining ways.
   
   His soul displayed was that of a faithful, humble, loyal pastor who ministered to the natives in isolated areas of New England. He never set himself above these socially rejected ones who he found to be quite refreshing in contrast to snobbish white folk. He became known among fur trappers as "the man who trapped Indians with love."
   
   Below are experts from David Brainerd's diary. The initial are the quotes of "His Heart." The following are observances of "His Natives."
   
   His Heart:
   
   "I know I long for God and conformity to His will, in inward purity and holiness, ten thousand times more than for anything here below."
   
   "God was so precious to my soul, that the world, with all its enjoyments, was infinitely vile. I had no more value for the favor of men, than for pebbles."
   
   "Spent the day mainly in conversing with friends; yet enjoyed little satisfaction, because I could not find but few disposed to converse on divine and heavenly things. Alas, what are the things of this world, to afford satisfaction to the soul! In secret, I blessed the God for retirement, and that I am not always exposed to the company and conversation of the world. Oh, that I could live in the secret of God's presence!"
   
   His Natives:
   
   "Discoursed from John 4:13, 14. There was a great attention, a desirable affection, and an unaffected melting in the assembly. It is surprising to see how eager they are to hear the Word of God. I have oftentimes thought that they would cheerfully and diligently attend divine worship twenty-four hours together if they had an opportunity so to do."
   
   "I never saw any appearance of bitterness or censoriousness (being critical) in these, nor any disposition to `esteem themselves better than others.'"

1 comments about The Rise and Fall of the House of Windsor.

1. I had read this book before, but just re-read it this weekend.
   It is one of the best books on the British Royal Family that I have read. The author's insights and observations are right on target. It was published in 1993 before the tragic death of Princess Diana, but that does not change his thoughts on the problems of the monarchy. Nothing will change until the death of Queen Elizabeth II as she is too bound up in tradition to modernize. The whole family lives in a time warp.

   I recommend this book highly to anyone who is interested in the history of the House of Windsor and how it is crumbling.

1 comments about Jane, the Quene Third Consort of King Henry VIII (Studies in British History).

1. As far as I am aware, this is the only biography of Jane Seymour in existence, and Ms. Gross has done an excellent job with it. Having traveled to England herself and visited the Savernake, conducting research on the Seymour family that came to power some five centuries ago, she has uncovered a great deal of information on the mysterious woman who managed to supplant the wife Henry VIII moved Heaven and Earth to have and to hold. Though his first two marriages are well documented and both Katharine and Anne are popular figures in history, Jane Seymour has somehow alluded us. In Ms. Gross's novel one can trace her life as never before; the history of her family and her home at Wolfhall, interesting information on her parents and their influence on her life, and her story of coming to Court and serving the Queen(s) before her. By revealing some of the shadowy mysteries of Wolfhall, Pamela Gross has taken us beyond Alison Weir's or Antonia Fraser's thorough research on Jane's reign as Queen to further understand the woman wearing the crown. It's no pleasure read though; the book is made up like a research essay with footnotes and sources. For any fellow researchers, I think you will find "Jane the Quene" to be the ideal biography on Henry's third wife.

No comments about Henry VII (3rd ed) (Seminar Studies in History).

1 comments about Charles and Diana: A Royal Family Album.

1. This is an extremely outstanding album. All the pictures are captioned, and the album features quotations made by either the Prince or Princess of Wales, a famous author, journalist, or a famous magazine.

   Opposite the title page, there is a handsome picture of the Prince and Princess at Highgrove. She is carrying William piggy-back while he if carries Harry on his hip. This picture serves as a theme throughout the book.

   The album is divided into sections - A Royal Romance, A Family, Roving Ambassadors, Private Lives, and A Sense of Style. I shall take two or three from each of the section and the quote which accompies it.

   A ROYAL ROMANCE: On the left is a full page of Harles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer when they announce their engagment. Beneath the title for this section, the Prince and Princess begin their honeymoon cruise in Gibraltar. This quote is at the bottom of the page, 'I've met all Prince Charles' girlfriends, and you're streets ahead of all of 'em. If he doesn't marry you, he's out of his tiny mind.' ARTHUR EDWARDS

   A charming picture of Diana when she was still a kindergarter teacher. 'That enchanting teenager with the chubby cheeks and frilly shirt..." JUDY WADE. A picture of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. 'With Prince Charles beside me I cannot go wrong. LADY DIANA SPENCER. Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer after their first official appearance together at Goldsmith Hall in London. 'In Diana's early months of public life the strain of her new-found position as the world's most famous woman told, and only by the enormous iffort of will did she cope with the unbearable attention and lack of privacy.' ALAN HAMILTON

   There are two pages devoted to the wedding rehearsal and the wedding - splendid pictures. 'Our wedding was quite extraordinary as far as we're concerned. It made us bother extremely proud to be British.' 'When you marry in my position, you going to marry someone who, perhaps is one day going to be Queen. You've got to choose somebody very carefully, I think, who could fulfill this particular role, and it has got to be somebody pretty unusual.' THE PRINCE OF WALES. 'The cubbly-cheeked blonde hairdo vanished...a more stylish, more confident woman stands by the side of Prince Charles today. It says a lot for her steely determination that she has come through a period of awesome adjestment and emerged more dazzling than ever.' JUDY WADE.

   A FAMILY: Under the title A Family is a picture of William and Harry at Highgrove. 'It's an affectionate family under perpetual scrutiny.' SIR ALSTAIR BURNET. Diana is holding William and there is a picture of all three - Charles, Diana, and William - while thay are on tour in Australia. 'The birth of our son has given us both more pleasure than you can imagine. It has made me incredibly proud and somewhat amazed.' PRINCE OF WALES. Rwo pages are devoted to Prince Charles and the two boys. 'He is a doting daddy and does everything perfectly.' THE PRINCESS OF WALES on Charles os a father. The next two pages are great with both parents and bother boys at Highrove.

   ROVING EMBASSADORS: Beneath the title for this section are their passports. 'Charles and Diana are mirrors and examples of stalwart British qualities: civility, courtesy, and coziness, with a dash of styles and a bit of fun' TIME. The Prince and Princess of Wales are seated in identical chairs, each of them is smiling, and each of them is wearing the same color. 'To be modern, yet keep the mystique - that is the trick. It is a trick that Charles and Diana have gracefully mastered.' TIME

   PRIVATE LIVES: The pictures in this section are very casual. Beneath this caption is a picture of Prince Charles joking with the crowd at polo. This section is devoted to the couple and their boys at Highgrove, on vacation, and at KP. 'Charles and Diana are arguably the most famous, the most glamourous couple in the world.'

   A SENSE OF STTLE: This section is devoted almost entirely to Diana who is shown wearing many of the various styles of dresses and hats which she made famous. Pages 94-95 picture the Prince and Princess of Wales together surrounded by photographers. The last picture appears on P. 96 and features both the Prince and Princess walking through the streets of Budapest during a tour of Hungary in 1990. She is wearing a pink suit trimmed in purples, and his shirt and tie complement her outfit.

   One must actually see the pictures and read the quotations simultaneously to fully appreciate these beautiful pictures and unique pictures of The Princes and Princess of Wales and their two young princes - William and Harry.

   This book is hardcover, contains 96 pages, and measure 83/4x11 inches.

2 comments about Edward Vii's Children (History/20th Century History).

1. For five children who included a King, a Queen and one potential Jack the Ripper, there's not a whole lot of interesting detail in this book. (Just kidding -- I know the Duke of Clarence was not Jack the Ripper.) But why are all royalty authors so skittish of coming out & saying that the oldest son had homosexual experiences? All you ever get from other books is just a hint about this. There's got to be information in the Royal archives or in private letters that back this up.
   
   Anyway, getting back to this book, the facts are blandly presented; it gives you an nice overview of the lives, but there's no depth. For instance, I had to read about the middle daughter, Victoria's brief teenage crush on her cousin Tsar Nicholas II, in a totally different book (The Romanovs-Power, Passion & Tragedy). Why wasn't that tidbit included here? Also we learn nothing about her frustration over being kept a spinster in the service of her mother Queen Alexandra, and nothing about her two thwarted romance(s). Was she a masochist, or was it the times, that kept her from fighting back & loosening those bonds? And, again from other sources, I learn that Maud & Haakon VII's marriage wasn't all beer & skittles either, but how bad, or good, was it really?
   
   We don't learn the answer to these questions from this book. So in that respect, it's a disappointment. I don't mean to say I want to read a trashy gossip fest; but this book is just too "nice".



2. a father who was busy enjoying his life food,drink and women were edward vii's passion his childern were last on his list.their mother one of the most beautiful woman in europe was selfish in her own way ,she denand to be number one in her kids lives even when they married.their parents didn't make sure they would get a good education.must of the kids didn't have fullfuling lives.

5 comments about Richard III: England's Black Legend.

1. This is an entertaining mixture of historical story-telling, scholary gumshoe work, and criticism. No aspect overpowers the book, which makes it an interestingly told history, and a well-shaped argument for Seward's perspective of Richard III's reign.

   Of course, so much of his work in the primary sources leads him to numerous conjectural qualifications. This state of affairs demonstrates why there is so much divergence of opinion on Richard III. However, if both Richard's contemporary subjects and their progeny have such a consistently malignant view of the man's rule, why go to such effort to rehabilitate (revisionize) him? It is obvious Richard's black legend is not solely a product of Tudor propaganda. The man simply did all the heavy lifting on establishing history's view of his reign.

   Seward's book is a good read. It's not a purely speculative, breathless narrative of "Maybe this happened, then that ... probably," but an argued case that approaches all of the sources in the field, primary and modern. This book has the potential to become the definitive history of Richard III and his reign; it simply lacks the appeals to cliched romanticism that surround much work in English history.




2. I got this as a result of seeing Ian McKellen's film version of the Shakespearean play. It left me wanting more History as well as more Drama. I had heard that Shakespeare was essentially writing anti-Richard propaganda, since the man who defeated him, Richmond, went on to become Henry VII grandfather of Queen Elizabeth. But while the truth is no doubt more complicated than the play suggests, Seward convincingly shows that Shakespeare got the essentials right even if he did take a few liberties. He doesn't merely elucidate the character of Richard himself, but of those around him. The Woodvilles, Ann, Catesby, Tyrell, Brackenbury, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Stanley were all real players in Richard's rise and fall, well known at the time for their victimizations through or their contributions to his tyranny. (Catesby for example was known as the Cat in a popular rhyme of the day.) Seward gives an in depth though not necessarily complete view of the constraints and shared assumptions they were operating under which eventually leads to the characterization of the King himself. It's difficult to tell how much of Richard's tyranny stemmed from the bloodthirstiness of the times he lived in, or if good really triumphed over evil at Bosworth field, and Seward makes no assertions to that effect. But he does throw into sharp relief the flaws that earned Richard his bloody reputation, and they aren't saintly ones. He is also very clear cut about which primary sources he is drawing from, Thomas More, Dominic Mancini and the Croyland Chronicler, how they culled their information, and how he reads them. I'm sure there's a wealth of information on this subject, yet I found this book to be a very satisfying introduction.



3. While Seward makes some convincing arguments and successfully rebuts some Ricardian explanations, he does so in a horribly pretentious manner. He makes the constant claim that Richard was unpopular, which may have been so, but he does not bother to use reliable sources to prove it. He is also guilty of using the words 'obviously' and 'plainly' while not giving the reader any inication why he thinks these things are so obvious and plain. An example of this is found when Seward states, "When speaking of Richard, Commynes uses the word 'proud' more than once. Plainly he employs it in the sense of vain glory or self delusion. Had he known the word 'hubris' he would have used that too." Be that as it may, Seward does not offer any proof as to why he believes the word 'proud' is used to mean self delusion, and his assumption that the writer would have used 'hubris' hints of Seward's own pride and arrogance. This neglect to explain basic charges runs throughout the entire book, which makes it an almost unbearable read to one simply trying to find out the truth, rather than wallow in anti-Ricardian sentiment. Almost all historians of Richard III are guilty of writing from bias, but it is not usually so suffocating as this.



4. Reading this book is a good way to get to know the basic story of Richard III, and the related context of English history in the time of the "War of the Roses." To my mind, the greatest virtue of the book is Seward's recognition of Richard as a prince in the Machiavellian style: a ruthless, conniving tyrant. What is weakest in the book is the author's pronounced psychological naivete: even as he writes of Richard as an alert political strategist, willing to do anything to advance his own cause, the author interprets his attitudes and decisions as if they were being made by someone with average working-class values and education. Overall, though, the story is well-told, with a readable mix of engaging narrative and scholarly history.



5. I have been fascinated by Richard III since I saw on TV , when I was seven years old , the 1955 Laurence Olivier adaptation of the Shakespeare play.
   
   
   In this book , Desmond Seward makes a compelling case for his theory that Richard III of England was indeed a bloodthirsty tyrant who cut down all who got in the way of his Machiavellian ambition , that the traditional view of Richard III (outlined dramtically by Shakespeare) is very near the truth.
   The author believes King Richard to have been the cruellest tyrant to have ever occupied the English throne . Seward gives seemingly incontrovertible evidence that he did indeed murder his young nephews in the tower , shining a new light on the tragedy of these boys. He outlines how Richard almost undoubtedly murdered Henry VI and very possibly Henry's son too.
   His death brought to an end , a nightmare for England , not least for Richard himself , who seward believes to have been highly paranoid , and disturbed by psychotic episodes.
   
   
   Seward re-examines contemporary sources , and also Sir Thomas Mores life of the King , which contained much valubale information that Seward brought to light.
   He gives us a history of events leading up to Richard's seizure of power , after the War of the Roses , analyses of the key power players in the England of the time producing the picture of a 'peculiarly grim young English precursor of Machiavelli's Prince'
   
   Defenders of Richard III have criticized this work , but is undoubdetly a major component in shedding light on the life of Richard III and the England of the times.

No comments about Reina Noor: Memorias.

4 comments about Sophie's Kiss : The True Love Story of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones.

1. A thoroughly researched and entertaining look at this modern royal love affair. A must for royal enthusiasts!



2. This excellent book--a must for all royal enthusiasts--looks at the life of the next royal bride, from her childhood in the sleepy Kent village of Brenchley, through her experiences as a chalet girl in Switzerland and PR executive in London to her fairytale romance with the Queen's youngest son.



3. I've always followed the doings of the Royal family with great interest, so I grabbed up this book as soon as it was published. I wasn't disappointed! It gives a really interesting account of the life of the latest Royal bride. It has pride of place on my bookshelf.



4. This book was very hastily and poorly written, but it certainly has interesting information about Sophie. I specifically did not enjoy how the authors compared Sophie to Diana, implying that Diana was inferior to Sophie. Shame on them.