No comments about A Life Of Lord Lyndhurst: From Letters And Papers In Possession Of His Family.

No comments about Anne and the Princesses Royal..

1 comments about Prince William: The Unofficial Biography.

1. this is beautifully written, it shows all the traits of the wonderful prince. This is the book to get if your a fan.

No comments about Diana (Unseen Archives).

No comments about Queen Elizabeth.

2 comments about Who Killed Diana?.

1. Don't waste your money on this one. If you are really interested in conspiracies on Diana, go and surf the net. You'll get more than what you find in this book-and then some!



2. I read this novel after reading the excellent "Whose death in the Tunnel?" by Aaron Becker. This book did not begin to compare. I read it to the end hoping for a glimmer but it left me cold.

No comments about Cleopatra.

No comments about The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume II.

No comments about Diana: Retrato de Una Princesa.

2 comments about Charles I.

1. Peerless historian Hilaire Belloc here describes with his wonderful and virile prose the saga of Charles I of England. In a way, the regicide of Charles at the hands of Protestant revolutionaries prefigured the later acts of the Jacobins in murdering Louis XVI and the Bolsheviks in murdering Czar Saint Nicholas II. The three revolutionary activities had in common their culminating scene, that being the killing of the King. Of course, there are differences. The Bolsheviks killed not just the saintly Romanov, but his entire family, and left behind their occult sigil on the blood stained walls of the cellar in which their ghastly deed was performed. In any case, Belloc begins the saga here with the life and death of Charles Stuart, his regicide being one of the culminating acts of the Protestant Revolution and one of the initiating acts of the international conspiracy against authority that is still, sadly, ongoing. For the serious student of history, this is a must read.



2. Hilaire Belloc's 1933 biography of Charles I is one in a series of historical biographies written by the controversial author. Belloc's historical works have often been discounted as careless or blatantly inaccurate. Indeed, there are no footnotes, no endnotes, nor even an index to his biography of Charles I. The forward and the introduction do an admirable job trying to convince the reader that Belloc's work is indeed serious historical study, and I have to admit that after reading the forward and the introduction I was looking forward to a more literary, if not wholly accurate, narrative of the life of Charles I.
   
   Sadly, the narrative is not compelling. Belloc takes a fascinating subject and makes him, in many places, quite boring by focusing on his overriding political theme: that the landed aristocracy was essentially greedy, and that the monarch stood in the way of the aristocracy's attempt to gain more wealth. In furthering this theme, the biography is filled with an open disdain for Parliament, and a desperate attempt to discount any other causes of the civil war. For example, Belloc attempts to significantly downplay the impact of Puritanism (and religion in general) as a cause of the civil war.
   
   Belloc's focus on politics also ignores other highly interesting personal aspects of the life of Charles Stuart. Take, for example, the episode of Charles' youth where Charles and Buckingham travel, incognito, to the continent to court the Spanish infanta. Belloc dwells on the political failure of this endeavor, and misses completely the highly compelling personal drama. Likewise, Belloc does not explore the King's personal relationships with his sister or wife. This book is solely an exploration of the political climate of the reign of Charles I; it is not a full exploration of the life (especially personal life) of Charles. While the causes of the civil war and the political climate of the time are obviously important and interesting, Belloc fails to shed any light on Charles Stuart as a flesh and blood person. This failure, in my opinion, produces an incomplete picture as to how and why the monarchy was overthrown.
   
   Belloc's other prejudices, in addition to his disdain for Parliament, creep into the book. Throughout the last third of the book Belloc makes disparaging comments about Puritans (Belloc was a staunch Catholic). As another example, Belloc is openly hostile in his few comments on the reign of Elizabeth I. If you were to believe Belloc, Elizabeth was an old fool who, rightly says Belloc, left the important business of governing the country to men (the Cecils). This is not surprising, as Belloc once said "I am opposed to women's voting . . . I call it immoral, because I think the bringing of one's women, one's mothers and sisters into the political arena, disturbs the relations between the sexes."
   
   If you are truly interested in Charles I, do not waste your time with this highly biased biography. Instead, read Pauline Gregg's fascinating work on the life of Charles Stuart.