No comments about The Progress Of Romance And The History Of Charoba, Queen Of Aegypt.

4 comments about Henry VIII.

1. Prof. Scarisbrick has written the definitive biography of Henry VIII and his times, even though this book is about 30 years old. Scarisbrick brought an interesting view to the subject: as a Roman Catholic he was the first British author granted access to Vatican archives for his research on the subject. The result is a still cogent, absolutely exhaustive book on the subject. Entailing a practically week by week account of Henry VIII's reign is overwhelming but of the upmost help for students of the subject. If you are looking for a light introduction to Henry VIII, this is probably not the place. But if you want *all* the (mind-numbing) details on Henry VIII, look no further than Scarisbrick's brilliant work.



2. I did not like this book at all! I have read most everything out there regarding Henry VIII. I found this a very hard go. It was extremely difficult to read. It focus's mostly on Henry's policies and the religous issue and a lot of assumptions as to why Henry acted a certain way. It is very date heavy. He barely mentions his wives except to say married on this date, died on this date. If you are beginner to Henry, this is not the book for you.



3. I read this book right after reading Carolly Erickson's biography of Henry VIII, and on balance this book is better and easier to read. I love that Scarisbrick has modernized the spelling and punctuation of the original documents he quotes. I think the picture of Henry presented is well-balanced, and does not minimize the faults of the subject of the biography. The careful examination of the question of the validity of the marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon is the best I have ever read, and partisans on either side of that question will see that there is indeed another side to the view they favor. The examination of the religious views of Henry is detailed and enlightening. I have always had a negative view of Henry VIII and I still have after reading this book, but the book was instructive and enlightening. The footnotes are where they belong (at the bottom of each page) and the bibliography is detailed though of course a bit dated in the 1968 edition I read. After you read this book you will know that you have read a really good biography of this important figure in world history.



4. Scarisbrick's book is a scholar's book and remains recognized after over three decades as the definitive work on the subject. It provides the background for other, equally valuable books, such as David Starkey's "Six Wives: The Wives of Henry VIII". This, though, is not to say that Scarisbrick can't be read for pleasure. It can, but you will not find it the brezzy read of a popular history; instead, you will find a wealth of information that will serve you well in future reading on the subject. And it is a very enjoyable read itself. If you are serious about your understanding of this period of English history then Scarisbrick is essential, and I can't imagine a personal library on Henry or Tudor England without a copy.
   
   As another reviewer remarked, this is not the book for an extensive treatment of Henry's wives. For that, I recommend turning to Starkey, and it too is essential for an understanding of this period of the history of Tudor England. What I've said about Scarisbrick's book can also be said about Starkey; although, I don't think it has quite the stature of Scarisbrick's.

No comments about Royal Lives.

5 comments about Diana's Boys: William and Harry and the Mother They Loved.

1. Anderson's book is 342 pages in length and it's a decent primer for those who know very little about the sons of the world's most famous princess. Anderson stays focused on the boys, for the duration of the book, talking about the relationship between William and Harry and the important people who influence them.
   
   There are some new tidbits of information in this book that I hadn't heard before, like the strained relationship between William and Harry, and Camilla Parker Bowles, the woman who was instrumental in the breakup of Prince Charles and the boy's mother. But other than this, there isn't a whole lot of new information to be found in this book. Most readers already know about the cold indifference on the part of the Queen and her husband, when Diana was killed; the incorrigible antics of the young Prince William; the boy's love of blondes; etc. For the most part, Anderson just rehashes old news.
   
   One other thing I didn't like about this book was the way Anderson wrote it, in "snips". Basically, Anderson just keeps pointing out little facts and quotes from the members of the royal family, jumping from one incident to another. When I read a book that's supposed to be a biography, I prefer something that digs in a little deeper into the lives of the people whom the book is written about. I don't care so much about hearing silly quotes made by prince Harry while fox hunting. I would rather hear more information about the boys thoughts, feelings, etc. to get a better feel for what makes William and Harry tick. I don't think Anderson did a good job in this area.
   
   Another thing that bothers me is the fact that Anderson doesn't even bother to title his chapters. There are eight of them, but they are unnamed. Given the way the book is arranged, with so many "snips", I assume that Anderson had a difficult time deciding on titles for the chapters, so he just left them out completely. If Anderson had focused more on specific topics, he would have had no problem coming up with chapter titles.
   
   So, my bottom- line on this book is that it's not that great or that memorable. It might be interesting to those who like to read about the royal family. But for the rest of us, it's a mediocre work of non- fiction.



2. Frankly, I'm tired of the re-play concerning Diana's alleged antics. If I read one more time about her alleged comments to Tiggy or her alleged harassment phone calls to Oliver Hoare's house, I think I'll scream.
   Actually more is written about Charles and Diana in this book than either William or Harry, until the later chapters then we hear about Wills in Eaton, his gap year and alleged romances. We also learn both boys are "coping" remarkably well with Diana's sudden death. And their approval rating of Mrs. BP assuming the public role as Papa's companion so soon after Diana's death, is troubling or at least to me it was.
   Then too, Harry is kept in the shadows even by the author. While everyone within the system admits to feeling sorry for Harry (as the spare), no one really tries to change the status quo. Instead they treat Harry much the way Princess Margret was---rather with indifference.
   While William is treated with interest and respect--even by the queen. Very sad situation for Harry. My heart goes out to him.
   William's alleged romantic antics are troubling. He did not appear concerned with his steamy behavior being caught on video tape at a bar and the possibility of the press publishing pictures. And I was distressed at the manner he subjected his body guards.
   Tending to the heir and the spare is probably going to make the police protection squad old before their time.



3. I really liked this book but it talked more about Diana and Charles Marriage and Diana's childhood than the boys. It was good but I think that it should have talked more about the boys than their marital woes and about members of the royal family. If it didn't emphasize so much on the royal family and the maritial woes, and talked more about the boys, it would have been a better book. Certain parts of this book was similiar to Diana by Andrew Morton



4. this is a great book i found so much information about diana charles and the boys and everything that went on behind closed doors it will make you cry i promise a+++++++++



5. This is a great book, but like other reviews I agree it focuses less on the boys. It paints the pictures of Diana's pain. It does give you some good insight to the boys lives, and is very interesting. It's shocking, and sad as well.
   It does speak to the realtionship of Diana and Charles, and Camilla as well. It also questions the paternity of Harry.
   Diana led a fascinating and yet tragic life. It speaks to the events that occured during her untimely death as well.
   There are many books about Diana, and this is a good one to read.

5 comments about Prince Leopold.

1. In the many books about Queen Victoria's family that I have read, Leopold seems to be known only for his haemophilia. He seems to have been the most popular member within the royal family, although not with his mother, who seemed to see him as a convenient drone. She was notorious for trying to keep her children on a leash long into adulthood. Leopold appears to have overcome these obstacles. In his short life, he accomplished a great deal, he was the first of the royal family to attend Oxford, he was on the boards of a great many charities, he managed to travel, and he worked as an unofficial secretary to his mother.

   This is a well written and researched book. The author provides information on other more obscure members of Queen Victoria's family, such as her half sister Feodora and her family. The family tree of the female side of Victoria's family is the most extensive and interesting I have seen, although it does not solve the question of where the haemophilia in the family came from.




2. I'd rate this less than zero, if the rating system allowed me to. This is completely lousy book and a huge waste of money! Many facts are wrong, which is a disgrace for someone of Ms. Zeepvat's experience. Her writing is flat and uninspiring and almost anything of interest is obtained from other books about the subject. Personally I'm sick of all these royal books that are basically re-packaged versions of previous books.



3. This is the first book, of the many I have read on Queen Victoria and/or her children, that focuses on Prince Leopold. Even reading the edited letters between Victoria and her daughter Vicky had very little mention of this child. The book was informative and I learned a great deal regarding her true obsessive and sometimes vicious behavior to Leopold, as a child and as a grown man. I highly recommend it.



4. This is a decent biography on Prince Leopold, although the author's theories on how he contracted hemophilia through his mother Queen Victoria was a little over my head, and the author could have made her explanation a bit more clearer. Also, I do wish the author would have made a family tree of Prince Leopold's descendents.



5. With this book, the author takes a welcome look at the life of Prince Leopold, fourth and youngest son of Queen Victoria. A fascinating prince, Leopold is one royal that history has more or less forgotten save his sad position as the first known royal hemophiliac. The earnest Leopold was highly intelligent (later Oxford educated), and desperate to live some semblance of a normal life, despite his illnesses (besides his hemophilia, Leopold was also likely a mild epileptic, both of which were not well-known outside of his family). His precarious health also made his already overbearing mother keep an even shorter leash on her youngest son, and his battles for a life separate from her were hard-won.
   
   Zeepvat is by profession a historian, and this book was definitely well-researched. The author includes much correspondence amongst a family of prolific letter-writers, and gives her audience an almost daily account of Leopold's activities and whereabouts. This approach also gives a well-rounded portrait of Leopold's personality, his thoughts on his illnesses, his struggles for independence, and his familial relationships. Aside from his dealings with Queen Victoria, Zeepvat also highlights Leopold's very close relationship with Alice, Grand Duchess of the small German principality of Hesse, and likewise her husband Louis. Zeepvat likewise describes Leopold's Oxford days well, along with the long-lasting friends he made there (Alice Liddell of Alice in Wonderland fame among them) and the happy memories he kept.
   
   The author also offers a theory on Leopold's hemophilia coming from Victoria's mother's family. Though the disease is passed to sons by their mothers, hemophilia was previously unknown on Victoria's maternal side. Hypotheses since Victoria's time have offered suggesting that Victoria's genes were perhaps mutated. Zeepvat points out what little was known about hemophilia even in Leopold's time, and further points out several young boys of Victoria's maternal family who died of what was thought to be usual childhood maladies of the times.
   
   The book is well-written in the fact that it is so rich in historical fact; however, Zeepvat's profession as a historian is evident, as the narrative is not particularly engaging. Also absent is much information on Leopold's wife, Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont. Though their marriage was brief (it lasted just short of two years, ending in Leopold's sudden death), Leopold had wanted to marry very badly as part of living a more ordinary life. He and Helena had a very happy relationship, unlike many arranged royal unions of the time, and had two children, a rare feat for a 19th century hemophiliac.
   
   Nonetheless, Zeepvat has provided a solid effort with this work on Leopold, giving her audience a good picture Leopold's life, one that was all too short and is remembered far too little.

1 comments about Churchill and De Gaulle.

1. Excellent description of the complex relationship between these two
   famous WWII leaders. Both faced tremendously difficult odds against
   Germany in June 1940, when the German armies quickly invaded
   Benelux and France, throwing the British divisions back to England.
   At a time where the US was only standing by, and France was overwhelmed by
   a vastly superior ennemy, Churchill had the courage and vision to support De Gaulle's refusal to surrender and subsequent negation of the (collaborationist) Vichy government. The author also provides an excellent
   description of the two men, describing their trials and highly tempestuous relationship, including their enduring -if severely tested- friendship. In the end, it becomes clear that both men indeed truly loved France -and what it stood for, expecting it to fulfill its European role after the war. The book also describes Roosevelt's persistent attempts to undermine De Gaulle while pressuring Churchill to do likewise -- perhaps the origin of the strained rapport betwen France and the US ?

1 comments about Royal Family, Royal Lovers: King James of England and Scotland.

1. King James, sponsor of the famous Authorized "King James" Bible, is often lauded as defender of the faith by some who worship his 1611 publication as the be-all and end-all of all English Bible translations. Many hagiographic works abound, but Bergeron's isn't one of those.

   While writing his Basilicon Doron to attack the sin of sodomy, James himself used his royal position to shield himself from such a charge against himself. Bergeron digs up the historical dirt and shares a contemporary's view of the hypocrisy, a diary entry in 1622 by one Simonds D'Ewes of a conversation he'd had with a friend:
   "Of things I discoursed with him that weere secrett as of the sinne of sodomye, how frequente it was in this wicked cittye, and if God did not provide some wonderfull blessing against it, wee could not but expect some horrible punishment for it; especially it being as wee had probable cause to feare, a sinne in the prince as well as the people, which God is for the most part the chastiser of himselfe, because noe man else indeed dare reprove or tell him them of ther faults." (Bergeron, p. 183)

   Many more pieces of evidence are to be found in those pages, and what emerges from Bergeron's picture is that of a great man who was both King of England and Scotland and quite human.

2 comments about Kaahumanu: Molder of Change.

1. Kaahumanu and her husband Kamehameha the Great are the first well-defined personalities in Hawaiian history.
   The definitions are open to more than one interpretation, however. Jane Silverman chooses to define Kaahumanu as Hawaii's first feminist. There is no evidence that Kaahumanu thought of herself in that fashion. None of the laws that she imposed upon her society were presented in terms of differences between the sexes, for example.
   It is true that Kaahumanu took on roles that probably no woman in Hawaii ever had before, and that she initiated changes that removed tremendous disabilities from Hawaiian women. But there is no reason to believe that she burned the old gods on behalf of women. She burned them, it appears, for the benefit of all, in the service of what she regarded as a new truth, and especially for the benefit of Kaahumanu.
   For she was not first a feminist, nor a stateswoman nor a politician, although she was all of these. First, she was an aristrocrat.
   "In an undefined space on the boundary of two cultures, Kaahumanu created a role for herself that she would not have been permitted within either culture," Silverman writes. This is too selective. No man, not even Kamehameha, could have done what she did without the solvent of the outside world. and even in the special conditions of her times, no woman but an aristocrat could have done what she did.
   None of that detracts from her accomplishments, for after all there were other women with even higher mana who did not seize power the way Kaahumanu did.
   Societies vary in their ability to resist intrusion from the modern world. The old Hawaiians were essentially receptive to new things, some of them good for them and some not. It was unfortunate for them that Kaahumanu replaced the violent old religion with a narrow-minded and repressive new one.
   It was easier for her, however, since she refused to be repressed herself. Like aristrocrats everywhere, she did as she pleased.
   This was true to an extent even before the impact of the outside world hit Hawaii. Silverman overstates the case when she says, "Kaahumanu, the most favored women of her society, lived within rigidly prescribed boundaries."
   The rules were right enough, but enforcement was not. It never is in aristocracies.
   Overall, the outside impact that Kaahumanu sponsored must have been liberating. The common people, at least, accepted it with a minimum of protest. Looking back, the picture seems more complicated. Whatever the judgment, Kaahumanu deserves to be ranked with the great social innovators and leaders of all time.
   she was a contemporary of Napoleon and just as able. If her nation had been as important as France, she would be as famous.
   All of this is well set out in "Kaahumanu: Molder of Change." The book reads well and is accurate as to facts. But the feminist spin that Silverman puts on every interpretation is anachronistic. At its worst it leads here to such absurd statements as, "These missionary women were not narrow in their outlook." And at the least it jars because Kaahumanu was not a modern political operator. She broke traditions, but she could not break the context of her own life.



2. 
   ...but Jane Silverman moves us closer to that goal by adding to the first foundation of what we know for sure about Queen K. She mines journals and letters to provide descriptions of events that were not witnessed by anyone else, offering us the first cogent summary of Queen K's actions as regent for so many years.
   I found Silverman's suggestion that Queen K was some sort of proto-Feminist unpersuasive. She never acted on behalf of women generally. She broke rules for herself, when it suited her. Her observations about religion and the law were more compelling. Steeped in a tradition where the priests and kings set out the rules of life, she tried to use that same approach in governance. Substituting puritanical Christianity for the old kapu system seemed only natural.
   Not a great book, just a good one, but one of the only references if you really want to know more about Queen Kaahumanu and her reign.

3 comments about War Of The Windsors.

1. Brilliantly and painstakingly researched, entertainingly and well written (there is an attempt to weigh up various arguments, rather than being biased towards one...), with very relevant and timely comment regarding this family.
   
   My only critisisms are:
   1. The choice of front cover/main title on this book (somewhat tabloid) marks it as being written by a journalist. Nevertheless, there are other authors involved here (including 2 historians - one specialising in intelligence, the other - military history), that bring a level of seriousness and meticulousness with them, beyond which is conveyed adequately by the (front) cover.
   2. The lack of an index. Sources and references are thankfully provided, however as a work of research this book also needs an index.



2. To anyone with an elementary knowledge of British history, this is a disgraceful book, filled with errors. It is an exercise in phoney mock-scholarship - for example the authors quote "sources" which on investigation have no more authority than they do. Other sources are conveniently not named, with authors falling back on the trick "some say," or "it has been alleged by some that ..." You get the idea? Treatment of well-known historical events such as the outbreak of world War II are simply ignorant.
   
   Since the royal family don't sue for defamation, you can print any falsehoods you like about them. Maybe they should start suing, as this might clean up the tidal wave of garbage written about them a bit.
   
   Facts are plain false or distorted. Allegations are made for which there is no real evidence and which cannot possibly be proven. The book so fails to deliver the information it promises - it delivers nothing but rumor, gossip, innunedo and conspiracy theories - that it should seriously be reported to ther consumer protection authorities as an exercise in taking money under false pretenses.



3. It is easy for the previous reviewer to complain about hearsay, innuendo and conspiracy theories, but it is also going to be difficult to satisfy everyone while you shed a different light on the pre-packaged sanitized mainstream version of Twentieth Century history.
   
   Some speculation is indeed included, but where it occurs the author clearly presents it as such. On the other hand however, she also raises a lot of questions that have never properly been dealt with. These include the real reasons behind Edward VIII's abdication, the absence of the Duke of Kent from popular history, the Profumo cover-up, the Blunt cover-up, the real life of Louis Mountbatten and much, much more.
   
   The style is honest and definitely not sensationalist while it offers convincing arguments for many historic anomalies. Why, for example, is the last Royal to die on active service never honoured on Armistice Day? Why did 'Sir' Anthony Blunt keep his title and honours while remaining in the Queen's employment after being unmasked as a Soviet spy? Why was Mountbatten assassinated when he had been the most leftist of all the Royals? Many more are dealt with.
   
   This book is highly recommended for all those who believe that they are not being fed the full picture on the Six 'o Clock news...

2 comments about Charles II: The Last Rally.

1. I've read several biographies of Charles II, the best of them Antonia Fraser's, with Stephen Coote's more recent Royal Survivor much less so. Almost all treat their subject as intelligent, but lazy, at best, feckless and disloyal at worst. Belloc takes the unique view that Charles had a strong and well developed set of principles that were reasonably adapted to a free and just society, but which were irreconcilable with the nouveau riche elements of his economy. This treatment was quite reasonable and fairly convincing, but most of all made good reading. As with much of Belloc's work, there is a strong institutional Roman Catholic orientation. Belloc does downplay the licentiousness of the Restoration Court in general and its monarch in particular, but those details can be readily found elsewhere.



2. Hilaire Belloc is truly without peer as a historian. His works are beautiful and riveting. One has the feeling in reading Belloc of having a long and deep conversation with an old and extremely wise friend. The mood of the discourse is intoxicating, and we don't want the interlude to end. But end it does, the good news being we can always find more of this prolific and insightful author to peruse.
   
   In Charles II, Belloc tells the story of the restoration of the Stuart monarchy after the Cromwellian "Commonwealth". We heartily recommend reading Belloc's "Cromwell" first and then this excellent work. Simply by reading the last chapter of each respective work, the reader will grasp firmly one of the great truths that Belloc imparts, what it is to die in an unrepentent state, that of Cromwell, and what it is to leave this Earth, being reconciled in the Eucharist, as Charles II finally was. The story of the good English Priest who both introduced Charles to the Catholic faith, once saved his life, and finally gave his last rites, is far more powerful than any dramatic fiction I have ever read. His brother James, later to be James II of England, perfectly sums up this scene in saying,
   
   "The man who saved your life has come to save your soul."
   
   This is wonderful. Read it. And be richly blessed.