Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

UK History

My Review: #5Stars for the Lydiard Chronicles, by Elizabeth St. John @ElizStJohn #HistoricalFiction #UKHistory #KU

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When you read historical fiction that’s anchored in real events, do you ever wonder where your own ancestors were at that point in time, what their role was, what they were doing? My husband and I each have UK and European ancestors, and we’ve been able to follow some of their lines back farther than we’d ever hoped. A distant relative traced one my husband’s lines all the way back to England’s Edward III, through Edward’s second son, John of Gaunt, and John’s mistress, Katherine Swynford (later his wife).

So when the two of us delve into books about UK royalty during the War of the Roses, the Tudor era, and beyond, we’re reading about (very) distant relatives, and yes, we wonder where our related ancestors were and how they fit in with those events.

MY REVIEW

When I downloaded The Lady of the Tower, by Elizabeth St. John, I didn’t know what to expect. I was immediately pulled into 17th century England. The opening lines bring us a woman entering the Tower of London, uncertain what will happen to her next. I feared for her and kept reading. You will, too.

It turns out that the Lady who looks to be in peril is Lucy St. John, a descendent of the St. John family who owned the Lydiard estate, now preserved as Lydiard Park, some 85 miles east of London. The author is a present day descendent of that same family.

In her three-book series, aptly named The Lydiard Chronicles, Elizabeth St. John traces four generations of family members who, as relatives of Elizabeth I, were close to that court and continued to be connected to royalty throughout the 17th century during the reigns of James I/VI, Charles I, and later Charles II. During the civil war and the Commonwealth era, family members took opposite sides, with sometimes tragic results.

The works are thoroughly researched, and the major events are historically accurate. The prose is so engaging and the details rich that I was compelled to stay in in the 17th century through all three books in her series. I didn’t want to set them down, and I know I will go back and re-read them.

Highly recommend.

Five Stars.

BUY LINKS

The Lady of the Tower

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523417889/

The Lydiard Chronicles

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GRDP6QP/

PORTRAITS

Author Elizabeth St. John has graciously sent me the following three photographs of portraits several major characters in the Lydiard series. The portraits were commissioned by their older brother, John St. John, for a family Polyptych which now hangs in St. Mary’s Church, Lydiard.

The Lady St. Johns (Lucy St. John is on the left, Barbara next to her.

The Original Polyptych

John St. John, painted when he had just acquired his title of Baronet in 1611:

My Review: The Last Great Saxon Earls, by Mercedes Rochelle @authorrochelle #1066 #KU #MedievalHistory #UKHistory #Review

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The Last Great Saxon Earls, by Mercedes Rochelle

I first “met” Earl Godwine in Helen Hollick’s exquisite fictional account of Queen Emma, The Forever Queen. But the earl and his sons were shadowy figures on the edges of my awareness as I continued to explore more pre-Norman historical fiction. Mercedes Rochelle has knit all the puzzle pieces together marvelously in her three-volume series, The Last Great Saxon Earls.

As the author notes in her opening, it is always the victors who record and pass down the history. The Godwine family, ultimately defeated by William the Conqueror in 1066, have nearly faded into obscurity. Major dates are known – births, deaths, even some marriages – as are their various titles: earldoms, and eventually kingship, for son Harold, briefly in 1066. But the missing details are fertile ground for an author of fiction, and Rochelle fills in the blanks with compelling and engaging motives and actions.

How did Earl Godwine first meet Canute and fall into his favor? Why was there so much conflict between Earl Godwine’s sons Harold and Tostig? Was the Earl truly responsible for the death of Æthling Alfred, Emma’s son by Æthlred the Unready? What was the ultimate fate of the earl’s youngest son, Wulfnoth, a hostage in Normandy for decades?

No one knows the true answer to any of these questions. I do suspect the author’s experience as an actor in Living History has contributed to her ability to place herself – and hence us, as readers – so convincingly in both the inner and outer worlds of these characters from over a millennium ago. It’s a challenge to create a page-turner when the outcome of so many events is already known, but Rochelle’s account has succeeded. I found myself rooting for characters along the way in spite of knowing their ultimate fate, a testament to her ability to evoke empathy for characters long vilified as traitors, at worst, or simply losers, at best.

Five stars, highly recommend.

BUY LINK

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRQMHYWB
Free to read on Kindle Unlimited
$2.99 each to purchase

 

 

 

My Review: The Forever Queen, by Helen Hollick @HelenHollick #MedeivalHistory #UKHistory

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This week I’m continuing my reviews of fiction about women across the ages who’ve had an impact on the history of the British Empire. Two weeks ago I reviewed Cathie Dunn’s novel Ascent, focused on the Viking invader Rollo’s hand-fasted wife, Poppa. Poppa is the great grandmother of today’s impactful heroine, Queen Emma.

When I wrote about Poppa, I was writing about a direct – although very distant – ancestor of my husband. Like so many Americans of British descent, his lineage traces back to Edward III, in his case through Edward’s son John of Gaunt and John’s mistress and later wife, Katheryn Swynford.

Queen Emma is not my husband’s ancestor, and the British royal line descends not from her but from her brother. Nonetheless, she and her children had a profound and powerful impact on the course of UK history.

MY REVIEW

The Forever Queen, by Helen Hollick

Emma was but thirteen when her brother – the future Duke of Normandy – accompanied her across the channel from France in 1002 to wed King Æthelred, later known as Æthelred the Unready. Little could she know that as England’s future queen, she held in her hands both England’s rise to success across the middle decades of the century, and its fall to William the Conqueror, her grandnephew, in 1066.

Perhaps more is known about this pre-Norman queen than about any who preceded her, in part because late in her life, she commissioned a book about herself. One may need to take the details of that book with a grain of salt, but its broad strokes mesh with much that is documented elsewhere.

As Æthelred’s queen consort, Emma ruled England with him until his death except for a brief interim in 1013, in which the Dane Sweyn Forkbeard conquered the island and Æthelred fled with his family to Emma’s brother, by then Duke Richard, in Normandy. After Æthelred’s death in 1016, a son of Emma and Æthelred ruled briefly, but was defeated by Sweyn’s son Cnut the Great, who shortly married Emma; hence her title, the forever queen. She ruled with him until his death in 1032, and she was an active participant in the government of her two sons who succeeded him, Harthacnute and Edward the Confessor. Emma died in 1052. Counting her years as advisor to her ruling sons, Emma was central to English politics for nearly half a century, a ruler in fact if not in name.

Author Helen Hollick has taken these known and conjectured facts and delivered a compelling account of Emma, her inner world, her dilemmas, and her choices. In addition, she embeds this narrative in a rich and detailed presentation of Emma’s outer world – the backward state of England’s royal and liturgical structures, the complex medieval culture, the political interplay and some of its traitors, the powerful role of the Catholic church and its bishops, and the incessant Viking invasions.

The Emma who emerges is engaging, often admirable, sometimes devious, and clearly very clever to successfully navigate the swirling power plays that surround her. Is she a likable character? Yes and no. For me, Hollick succeeds in making us understand and empathize with her, so that even when she takes an action we might disapprove of, we know why. I found the presentation of her character and her era to be highly engaging and informative.

Five Stars ~ Highly Recommend.

BUY LINK

The Forever Queen: Sometimes, a desperate kingdom is in need of one great woman.

Helen Hollick

https://amazon.com/dp/B0042JU7QW/

My Review: Child of Water, by G. Lawrence (@TudorTweep) #UKHistory #HistoricalFiction #Review

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I’ve said elsewhere that I learned almost nothing in any of my history courses about the western world before the Renaissance. In recent years, I’ve read widely in both fiction and non-fiction about the British Isles throughout the millennium between the exit of the Romans (roughly 400 A.D.) and the onset of the Renaissance (1400 A.D.). And it has thrilled me to discover that not only is a great deal known about this era, but there is a vast amount of material about the powerful role of women. My next several reviews will feature some of these works.

One of the first Norman era books I picked up – available on Kindle Unlimited, which is always a treat – is Child of Water (The Heirs of Anarchy, Book I), by G. Lawrence. This book is the first of a four book series tracing the life of the only daughter of King Henry I (reigned1100 to 1135). Matilda (1102-1167), or Maude, as she was also known, came into power first as the Holy Roman Empress, through her marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1110, when she was a mere child of eight; then, following his death, as the rival claimant to the English throne during the years of Anarchy, 1135-1154; and finally in Normandy, often acting as representative for her son, King Henry II, and presiding over the government of the Normandy Duchy

Almost all the events I just enumerated are things I knew nothing about before I picked up this book, but the book is nothing like a history lesson. Lawrence uses the first person point of view masterfully to create an engaging and highly readable narrative. There’s just enough detail about events to enable unfamiliar readers to anchor themselves, but never so much as to overwhelm. Characters and events materialize on the page because Matilda is affected by them. We see what she sees, learn what she learns, and come to know what she fears, hopes, and decides as the events unfold.

Child of Water opens in Rouen, Normandy, shortly before Matilda’s death, as she reflects on her life and her role. Here is a snippet that spoke to me:

One day, when I am gone, my ladies will tell their husbands and children of me. With a touch of pride, something they will attempt to conceal since noble women are not supposed to possess it, they will say that once they attended upon me, the Empress Matilda, Lady of the English, daughter of Henry I, wife to the Count of Anjou and the Holy Roman Emperor … the woman who waged war against men for a throne.

The book then drops us into the mind of eight-year-old Matilda as she waits on the beach for a longboat to bear her on the first step of her sea and land journey to marry the man who has been named Holy Roman Emperor but not yet crowned. We travel with her, study with her in her new home, grow up with her and see her crowned empress. This first volume then traces her life and her inner world as she returns to England upon the death of her husband. It concludes as she marries the man her father has chosen for her, Goeffrey, Count of Anjou – who wore a yellow flower in his hair and eventually ushered in the Plantagenet house of British royalty, through their son, Henry II. The details of these and subsequent events in Matilda’s life form the remaining three volumes in the series.

In summary, I found Child of Water to be an intriguing and informative read. I was especially struck by Matilda’s reflections (naturally the invention of the author, but plausible at the very least) as she navigated the male world of power plays among her husband the emperor, the Pope, the antipope, and the Germanic nobility, and then the world of her father and his holdings in England and Normandy. One might think such modern thoughts are anachronistic, but embedded as they were in very real events, I found them insightful.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in early Norman history in England, and even for those who are curious to discover if they might develop such an interest.

 

Child of Water (Heirs of Anarchy, Book I) is available exclusively at Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084KN8G8J/

Free to read at Kindle Unlimited