#tudors

I spoke to Adam Pennington about his work on the Plantagenet Poles.

What drew Adam to write about the Plantagenet Poles?

Why did Henry VIII take so long to act against the Pole family?

Thanks to Amberley Publishing for a copy to read and review.

This book intrigued me from the first time I heard about it. Writing a book myself at the moment about Henry VIII’s Great Matter I thought that this could be a very interesting alternative point of view, and one that hasn’t really been discussed in detail in any previous works I’ve read. It is quite engagingly written with an extensive bibliography.

There are very extensive notes, though a lot of this information would have been better in the main body of the text for context for those less versed in the subject. References should be used to reference texts, with small additions in my view. But there is a lot of information provided in the book and a good selection of images in the central plates as well. Rabow obviously knows his subject and has done extensive research which is evidenced throughout.

Rabow does seem to be very well-versed in Biblical interpretation and how it could have applied to Henry VIII’s attempts to get an annulment from Katherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. A lot of the Jewish theology goes over my head, if I’m honest, it took me long enough to grasp the Catholic and reformist angles on the divorce. The general Jewish history was very interesting, and quite mind-opening for someone like me who doesn’t know much of the early Jewish history in Europe.

Rabow seems to make sweeping assertions about the history without evidence – like that Anne Boleyn had multiple sexual relationships in France and remained friends with her ex-lovers. He says that the love letters are dated to 1527 and 1528 as if it’s a certainty. In the appendix the love letters he actually gives precise dates to, where we have no evidence. He adds a note in the references to say where he’s got the order from, but that should be stated more clearly within the appendix itself for any avoidance of doubt. It’s a huge problem to assert things as facts when they’re far from certain. This is my biggest problem with this book.

I was intrigued by this novel when I was offered a copy by the author for review. I’ve never heard of a novel told from the points of view of Thomas More, Desiderius Erasmus, and Margaret More Roper and it worked really well. The author has obviously done their research into the period and the figures at the centre of the story, and there is a long author note at the end which explains where things have deviated from the historical record and why.

The only thing that really got to me was the undertone of a romantic relationship between More and Erasmus, and again between Margaret and her maid, Dorothy. As far as I am aware, there is no evidence of any such relationships, and it didn’t add anything to the story by being there, it felt completely incongruous. These were the points where I struggled to get through sections, and I was engaged by the story when it focused on the religious divisions, struggles with what was and wasn’t heresy, and the changing political situations in Europe.

There is an extensive bibliography at the end of the novel, and the storytelling of the tumultuous events in Europe at this time is great. The different perspectives worked really well to understand events from someone at the centre of them in England (More), a woman who wanted to be able to do more than her position would allow her (Margaret), and a man who spread ideas which were sometimes deemed heretical but was hugely respected across Europe, removed from events in England (Erasmus). The three perspectives give insight into events outside England as well, providing a more rounded fictional narrative.

My second book was 'Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block', but I couldn't include every single person that I wanted to in the book.

So who did I leave out?

Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk

Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy

Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter

Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk

Thanks to Richard Woulfe and Chiselbury Publishing for a copy of this to review.

The idea of this book intrigued me when I was offered a copy. Robert Cecil isn’t someone I knew a huge amount about, largely just his involvement in the Essex Rebellion. I certainly had no real knowledge of how his life was under James I. I knew more about his father, William Cecil, Baron Burghley. So, this was a chance for me to get to know Robert Cecil a little better through a fictional lens.

We see the development of Robert over time, from the first chapter told from the point of view of his father while his mother gives birth, to the final chapter narrated by Robert himself as he’s dying, taking in his relationship with Francis Bacon, the Essex Rebellion, the death of Elizabeth I and accession of James I, the Gunpowder Plot, and the scandalous marriage of Arbella Stuart to William Seymour and their attempted flight. An overarching feature is Robert Cecil’s scoliosis, often referred to as a hunchback, little, or pygmy.

It is a good format to be told in 18 interlinked short stories, picking out some of the most important moments in Robert Cecil’s life, and of the late Tudor and early Stuart reigns. You see it from all kinds of different perspectives – Robert himself, his father, men and women on the street, a sculptor, a playwright, and an intelligencer. The writing is engaging in telling Cecil’s story, and Woulfe seems to have kept to the historical record as far as possible in terms of events that happened, though my knowledge of the period is far from encyclopaedic.

One thing I will say is that it would have been nice to have a year, and who the narrator is at the beginning of each chapter, so you know immediately how far ahead in the story we’ve jumped from the last chapter. Not having that stops the flow of the narrative I felt. It’s a bit hit and miss because some chapters do have a year and others don’t. The same with the different narrators, you have to sort of figure out who’s speaking as you go along which means you do really need to concentrate.

I talked to Beverley Adams about her book on Elizabeth of York and the birth of the Tudor dynasty.

Was Henry VII and Elizabeth of York's marriage a love match?

Did Elizabeth of York believe her uncle Richard III killed her brothers, the Princes in the Tower?