"Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders" by Nathen Amin

 Henry Tudor, whose claim to the throne of England was tenuous, spent most of his early life in exile in Brittany and France before landing in England and, within three weeks, overcoming the superior forces of King Richard III to become King Henry VII. Not surprisingly, he never felt perfectly secure on his throne. Conspiracies throughout his reign endeavoured to topple him. Three of the most famous are those of Lambert Simnel, Perkin Warbeck, and Edward, Earl of Essex.

Lambert Simnel was probably the son of a joiner, or organ-maker from Oxford who was taken to Ireland when he was ten years old where he was proclaimed to be Edward, Duke of Warwick, son of George, Duke of Clarence (the brother of Edward IV and Richard III whose rebellious activities during Ed IV's reign got him killed in the Tower) despite the fact that Edward was still alive and living in captivity in the Tower of London (and despite the fact that Clarence had been attaindered following his rebellion so that his son had no legitimate claim on the throne). Little Lambert was crowned in Dublin Cathedral and then brought back to England with an army of Irish and mercenaries which was slaughtered at Stoke Field near Newark.  Lambert himself was captured, confessed, and given a job as a turnspit in the royal kitchens; he later became a falconer. The priest who allegedly groomed young Lambert is a rather mysterious character whose confession is recorded but who seems to have had no independent existence either before or afterwards.

Perkin Warbeck lasted longer. A native of Tournois he travelled, via Portugal, to Ireland. He was a good-looking lad and supposedly the spitting image of Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower, sons of Edward IV, who, it was said, had somehow escaped captivity although his older brother had been murdered. Claiming to be Richard IV, he gained support at the court of the French King Charles VIII and, after Charles had signed a peace treaty with Edward IV, the Burgundian court, before trying to land at Deal in Kent (the advance troops were massacred by locals) and then going, via Ireland, to James IV in Scotland where he got married and accompanied James IV on a border raid towards Berwick but getting cold feet and fleeing back to Edinburgh. He then attempted a landing in Cornwall and mustered rebels, getting as far as Taunton before again fleeing. He surrendered at Beaulieu Abbey and was kept under guard in Henry VII's court before again escaping and being recaptured and flung into the Tower before yet another conspiracy attempted to spring both him and Edward, Earl of Warwick (the real son of Clarence) which got them both executed.

This history focuses on these (and other) plots against Henry VII. There are lots of other details about him and his reign but they are not necessarily in chronological order nor are they very detailed so if you want to learn about him, go elsewhere. But it is well written and a good read and as informative as it can be given the scarcity of reliable sources. It even-handedly considers the possibility that the claimants were genuine rather than imposters. For example, Amin points out the the huge amount of detail in Warbeck's account of his early life compared to the vagueness of his account of how he escaped from the Tower probably means that he was an imposter but could be seen as a well-written but fictional 'manufactured' confession and the fact that it contains discrepancies with other sources could be explained by the vagueness of the times (eg over names) but might suggest fabrication. On the whole, though, he comes down on the 'imposter' side: 

• “This is perhaps the clearest indication of Henry VII’s certainty that Warbeck was not Richard of York, for is there was any doubt in the king’s mind that a legitimate rival to his throne still lived, his death would have been arranged ... by overturning Titulus Regis, the act Richard III passed who de-legitimised Elizabeth of York ... Henry had also re-legitimised her brothers.” (Ch 15)
• “If there is any one indication that Henry VII believed Warbeck and Simnel to be the imposters he claimed they were, then it is in the stark difference between his treatment of them and his treatment of the unfortunate Warwick - confined deep in the Tower, out of sight.” (Ch 16)

But the whole of this history is delightfully murky. For those like me, who are sceptical that Richard III murdered the Princes in the Tower (there is evidence to suggest that it might have been Henry VII), the widespread acceptance of the claims of Simnel and Warbeck suggests that some people, aristocrats as well as commoners, did not believe that the Princes in the Tower were dead. And the idea that a ten year old or a handsome Fleming lad could be touted as possible kings is delightfully romantic.

Good fun. March 2024; 344 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"The Hell-Fire Clubs" by Evelyn Lord

 If, like me, you thought that the Hell-Fire club was a group of dissolute noblemen having satanic orgies in caves below West Wycombe in the middle of the eighteenth century, this brilliant history will open your eyes to the whole gamut of groups of young men (and occasionally women) who met together to drink, have fun, fornicate and, sometimes, be violent. The Damned Crew and the Mohocks were hooligans who terrorised London streets. The Ballers "danced naked with prostitutes" (Ch 1). The Beefsteaks ... ate steak. The Demoniacs told one another rude stories. And the Beggar's Benison, whose initiation rite involved masturbation, read pornographic books. 

This is a fascinating account of bad behaviour during the Enlightenment. Some very respectable men used their positions of wealth and privilege to enjoy themselves ("By day the club members might be courtiers, Members of Parliament and respectable members of the community. By night they broke social rules to experience forbidden pleasure.”;Introduction), no matter what the consequences were for the rest of society. And they got away with it. This is a story which resonated to our own times.

And some of the characters (Earl of Rochester, Duke of Wharton, Sir Francis Dashwood etc) were spectacularly wicked.

It even includes the perplexing mystery of how a club of roues in East Fife could read a book that wasn't published for another ten years ...

Selected quotes:

• “The Enlightenment ... was also an age when pleasure was seen as a right for everyone.” (Introduction)
• “The Enlightenment was also the Age of Experience, and the hell-fire clubs ... were out to grab experience by the neck" (Introduction)
• “The Damned Crew ... would meet together on nights, and vow amongst themselves to kill the next man they met whosoever.” (Ch 1)
• “He and his companions provoked a riot by standing naked on the balcony of the aptly named Cock Tavern in Bow Street, throwing bottles, into which they had pissed, on to the crowd below.” (Ch 1)
• “They acted in an anti-social way because in restored England they knew they could, and they knew from personal experience that social and religious certainties could be swept away.” (Ch 1)
• “Many liberties were spurred on by the belief that death truly was the end.” (Ch 1)
• “The members of reformation societies believed sin to be the result of a struggle between God and the Devil that the Devil had won ... The societies had no qualms about private vice as long as it did not impinge on the lives of others.” (Ch 1)
• “A gang of young gentlemen made random attacks on passers-by, beat up the watch and insulted the constables. Good men feared to go out at night, but neither were they safe behind locked doors as the Mohocks smashed windows, pulled door-bells and assaulted the servants who answered them.” (Ch 2)
• “a low room that's stunk like a drunkard's morning breath.” (Ch 3)
• “British writers on the continent show that they were likely to seek out their countrymen wherever they went, whereas Continental visitors to Britain interacted freely with the native population and joined in social events, soaking up the culture of the coffee-house and the tavern.” (Ch 4)
• “Soaping your own beard could be a euphemism for masturbation.” (Ch 5)
• “David Hume ... believed that society must channel human nature into constructive directions through laws and customs.” (Ch 8)
• “it was recognised by the authorities that the tavern was the place where a workman could go to sit in the warmth with his fellows after a hard day’s labour, a place where the merchant could meet his peers and discuss business, and where gentlemen could gather over a bowl of wine and discuss the affairs of the day.” (Ch 9)

May 2022; 214 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

Also read The Secret History of the Hell-Fire Clubs by Geoffrey Ashe

"Legions of the Eagle" by Henry Treece

Gwydion, the son of a Belgic lord, the right-hand man to King Caratacus, and his Silurian slave Math, are captured by the Romans invading Britain. Math escapes but Gwydion is sent to Gaul as a slave to be the companion of centurion's son Gaius. Following a plague, the boys return to Britain seeking Gwydion's mother and the father of Gaius. They also find Math and a whole lot of trouble.

I loved this boys' adventure story when I was nine. Now I don't. Gwydion is the typical Treece hero (see his Viking books): brave, boastful, and reckless. His experiences as a slave don't seem to have changed this. He doesn't seem to learn. He's also blond and Treece seems to have favoured flaxen hair: the dark-haired (and dark-faced) Math might be cunning but he is despicable. Although there are moments when Gwydion catches glimpses of Math's resentment of the master-slave dynamic (despite the author's protests that Gwysion and his mother treat Math like one of them) this doesn't spill over into justice in terms of the story arc and I have to conclude that Treece, like Gwydion, never properly understood that a favoured slave is still a slave, that power can only exist with powerlessness, and that conquest does not give the conquerors the moral right to belittle the conquered in any way, even by patronising them. At the end, Gwydion says: "Life isn't given to us just so we can exert our strength on other men and turn their lives inside-out for our own advantage." (Epilogue). But there is no evidence, in his character, or in that of his best friend Gaius, that he understands this. The lesson is learnt by Math, perhaps, but by this time Math is the antagonist.

Furthermore, the history seems surprisingly sloppy for such a well-known author. "Then Gwydion saw his mother do a strange thing; she suddenly stood in her stirrups" (4.1). This would have been strange indeed during the Roman conquest of Britain (43 CE).  Although rope loops may have been used as early as 200 BCE (in Asia, perhaps reaching Rome but probably not Britain) there is no evidence for the stirrup as such before 500 CE. Furthermore, Gwydion travels through "Londinium" (2.1) but there is no evidence for pre-Roman settlement in London and Londinium as such was founded by the Romans after their invasion.

A very disappointing read.

Selected quote:

• "When men go to war, they do not think of their opponents as being of the same nature as their own families." (2.5)

August 2021

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Robert Peel: A biography" by Douglas Hurd

 Hurd traces the life and career of the first 'Conservative' Prime Minister, a man whose career started in the days of Rotten Boroughs and a monarch (George IV) who played an active part in government to the beginnings of the party system with mostly-contested elections and manifestos and a monarch (Victoria) who was soon sidelined after her initial meddling. And on the way he helped ensure that Roman Catholics could become MPs, he created the first organised police force, he reformed a chaotic penal code, he sorted out the US-Canada border, he helped the Whigs bring in the Great Reform Act, he reformed working conditions for women and children in mines and factories, and, during the Irish famine, he repealed the Corm Laws which imposed tariffs on imported corn, keeping the price of bread artificially high. In order to get this last piece of legislation through he had to battle against his own right wing; he split his own party and carried the vote with the help of the Whigs and Radicals in opposition. He was therefore remembered in two ways: as a turncoat who twice (Catholic emancipation and the Corn Laws) abandoned earlier principles and the self-interested principles of his own party and as a man who put the well-being of the ordinary people, particularly those who had no vote, before the interests of faction.

Unfortunately, Hurd is writing in 2007. He assumes that the Tory hard right (the 'Ultras' as Peel called them, the 'sour right' as Hurd labels them) are a self-destructive lot who will never win power as mainstream Conservatives; in the aftermath of Brexit we now know that to be wrong. He also assumes that Peel's repeal of the Corn Laws, a unilateral abandonment of a key tariff, was the first step in an unstoppable journey towards globalisation and free trade. In the aftermath of Brexit this is another conclusion that now looks unsupportable.

Some great moments:

• "The Conservative Party will always include within its ranks those who in Peel's time were called the Ultras - men, and now women too, who instinctively resist change and pine for a golden age that never was." (Introduction)
• "If a man was clever and not ashamed of it, then it was thought almost certain that he was using his cleverness for manoeuvres and deceits from which decent men should recoil." (Ch 7)
• "Croker though Canning should be Prime Minister, but believed 'he could hardly take tea without a stratagem'." (Ch 7)
• "The second and smaller group of Ultras are the sour Right. There is nothing warm or nostalgic about their politics. Many of them are intelligent and sincere; but there appeal is to the prejudices and cruelty which are part of human nature." (Ch 7)
• "Politicians are often in a state of outrage. They find it a convenient condition for a day or two. They usually recover quickly and get on with the other pleasures of life." (Ch 9)

A well-written and eminently readable biography of a politician whose multiple achievements deserve to be better known.

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

July 2021; 397 pages