"Marlborough" by Richard Holmes

A fascinating biography of the British general who betrayed his friend, his monarch and the father of his sister's children during the Glorious Revolution and went on to win battle after battle during the War of Spanish Succession.

Full of fascinating glimpses of a bygone age:

• “A guinea was worth thirty shillings prior to the recoinage in 1696 and twenty-one shillings thereafter.”
• “In 1703 five dragoon broadswords cost £24 Scots, but just £2 Sterling.”
• Louis XIV refused Prince Eugène a commission because “there were rumours that Eugène had been too fond of other pages at court; his mother, caught up in accusations of witchcraft, was someone the king now regarded with horror, and in any case the lad was shockingly ugly.”
• “High temper rarely makes a successful contribution to labour relations on a building site.”
• “‘Captain’ Peter Drake served in the Spanish, Dutch, English and hahaFrench armies, often joining one without having completed the tiresome formalities which might properly have accompanied his discharge from another.”
• As a young man M enjoyed the favours of the by then aging and experienced Barbara Castlemaine who had been (and potentially still was) one of the mistresses of Charles II. She gave him a handsome £5000 present (possibly because of his gallantry in leaving her bedroom via the window when the King came to call) and a daughter (who later became a nun who had a child by James Douglas, Earl of Arran). Her other lovers included the playwright William Wycherley, and property developer Henry Jermyn. (C 1)
• The mother of Sarah Jennings, who became the wife of Marlborough, was accused of witchcraft: “She was certainly evil-tempered, may actually have been unhinged, and some suggested that she dabbled in the black arts and the procurement of that commodity most sought after by the court, pretty girls.” (C 2)
• When Queen Mary reminded Catherine Sedley that she had been one of the mistresses of James II, Catherine replied: “If I broke one of the commandments with your father, you have broken another against him.” (C 2)
• “We may doubt whether a tiny village like Westonzoyland actually contained sufficient alcohol to induce widespread drunkenness, even if the royal army was unfamiliar with the foot-tangling attributes of the local cider.” (C 2)
• When Anne succeeded William III she immediately sacked William’s chief minister Lord Romsey “though the broad arrow from his coat of arms long survived as an emblem of government property.” (C 4)
• The military ‘tattoo’ was originally a drum-beat designed to call soldiers back to camp from the local villages “its name derived from the Dutch doe ten tap toe ... ‘turn off the tap’ of the wine or beer barrel.” (C 4)
• When captured French general Marshal Tallard was a prisoner in Nottingham he grew celery, introducing it to England. (C 5)
• Q Anne sat either on her throne in Parliament or, when it was cold, on a bench by the fire. (C 6)
• “There is a hoary old tale of a bear-keeper who, hoping to administer physic to the creature, placed the potion in a piece of rolled-up paper, inserted one end into the bear’s mouth and the other into his own, and prepared to blow. The bear, alas, blew first.” (C 6)
• Marlborough’s daughter Henrietta, who became 2nd Duchess after his death, probably had a child by poet William Congreve after visiting Bath whose waters had “a wonderful influence on barren ladies, who often prove with child, even in their husbands’ absence.” (C 8)

August 2017; 482 pages

Richard Holmes has also written:

• The Age of Wonder: a brilliant history of the inventions of the late 1700s and early 1800s
• Coleridge: Early Visions: an excellent biography of the poet.

Another book of military history set in the same era (and also including the Battle of Sedgemoor) is All the King's Men by Saul David.

"The Sun King" by Nancy Mitford

This is the biography of Louis XIV of France who reigned for 72 years from the age of five and was succeeded by his great-grandson, after three Dauphins died, one after another, in 11 months.

What is unusual in this biography is that Mitford only mentions the momentous historical events that took place during his reign, such as the Fronde and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the War of Spanish Succession, as background to the court life of Versailles. We learn far more about the Sun Kings shifting mistresses and the parade of noblemen through court than we do about the politics of the time. This is a fascinating perspective on history and may indeed reflect the way the king viewed the world through the ritual of courtly life but I found it confusing: there were so many monsieurs and monseigneurs and madame la duchesses and monsieur le ducs. It was also frustrating to have tantalising glimpses of the world outside the palace and never to have anything explained. This was the world of the Musketeers and I have never quite understood about Richelieu and Mazarin and Fouquet and the Huguenots. This book shed no further light on these mysteries of the French.

There were a lot of wonderfully romantic moments. At one stage hundreds of French minor nobility are imprisoned secretly and in solitary using lettres de cachet because they are caught up in a poisoning plot and might, just might, reveal that one of the King's mistresses, Madame de Montespan, was a prime poisoner. Shades of the Man in the Iron Mask (and on almost the last page Mitford claims that on his deathbed Louis told his nephew the Duc d'Orleans who was to be regent to the five year old Louis XV, the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask and that only two other people (Louis XV and Louis XVI) ever knew it (so Mitford obviously can't reveal it)). Louis also romantically married Marie de Maintenon as a second wife secretly and was more or less faithful to her until his death.

So there are some interesting moments but I was disappointed not to learn a lot more about this fascinating reign. June 2014; 242 pages

Nancy Mitford followed this up with the biography of Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, who suceeded Louis XIV.