"The Three Edwards" by Thomas B Costain

 The third in the "Pageant of England" tetralogy, a sequel to The Conquering Family and The Magnificanet Century.

Not so much the Whig view of history as a no-holds-barred Tory view in which the 'greatness' of a country is measured by military success. Thus Edwards I and III were great Kings and Edward II a disastrous weakling. There are heroes (Robert the Bruce and William Wallace, the Black Prince, John Wycliff etc) and there are villains (Piers Gaveston and the Despensers, Alice Perrers and John of Gaunt and any number of dastardly foreigners). And Costain loves a good story. Although he sometimes points out the lack of evidence for some of his tales, all the classics are here, such as the presentation to the Welsh lords of the first Prince of Wales, a child who spoke no English (because he was the recently born King's son). This is myth retold as if it were history and told for the purpose of encouraging patriotism. It is about great men and wicked men and matters such as economic conditions and complex characters are downplayed. It is racist ("There have always been forces at work in the world which over-ride justice. The sufferings that the defeated Saxons endured for two centuries were gradually forgotten in the fusion of the two races. Who will say that the Indians of North America should have been allowed to keep the continent for themselves?"; I, 9.1) and sexist ("She might have glanced slyly out of the corner of a starry eye at stout London aldermen and swished her scented wiliecoats at court receptions, but this was no more than the habitual exercise in mass subjugation in which beautiful women indulge"; II, 6.3) It is, in short, simplistic. But not naive. Not innocent. I think Costain understands the propaganda value of his stories. 

Selected quotes:

• "Used at first for decoration only, on books and purses and scabbards as well as clothes, the button began to prove its utility in holding clothes closer to the body, thereby providing greater warmth and accentuating (where the ladies were concerned) the gentle curve of the figure." (I, 6.1) He really can't resist a sexist aside.
• "Even opportunities for reading were limited, the royal library consisting of three books." (I, 6.2)
•  "He remained single all his life because he had no time for matrimony and perhaps also because of an admiration for the fair sex so general that he could not find one to exclude all others from his mind." (III, 16.2)
• "The battlefields where great warriors died are so encroached upon by modern villas and so befouled by the rotting remains of motorcars and the staves of oil barrels that they do not always repay a visit." (III, 17.2)

September 2021; 467 pages

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

"The Plantagenets" by Dan Jones

This is the history of the kings of England from Henry II (although it actually starts with a sort of prologue explaining how Henry I's son was killed in the wreck of the White Ship and how this led to anarchy as Stephen and Matilda tussled to stalemate for supremacy) up to Richard II. The essential theme is that the Plantagenet kings were at their greatest when they ruled England as the embodiment of law and at their weakest and most corrupt when they subverted law for their own profits. Thus John (with Magna Carta), Henry III (with the early Parliaments of Simon de Montfort), Edward II (deposed by Roger Mortimer and Richard II (deposed by Henry Bolingbroke were all bad kings.

To be honest, this does not reflect well on royalty. For every good king (Henry II, Edward I although his wars bankrupted his son, Edward III until he went senile) there was at least one bad king.

Another perspective on this history which Dan Jones does not really explore is that this period was throughout a tussle between the barons and the king. At the start of the period the rules of inheritance were less obvious than they are now. Thus, of the Norman kings, William was a bastard, William Rufus was a second son (and Henry I his younger brother) and Stephen was elected King over Henry's daughter Matilda. And if the king could be chosen rather than merely born then he could be deposed.

And the big problem facing all these kings was how to finance the almost continual wars they had to fight. They needed to persuade people to pay tax. Much of the growth of parliamentary representation came because the barons and later the commons demanded concessions in return for their cash.

Another theme is the regular appeals of the Kings, especially when being crowned, to the pre-Norman past. Edward the Confessor was seen as a golden age and the new kings would regularly offer charters which referred to this Saxon past.

This book is a spirited romp through 246 years. At 600 pages it is just over 2 pages a year. It cannot be other than a skim of the surface. Thus it was not really the book for me because I have read much about this period (including biographies of Edward I, and Roger Mortimer and Dan Jones' own account of the Peasants' Revolt). It is also probably too long for a casual reader who merely wants the briefest overview to the subject. In some ways a book like this has been overtaken by wikipedia in which you can start with a story and pursue it according to your own interests. Nevertheless it is well written and enjoyable.

February 2014; 601 pages