Did King Arthur really live and if so how much of the myths about him have a grain of truth? Some of the books about the monarchs who really lived are more myth than reality, but they are fascinating to think about and we learn so much about the times they lived in.
I used the word monarch so we could discuss Kings, Queens, Emperors, Empresses and any other title that rulers have had.
It is too large a category, I know, and I should do a diary for each continent or each era of history, but I am just going to mention some of my favorites and let my readers add theirs. I have really enjoyed reading about monarchs over the years and sometimes several different books about the same one.
1. King Arthur
Favorite books include:
Kay, Guy Gavriel
The Fionavar Tapestry
Steinbeck, John
The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights
Stewart, Mary
The Crystal Cave (1970)
The Hollow Hills (1973)
The Last Enchantment (1979)
The Wicked Day (1983)
Keneally-Morrison, Patricia
The Copper Crown (1984)
The Throne of Scone (1986)
The Silver Branch (1988)
Tales of Arthur
The Hawk's Grey Feather (1990)
The Oak Above the Kings (1994)
The Hedge of Mist (1996)
Lawhead, Stephen
The Pendragon Cycle:
Taliesin (1987)
Merlin (1988)
Arthur (1989)
Pendragon (1994)
Grail (1997)
Whyte, Jack
Camulod Chronicles series
Bradley, Marion Zimmer
Mists of Avalon
White, T. H.
The Once and Future King
Movie: The First Knight with Connery and Gere
2. King Stephen of England as seen in the Cadfael stories by Ellis Peters and Sharon Kay Penman’s book When Christ and His Saints Slept.
Wiki discusses King Stephen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
When Henry I died in 1135, Stephen quickly crossed the English Channel and with the help of his brother Henry of Blois, a powerful ecclesiastic, took the throne, arguing that the preservation of order across the kingdom took priority over his earlier oaths to support the claim of Henry I's daughter, the Empress Matilda.
The early years of Stephen's reign were largely successful, despite a series of attacks on his possessions in England and Normandy from David I of Scotland, Welsh rebels and the Empress Matilda's husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. In 1138 the Empress's half-brother Robert of Gloucester rebelled against Stephen, threatening civil war.
Together with his close advisor, Waleron de Beaumont, Stephen took firm steps to defend England, including arresting a powerful family of bishops. When the Empress and Robert invaded in 1139, however, Stephen was unable to rapidly crush the revolt, which took hold in the south-west of England. Captured at the battle of Lincoln in 1141, Stephen was abandoned by many of his followers and lost control of Normandy. Stephen was only freed after his wife and William of Ypres, one of his military commanders, captured Robert at the rout of Winchester, but the war dragged on for many years with neither side able to win an advantage.
Wiki has a good article about Penman here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The Plantagenet series focuses on the Angevin King Henry II and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, beginning with Henry's childhood in "When Christ and His Saints Slept." Of Henry and Eleanor, Penman explains:
Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine were larger than life, legends in their own lifetimes. He was one of the greatest of the medieval kings, and she was the only woman to wear the crowns of both England and France. They loved and fought and schemed on a stage that stretched from the Scots border to the Mediterranean Sea. Their children were branded by contemporaries as "The Devil’s Brood," but they founded a dynasty that was to rule England for three hundred years. My first novel in their trilogy [sic], When Christ and His Saints Slept, traces the beginning of their tempestuous union. Time and Chance continues their story at high noon. From the greenwoods of Wales to a bloodied floor at Canterbury Cathedral, theirs was an amazing story, and I very much enjoyed being along for the ride!...
Although set in the 12th and 13th centuries, Penman sets the characters and narrative in her novels in medieval sites that still exist and can be visited, including castles, churches and archeological areas. Areas such as Aber Falls and Dolwyddelan Castle have important scenes in Penman's novels. In Devil's Brood, Penman sets the characters in scenes in a variety of medieval royal residences, castles and abbeys, in England and present day France, many of which still exist such as the Château de Chinon, Fontevrault Abbey, and Chateau de Loches.
3. Penman has done
Henry II in a series, but I have read other books about him, too.
Rather than go through my whole list, I thought I would go to Barnes & Noble and find some titles. Ha Ha! I found 151 pages with every other monarch you can think of as well as Henry II.
Wiki on Henry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle, Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as King of England (1154–89), Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes, and Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled Wales, Scotland and Brittany. Henry was born to Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, who claimed the title of Empress from her first marriage. He became actively involved in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England by the age of 14, and was made the Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to the French king Louis VII had recently been annulled. Henry's military expedition to England in 1153 led to King Stephen agreeing peace terms in 1153 and Henry inheriting the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later. Still quite young, he now controlled what would later be called the Angevin empire stretching across much of western Europe.
Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his royal grandfather, Henry I of England. During the early years of the younger Henry's reign he restored the royal administration in England, re-established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Henry rapidly came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a "Cold War" over several decades.
Henry expanded his empire, often at Louis' expense, taking Brittany, pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse; despite numerous peace conferences and treaties no permanent peace was reached. Meanwhile, Henry undertook various legal reforms in both England and Normandy, establishing the basis for the future English Common Law, and reformed the royal finances and currency. Although Henry usually worked well with the local hierarchies of the Church, his desire to control and reform the relationship between the Church in England led to conflict with his former friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's death in 1170, for which Henry was widely blamed.
The play
Becket by Jean Anouilh and the movie are highly recommended:
http://video.barnesandnoble.com/...
Becket Director: Peter Glenville
Cast: Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, Donald Wolfit
4. Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I
I have also read many stories about Henry and Elizabeth. I am sure you all have favorites.
One book that is especially interesting to me is the memoirs of Robert Carey which I have a copy of.
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth (ca. 1560 – 12 April 1639) was an English nobleman and courtier. He was the youngest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (Chamberlain and first cousin of Queen Elizabeth I) and Anne Morgan, daughter of Sir Thomas Morgan and Anne Whitney.
As a young man he accompanied several diplomatic missions abroad and took part in military expeditions. In 1587 he joined in the attempt to relieve Sluys. In 1588 served as a volunteer against the Spanish Armada, and commanded a regiment in the Earl of Essex's expedition to Normandy in support of the Protestant Henry IV of France in 1591, taking part in the siege of Rouen. He was knighted by Essex the same year for having by his intercession with the Queen procured his recall.
In the parliaments of 1586 and 1588 he represented Morpeth; in that of 1593, Callington; and in those of 1596 and 1601, Northumberland. From 1593 till the end of Elizabeth's reign he occupied various posts in the government of the Scottish borders, being appointed warden of the middle march in 1596, which he held till February 1598.
This was some of the most important work of his life, and he was largely responsible for easing the troubles and the depredations of the Border Reivers. His conflict with the Scottish fyrebrande Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe was only settled after great skill and tact on Carey's part.
Robert Carey married Elizabeth Trevannion, the daughter of Sir Hugh Trevannion and Sybilla Morgan, on 20 Aug 1593. They had three children.
Robert married for love and in his memoirs he explains how he had to go down on his knees to Elizabeth and beg for forgiveness. It was a near thing.
As wiki points out, there are fiction books about Carey which I have read and enjoyed (I liked the first three books the best):
Patricia Finney, writing as P.F. Chisholm, has written a series of historical mysteries featuring Sir Robert Carey, set during his time as Lord Warden of the Marches.
1. A Famine of Horses (1994)
2. A Season of Knives (1995)
3. A Surfeit of Guns (1996)
4. A Plague of Angels (1998)
5. A Murder of Crows (2010)
5. I read about
Francis I of France in Samuel Shellabarger's novel The King's Cavalier many years ago.
Wiki tells of his influence on art and learning, the explorers he sent out, and of his attack on Protestants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Francis was also renowned as a man of letters. When Francis comes up in a conversation among characters in Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, it is as the great hope to bring culture to the war-obsessed French nation. Not only did Francis support a number of major writers of the period, he was a poet himself, if not one of immense quality. Francis worked hard at improving the royal library. He appointed the great French humanist Guillaume Budé as chief librarian, and began to expand the collection. Francis employed agents in Italy looking for rare books and manuscripts, just as he had looking for art works. During his reign, the size of the library increased greatly. Not only did Francis expand the library, there is also, according to Knecht, evidence that he read the books he bought for it, a much rarer feat in the royal annals. Francis set an important precedent by opening his library to scholars from around the world in order to facilitate the diffusion of knowledge…
n 1524, Francis assisted the citizens of Lyon in financing the expedition of Giovanni da Verrazzano to North America; on this expedition, Verrazzano claimed Newfoundland for the French crown and founded New Angoulême on the actual site of New York City.
In 1531, Bertrand d'Ornesan, Baron de Saint-Blancard tried to establish a French trading post at Pernambuco, Brazil.
In 1534, Francis sent Jacques Cartier to explore the St. Lawrence River in Quebec to find certaines îles et pays où l'on dit qu'il se doit trouver grande quantité d'or et autres riches choses ("certain islands and lands where it is said there must be great quantities of gold and other riches"). In 1541, Francis sent Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval to settle Canada and to provide for the spread of "the Holy Catholic faith."
Religion
It was during Francis' reign that divisions in the Christian religion in Western Europe erupted. Martin Luther's preaching and writing led to the formation of the Protestant movement which spread through much of Europe, including France.
Initially, under the influence of his beloved sister Marguerite de Navarre, Francis was relatively tolerant of the new movement, and even considered it politically useful, as it caused many German princes to turn against his enemy, Charles V. In 1533 he even dared to suggest to Pope Clement VII the convening of a church council where Catholic and Protestant rulers will have equal vote in order to settle their differences - an offer rejected by both the Pope and Charles V. However, Francis' attitude toward Protestantism changed following the "Affair of the Placards", on the night of 17 October 1534, in which notices appeared on the streets of Paris and other major cities denouncing Mass. A notice was even posted on the door to the king's room, and, it is said, the box in which he kept his handkerchief. Antoine Marcourt, a Protestant pastor, was responsible for the notices.
The most fervent Catholics were outraged by the notice's allegations. Francis himself came to view the movement as a plot against him, and began to persecute its followers. Protestants were jailed and executed. In some areas whole villages were destroyed. Printing was censored and leading Protestants like John Calvin were forced into exile…
These persecutions against Protestants were codified in the Edict of Fontainebleau (1540) issued by Francis. Major persecutions continued, as when Francis I ordered the massacre of the Waldensians at the Massacre of Mérindol in 1545.
6. Macbeth
Shakespeare’s Macbeth tale has reined supreme for centuries, but Dorothy Dunnett did research and believes that Earl Thorfinn of Orkney and Macbeth were the same man. Her research (700 books) of many years culminated in her book King Hereafter.
Questions about the book are answered by Dorothy at this site:
http://www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/...
There is a fascinating explanation about his wife Groa there.
Some book reviews are here:
http://theliteraryomnivore.wordpress.com/...
http://cascoly.hubpages.com/...
7. Richard III of England
My readers and I have enjoyed reading The Daughter of Time, the fiction story by Josephine Tey about Richard. I am one of those who believes Richard did not kill the young princes. I incline toward Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.
Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
According to some sources, the household accounts from one of Richard III's holdings in the north suggest that the boys were moved there for safekeeping early in 1485, and remained there until some time after the Battle of Bosworth.
In 1674, the skeletons of two children were discovered under the staircase leading to the chapel, during the course of renovations to the White Tower. At that time, these were believed to have been the remains of the two princes, although the staircase was apparently the original, and therefore built around two centuries before the boys disappeared, making it unlikely that the skeletons belonged to the princes. On the orders of Charles II the remains were reburied in Westminster Abbey. In 1933, the grave was opened to see if modern science could cast any light on the issues, and the skeletons were determined to be those of two young children, one aged around seven to eleven and the other around eleven to thirteen. However, at least one of the scientists involved stated that the younger skeleton almost certainly belonged to a child younger than nine, leaving doubts as to whether the skeletons belonged to the princes…
In 1674, some workmen remodelling the Tower of London dug up a wooden box containing two small human skeletons. The bones were found at the foot of a staircase, consistent with More's description of the original burial place of the princes, but not consistent with More's later claim that the bodies had been subsequently removed and buried elsewhere. They were found with "pieces of rag and velvet about them", the velvet indicating that the bodies were those of aristocrats. Eventually the bones were gathered up and placed in an urn, which Charles II of England ordered interred in Westminster Abbey in the wall of the Henry VII Lady Chapel.
In 1933 the bones were taken out and examined, and then replaced in the urn. One skeleton was larger than the other, but many of the bones were missing, including part of the smaller jawbone and all of the teeth from the larger one. Examination of photographs from this exhumation indicated that the elder child was 11–13 years old and the younger was 7–11 years old. It was not possible at that time to determine the sex of children's skeletons. No further scientific examination has since been conducted on the bones, which remain in Westminster Abbey, and DNA analysis, which would now determine the sex, has not therefore been attempted.
In 1789 however, workmen carrying out repairs in St.George's Chapel, Windsor, rediscovered and accidentally broke into the vault of Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville, discovering in the process what appeared to be a small adjoining vault. This vault was found to contain the coffins of two mysterious, unidentified children. However, no inspection or examination was carried out and the tomb was resealed.
I can’t resist mentioning the painting
The Monarch of the Glen seen here at wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
This leaves my readers with all kinds of monarchs to mention from Queen Victoria, to Cleopatra, from Napoleon to Kublai Khan, from Catherine the Great of Russia to Charlemagne, from the Sultans of India to the Kings of African countries. Have fun!
Diaries of the week:
Write On! Tropes.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 70: the sound of Ecstasy
by pico
http://www.dailykos.com/...
aravir says:
Now is the time of year when we Kossacks rally together to let our military brothers and sisters (and sons and daughters and fathers and mothers and friends and cousins..you get the idea) that we care about them. I am proud to say that the Readers and Book Lovers group was one of the two top groups on Daily Kos, in terms of raising money for NFTT, last year. I very much hope that we can live up that standard this year. Given the size of the group, our goal will be to raise $3000 for NFTT.
Link to use to contribute:
https://bos.etapestry.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early