Book Description
From one of P. D. James's favorite mystery authors comes the third Shardlake novel
Autumn 1541. A plot against the throne has been uncovered, and Henry VIII has set off on a spectacular progress from London to York, along with a thousand soldiers, the cream of the nobility, and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, to quell his rebellious northern subjects. Awaiting his arrival are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his loyal assistant, Jack Barak. In addition to processing petitions to the king, Shardlake's task is to protect a dangerous conspirator until he is transported back to London for interrogation.
But when a local glazier is murdered, things get a little more complicated as the murder seems to be not only connected to Shardlake's prisoner but also to the royal family itself. Then Shardlake stumbles upon a cache of secret papers that throws into doubt the legitimacy of the entire royal line, and a chain of events unfolds that threatens Shardlake with the most terrifying fate of the age: imprisonment in the Tower of London.
Customer Reviews:
A little too detailed.......2007-10-20
It's an interesting installment in the further adventures of Matthew Shardlake, hunchback and lawyer. This happens in 1541, during King Henry VIII's progress through the North of England to overawe and subjugate his rebellious subjects. There is much for them to rebel over, the poor are crippled by heavy taxes and the rich are benefiting from the dissolution of the monasteries. Catherine Howard is Henry's current wife and things are starting to get a little rocky.
Matthew Shardlake is in York for two purposes. The first is to process some local legal work for the king and the second is on a mission from Archbishop Cranmer to ensure that a certain prisoner survives to questioning and his almost certain execution.
He stumbles on the death of a stained glass artisan and this sets in play a series of events that lead to several attempts at his life. To survive he has to discover what the conspiracy is, but knowledge can also be dangerous.
It's just that bit too detailed. Some of the assumptions and language are a little too modern, but that could be excused for legibility. There are few modern readers who would be able to get through a full novel of Tudor English. I found myself losing track of the events because of the detail but the detail added hugely to the sense of place of the novel. By the end I was happy to have read it but left with some sense that it could have been tighter.
Marvelous, immersive historical mystery.......2007-10-15
Sansom is fast earning a spot on my "grab" list. You know: the authors who are so unrelentingly excellent that you'd grab any book with their name on it, without even looking at the rest of the cover. He's that good, at least in this series about Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer who is trying (unsuccessfully) to live a quiet life at the edges of Henry VIII's England.
(Catherine Howard is queen, which gives you some sense of the time period.)
Shardlake is given a plum assignment, to take care of some legal matters during the King's progress to York. He's also given an uncomfortable addendum: there's a prisoner in York who needs to be kept alive until he can be brought to the Tower of London for questioning (i.e. torture). So Shardlake and his assistant, Jack Barak, head to York... and almost immediately (this being a mystery after all) come across a dead body.
As in the previous novels in this series, the immediacy of the place is fabulous. You smell the stink of the stable, taste the dull but filling potage, get the sense of what it was like to live in that place and time. The storytelling is great; my guesses for whodunnit were all wrong, and the true answer made perfect sense. And I really like this character.
Unlike many such books, you could read this one as a standalone. It'd be better if you read the earlier books, certainly, but you don't need most of the backstory for this to work. (And if you like Phillipa Gregory's books about the same era, particularly The Boleyn Inheritance, you'll really like this one.) This isn't a light read -- it's full of court intrigue and has a large cast of characters -- but it's extremely enjoyable.
"Politics is a hard and cruel game.".......2007-09-30
C. J. Sansom's "Sovereign" is the third mystery in this critically acclaimed series featuring Matthew Shardlake, a thirty-nine year old lawyer, and his assistant, Jack Barak. The author demonstrates his prodigious historical knowledge as he traces Henry VIII's Great Progress to the North in 1541. Along with Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, a large number of soldiers, and members of the nobility, Henry and his retinue made their way from London to York with the goal of bringing the king's discontented northern subjects under control. Archbishop Cranmer sends Matthew Shardlake on the trip to process petitions for the king and to safeguard an important prisoner who is to be interrogated in the Tower of London. Matthew travels with a heavy heart, having recently buried his father, whom he had neglected. With the money that he will earn from this mission, Matthew hopes to pay off his father's remaining debts.
After the Progress finally reaches York, a glazier falls off his ladder and is impaled on fragments of glass. Shardlake quickly realizes that this was no accident. There may be a conspiracy afoot against Henry; papers hidden in the glazier's house would wreak havoc if they were to fall into the wrong hands. Since Matthew caught a glimpse of these papers, he becomes a target and narrowly escapes repeated attempts on his life. Meanwhile, Jack Barak has found love; he is smitten with a pretty young woman, Tamasin Reedbourne, who works in Queen Catherine's household. Matthew and Jack join forces to discover the identity of the killer and to uncover a secret so explosive that it could bring down a mighty monarch.
The strength of "Sovereign" lies in the author's exhaustive attention to historical detail; Sansom immerses the reader in the political, religious, and cultural events of Henry VIII's reign. Tudor England was filled with ruthless individuals who committed immoral acts because of their lust for power, a desire for wealth, and religious fanaticism. Scenes of cold-blooded murder, torture, and suicide reflect the violence and desperation of those volatile times. There is a contemporary flavor to the novel's themes; the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Matthew Shardlake is as admirable and likeable as ever. He has an abnormally curved back which makes him the butt of cruel jokes, but his deformity has not robbed him of his self-respect. His keen intellect and determination propel him to disregard his personal safety in order to bring a murderer to justice. Shardlake and Jack make a solid team: Matthew has experience, a thorough knowledge of the law, and patience; what Barak lacks in seasoning and judgment he makes up for in loyalty, courage, and strength. Jack looks up to Matthew, who has taught the younger man to venerate learning and behave with integrity.
Ironically, the initial strength of the novel ultimately becomes its undoing. The author gets carried away with his verbiage, and the novel soon becomes repetitious and tedious. At nearly six-hundred pages, "Sovereign" would have profited from careful pruning. The large cast of characters is too unwieldy to allow for much shading, and the impact of the mystery is diluted because of the many subplots that compete for the readers' attention. Although "Sovereign" is packed with fascinating information and colorful atmosphere, it would have been far more satisfying had it been more streamlined and better focused.
Very, very good........2007-09-10
This is the first of the Shardlake series that I have read, and I loved it. I came onto Amazon tonight to order two copies of the first two books, one for me and one for my daughter. Now, I usually don't do that...I usually order one copy and pass it on to her when I am done. In my recent memory, Harry Potter is the only series I have ordered multiple copies of.
The Henry VIII time period is my favorite historical period, and I do know quite a bit about it. Sansom is remarkably true to historical accuracy....which is more than one can say about the recent miniseries about Henry VIII which had his 2 sisters condensed into one, marrying the wrong king, and murdering him! Titulus Regulus, which is a key plot item, actually existed.
Anyway, I highly recommend this book.
Beth O'Keefe
Shardlake and the "true" king of England.......2007-08-03
For those who think that the reign of Henry VIII was, relatively, a peaceful one, this book should come as quite a shock. It discusses very briefly the Pilgrimage of Grace, a northen uprising in 1535 by followers of the Catholic faith that almost toppled the throne. Because of this, and the discovery of another potential conspiracy a few years later, Henry VIII, Queen Catherine Howard, and a huge retinue make a progression through the north to go to York, the hotbed of papal activity. Our hero Matthew Shardlake is dragooned by Archbishop Cranmer to go along and watch over a prisoner in York associated with the latest plot. On this theme hangs another excellent book, and our hero finds himself deeply into murders, conspiracies, and the possibility that the Tudor line may not be the "real" royal line, and Henry may be a usurper. To tell more would spoil a wonderful plot that races along, and keeps the reader going page by page, long after he or she should probably be asleep (in my case). I hope that there will be more of these books in the future.
Book Description
The contemporary organization of global violence is neither timeless nor natural, argues Janice Thomson. It is distinctively modern. In this book she examines how the present arrangement of the world into violence-monopolizing sovereign states evolved over the six preceding centuries.
Download Description
The contemporary organization of global violence is neither timeless nor natural, argues Janice Thomson. It is distinctively modern. In this book she examines how the present arrangement of the world into violence-monopolizing sovereign states evolved over the six preceding centuries.
Customer Reviews:
Critical backgrounder on mercenaries then and today.......2007-06-06
If you only read a single book on the history of mercenaries, this is your book. Thin, a quick read, it will give you more insight and awareness into the modern era than any other book. A must have for anyone truly interested in historical or modern mercenaries.
Thomson's books is an elegant evaluation of state-building.......1997-11-10
Mercenaries, Pirates, and Soverignity offers a very comprehensive analysis regarding the evolution of state-building. Thomson believes that modern nation-states achieved their virtual monopoly on the right and means to launch cross-border military action in the ninteenth century."In the six centuries leading up to 1900, global violence was democratized, marketized, and internationalized." (p.3). This citation establishes as solid base for her hypothesis: "the 'disarming' of nonstate transnational actors from heteronomy to sovereignty and transform states into nation states."(p.3). Janice Thomson's empirical evaluation is excellent--theoretically informed, elegant, and accurate. Without any doubt this is an important book.
Book Description
In the last millennium there have been only six female sovereigns: Mary I and Elizabeth I, Mary II and Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II, who celebrated her eightieth birthday in 2006. With the exception of Mary I, they are among England's most successful monarchs. Without Mary II and Anne, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 might not have taken place. Elizabeth I and Victoria gave their name to an age, presiding over long periods when the country made significant progress in the growth of empire, prestige and power. All of them have far-reaching legacies. Each faced personal sacrifices and emotional dilemmas in her pursuit of political power. How to overcome the problem of being a female ruler when the sex was considered inferior? Does a queen take a husband and, if so, how does she reconcile the reversal of the natural order, according to which the man should be the master? A queen’s first duty is to provide an heir to the throne, but at what cost? In this richly compelling narrative, Maureen Waller delves into the intimate lives of England’s queens regnant in delicious detail, assessing their achievements from a female perspective.
Customer Reviews:
A great read........2007-10-16
Seven personalities, not six, are on display here, the reigning queens' and Ms. Waller's.
She doesn't condescend to the reader or get too lofty either; she assumes you're pretty educated, anyway, if you're reading this work, but not an expert on this subject. I loved her "voice;" it was friendly, highly personal--yet her research was impressive. I can't imagine trying to make sense of the huge amounts of often conflicting information.
Like Antonia Fraser, Waller assumes the reader has a good command of foreign languages, so if, like me, you last opened a Latin book sometime in the 80's be prepared to miss a point here and there.
In some places, I noticed sparks of startling misogyny. For example, Edward, son of Henry VIII was dying and his caretakers dismissed his physicians and brought in "a female quack." Well, maybe she was a quack and maybe she wasn't, but Edward was dying anyway and Ms. Waller didn't criticize the males who failed to save him. (Frankly, I wouldn't want to be treated by a medieval or Ren doctor of either sex.) In another section, she praises Elizabeth II for thinking "like a man." Hardly words I'd expect from a woman writing about comparatively powerful women!
Waller succeeds in finding the personalities of all the queens, and since I never found anything interesting about either Anne or Mary II it was fascinating to feel them in particular come alive.
All in all, I greatly enjoyed this book that gave wonderfully readable stories of the queens that were more than regents.
Good for a first-timer.......2007-10-15
If you are not at all familiar with the six reigning Queens of England, than this is the book for you. It was informative, concise, not too biased in one direction or the other, and showed a bit of each ladies personality. It is the type of book to spark a persons interest in doing additional research on each monarch, on an individual basis.
My reason for four stars, instead of five, is that I am VERY familiar with the British monarchy. This book did not disappoint, but there was little that was new and which hadn't been read in other volumes.
SOVEREIGN LADIES.......2007-10-04
AN EXCELLENT BOOK THAT IS INFORMATIVE AND EXTREMELY INTERESTING. ALTHOUGH I AM FAMILIAR WITH EACH SOVEREIGN I LEARNED MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED TO. THE INSIGHT INTO THE TIMES MADE EACH SEGMENT RELEVANT. A VERY WORTHWHILE READ.
Book Description
Four dozen specially commissioned color side-view drawings illustrate this legendary fighter's multitude of variants and operational liveries during and immediately after World War II. A chronological history of the aircraft follows its development from conception through its exceptional combat record and eventual retirement. Numerous sidebars highlight the Spitfire's operational history, personalities behind the drawing boards and in the cockpits, political influences, and other points of interest.
Book Description
From the transatlantic adventures attributed to Ireland’s St. Brendan in the fifth century to Britain’s unparalleled supremacy on the seas in the twentieth, this engaging illustrated history traces the evolution of the naval fleets, admiralty, and merchantmen that for centuries defined the world’s greatest seafaring nation. Focusing on key voyages undertaken by the British in the course of fifteen hundred years, maritime historian David Howarth revisits the great successes and disasters that marked Britain’s progress through the early days of piracy, the era of Elizabethan exploration, the age of mercantile expansion, and the eighteenth-century rivalry with Holland, France and Spain. He recounts the sea battles of the Napoleonic Wars that made Horatio Nelson a national hero and won Britain its unchallenged authority at sea, so that Britannia indeed ruled the waves—until the dark days of WWI and WWII. The early twentieth century saw that the British naval force was far greater than any other, and more than half the world’s merchant ships were built and owned in Britain. That moment would pass, but it is masterfully recaptured and reconstructed in this history of a nation that for a century brought Pax Britannica to the world's seas. Maps are included.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Sumary of English Sea Power.......2007-07-17
This book is an excellent summary of English sea power. Great life stories of many of the key Naval Officers and Ship captains.
Good General Overview with all of the Howarth Panache.......2007-03-08
As usual David Howarth has served up a great smorgasbord of English Imperial history, warts and all, and answers the fundamental question on how and why Britain attained rule of the seas to a degree that for 200 yrs she was the unrivalled master of the waves.
Howarth has wonderful flashes of brilliance, and brings together themes that make one think in different terms about the rise of English seamanship.
1) the establishment of a key hierarchy of rules and eventually laws of the sea, leading to people with sea knowledge -- sailors and captains -- commanding at sea, not people of class or priveledge. Eventually all navies copied this, but some of them were relatively later in doing so.
2) the introduction of freedom of the high seas for England's selfish reasons mainly (but not exclusively: Britain put down the slave trade by force almost 60 yrs before the Americans and cleared the sea of pirates).
3) An intrepid spirit for adventure and mapping, unmatched by any other nation. Particularly the English interest in the Northwest and Northeast Passage.
4) A prediliction to be concerned with aggressive combat at sea, steady training and a tradition in line with Nelson to "engage the enemy more closely."
5) The predominance of British Nval and Maritime Power right into the 20th Cen. often with the wrong type of ships -- usually too large when smaller gunboats would have sufficed.
--------------
One of the few areas that Howarth does not shine in his usual sense is his last chapter of the book dedicated solely to the British Navy in the 20th Cen. I was expecting more...but compared to the history of the rise of British sea power, there is only one chapter on the British Navy in the 20th Cen.
Wonderful, but not a classic...
What. A. Book. !!!.......2006-03-09
Howarth has achieved the impossible: he has adequately - nay, magnificently - summarized the history of Britannia ruling the waves. Beginning with the Middle Ages, Howarth tracks British naval history through its most stirring days and shows it as it sails from strength to strength. Perhaps its best feature is the way Howarth is able to tell (or retell) the great stories of Britain at sea. For example, I had always known that Admiral George Anson had done something great, but I didn't know just how great his deeds were until Howarth told me of his incredible voyage around the world via Cape Horn - spending weeks in a frightful gale that dispersed his ships and set them hundreds of miles back on their course, and enduring with fortitude many other disasters and crises.
Indeed, Anson and his fellows in the constellation of brilliant British naval heroes did not merely endure but triumph with gallantry going beyond all praise. But Howarth goes a long way toward praising them adequately, pointing out errors, and generally informing while also delighting.
This book is an excellent springboard for future study -- one may simply choose an era, man, or event and delve into it. Howarth certainly inspires one to read more.
a fantastic account of a bygone era.......2004-07-28
This book is an excellent primer on the history of ships and naval warfare from the point of view of the British. In addition to providing some useful technical information, it provides an absolutely engrossing account of the past millenium of exploration and war by the ships of the British Navy. Definitely an indispensable read for any history buff.
Great overall book.......2004-07-10
When I first scanned through this book I thought it seemed sort of scattered. I bought it anyhow. And I was wrong. It does go on little tangents sometimes but it doesn't detract from the book. It covers the major aspects of improvements and wars that attributed to the advancement of the british navy. I suppose going into too much detail would make the book over a 1000 pages long. At 450 pages the book gives a pretty good overall glimpse of the passing of time and the movements of the naval command. Great read.
Customer Reviews:
A masterly tale of Restoration England..........2001-05-31
"Here lies our sovereign lord the king, whose word no man relies on, he never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one"
That apt limerick (by one of King Charles' courtiers) provides the beginning to this third instalment of Jean Plaidy's Restoration and Charles II trilogy. In this book, Plaidy goes on to interweave the story of Nell Gwyn (one of Charles' favourite mistresses), and the King himself. The plot covers much of the (later) dramatic events that shaped Restoration England, from the bawdy houses to the playhouses, revealing King Charles II as a man dominated entirely by his love of peace (on the home front and abroad) and his fears for the succession after his death. Plaidy also shines the spotlight on Nell Gwyn, one of the most popular actresses of the Restoration era, and one of the king's favoured sleeping partners. She was beautiful, witty and a great actress, managing to learn her parts, despite not knowing how to read. This book gets into the heart of its characters, recreating events with a great deal of verve and imagination, and is certainly recommended for all lovers of historical fiction. And the Merry Monarch's response to the above riposte?. "The matter is easily resolved, my words are my own, the action's my ministry's."
Average customer rating:
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Sovereign Fantasies: Arthurian Romance and the Making of Britain (The Middle Ages Series)
Patricia Clare Ingham
Manufacturer: University of Pennsylvania Press
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Book Description
During and after the Hundred Years War, English rulers struggled with a host of dynastic difficulties, including problems of royal succession, volatile relations with their French cousins, and the consolidation of their colonial ambitions toward the areas of Wales and Scotland. Patricia Ingham brings these precarious historical positions to bear on readings of Arthurian literature in Sovereign Fantasies, a provocative work deeply engaged with postcolonial and gender theory.
Ingham argues that late medieval English Arthurian romance has broad cultural ambitions, offering a fantasy of insular union as an "imagined community" of British sovereignty. The Arthurian legends offer a means to explore England's historical indebtedness to and intimacies with Celtic culture, allowing nobles to repudiate their dynastic ties to France and claim themselves heirs to an insular heritage. Yet these traditions also provided a means to critique English conquest, elaborating the problems of centralized sovereignty and the suffering produced by chivalric culture. Texts such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and Caxton's edition of Malory's Morte Darthur provide what she terms a "sovereign fantasy" for Britain. That is, Arthurian romance offers a cultural means to explore broad political contestations over British identity and heritage while also detailing the poignant complications and losses that belonging to such a community poses to particular regions and subjects. These contestations and complications emerge in exactly those aspects of the tales usually read as fantasy-for example, in the narratives of Arthur's losses, in the prophecies of his return, and in tales that dwell on death, exotic strangeness, uncanny magic, gender, and sexuality.
Ingham's study suggests the nuances of the insular identity that is emphasized in this body of literature. Sovereign Fantasies shows the significance, rather than the irrelevance, of medieval dynastic motifs to projects of national unification, arguing that medieval studies can contribute to our understanding of national formations in part by marking the losses produced by union.
Customer Reviews:
New light on old texts.......2005-07-11
I read this for a book report for my Middle English class. I don't know if I would have chosen to read it otherwise because it places Arthurian texts very much in a political context, which is not something that I am as interested in. But it does make me look at the tales in a new light, in some ways deepening my understanding and appreciation of the texts.
That being said, I'm actually becoming more and more interested in the political uses of Arthurian texts, so this book may have a large impact on my future research.
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