This Day in History...

September 7, 1533 - Elizabeth is born to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. After surviving a childhood full of danger and political intrigue she became Queen of England in 1558 and reigned until 1603. She was known as the Virgin Queen because she never married; she did not want to share power with anyone else and knew if she married that is what she would have to do. During her reign England became one of the most powerful countries in the world and the arts, especially literature, flourished.

Mailbox Mondays

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia over at The Printed Page. It is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do).
So, without further ado...





I think I posted this one last Monday but I think it came that day so I'm posting it again. I read this in less than a day! It is a wonderful and intriguing look at the mystery of Richard III and his nephews the Princes in the Tower. The main character, a detective from Scotland Yard, decides to look at all the available evidence and go through it like a policeman, trying to discover if Richard did indeed murder his nephews. Read this one...you'll like it. You can check out my review of the book here

Book Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

So, I said I'd review this one and I will. With all the hype a few weeks ago about Philippa Gregory's newest novel, The White Queen (you can find my review for it here).I thought I'd go ahead and do this review, even though its been several months since I read this book.

The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory
3 roses

This is probably the most well known of Gregory's historical fiction novels and a movie version did come out a year or so ago. I enjoyed this book because it was entertaining, I felt like the characters had some depth to them so I cared about what happened to them, and it was an interesting story. That being said (as I said with The White Queen), there are loads of historical inaccuracies. This would not bother me so much if Gregory did not present herself as such a wonderful, through, and in depth historian/researcher. The story covers one of the most intriguing times in British history - Henry VIII's need for a son and break with the Catholic Church. Most people know about Anne Boleyn - Henry's second wife that he moved heaven and hell (literally!) to marry. This story is not told from Anne's point of view but from her younger sister Mary's point of view.

Mary comes to Henry VIII's court a young, innocent girl who has recently married. She is pretty and catches Henry's eye. Her power hungry and scheming family see this as their ticket to bigger and better things and they pretty much shove Mary into Henry's bed. Mary ends up falling in love with the King and baring him two children. She constantly disappoints her family though as she is not really cut out for the manipulative game they're playing. She also has moral qualms about what she is being made to do which directly contradicts what her family expects from her and she struggles with this throughout the story. Despite her family's ambitions, she feels loyalty to Queen Katherine and constantly apologizes for what she is doing on her family's bidding. She is eventually set aside in favor of Anne and watches her astounding rise to power and fame as an unwitting accomplice., knowing that she will forever be in her sister's shadow. Mary takes things into her own hands though and marries a man for love, gaining the animosity of her sister who banishes her from Court. In the country she learns the life of a country wife and realizes she would much prefer it to life at Court. That life catches up to her and she has to return to help Anne through miscarriages and Henry's quickly declining favor. Mary is able to avoid the arrest, imprisonment, and eventual execution that awaits Anne and their brother George.

This is an intriguing and entertaining story to read. It has everything that keeps most readers occupied - love, hate, sex, betrayal, greed, backstabbing, political intrigue, etc. It is NOT, however, the wonderful piece of HISTORICAL fiction that it is promoted as being. There are just way too many historical inaccuracies. Mary, for instance, by most accounts was the older sister though the sisters' exact birth dates are uncertain. Anne, while I do believe she was a very intelligent, shrewd person, I do NOT believe she was the horrible person Gregory portrays her as in this novel. There is also no proof of George's sexual preferences or the possible incest between him and Anne. In fact, the charge of incest between the siblings was most likely concocted by Cromwell and others in order to further damn Anne at her trial. These are just some of the bigger issues with the book (there are a lot of other smaller, more nit-picky points though). I have no problem with Gregory including these things in her story if that is her interpretation of history but she should not be trying to insist that this is absolutely what happened.

The characters in the story are interesting enough for me to care about. I feel sorry for Mary through much of the story because of the way her family treats her. At times I really do not like Anne and at others I can pity her (especially towards the end). Henry really comes across like a selfish little boy and I don't particularly like him either. Queen Katherine is a likable figure (must more so than in the Gregory story about her, The Constant Princess) and I do have to feel sorry for her on occasion.

Overall it is a good read and one that I think most people will enjoy if they don't care about the historical aspect too much. This book has really brought historical fiction to the forefront again and I am extremely grateful to Gregory for this.

This Day in History...

September 6, 1620 - Dissatisfied with the Church of England and persecuted in their own country, 149 Pilgrims set sail from England in the Mayflower and Speedwell bound for America. The Speedwell leaked so badly it wasn't able to make the trip.

Giveaway - Cleopatra's Daughter

A wonderful giveaway over at Historical Obsessed.

This one is for Michelle Moran's new novel Cleopatra's Daughter. Click the link below to check it out for yourself!

Cleo Giveaway!

This Day in History...

September 5, 1774 - The first session of the Continental Congress meets at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was in response to Parliament's enacting of the Coercive Acts. 56 delegates from all the colonies (except Georgia) drafted a declaration of grievances and rights.

If I Were Producing a Movie - Edward II and Isabella

Another installment of my "If I were producing a movie" where I pick a historical person (usually from British history...come on...that's my specialty!) and I try to decide which modern actors and actresses I think would do an awesome job in the roles.

This time I'm gonna tackle an interesting period from British history...the story of Edward II, his neglected Queen Isabella, and his male favorites. This ought to get interesting!!

As always, if you can think of a more suitable person for a particular role, please let me know!!


Edward II -


Queen Isabella- Kate Winslett (I think she'd do a bang up job in this role!)



Piers Galveston - Henry Cavill




Hugh le Despenser - Paul Walker





Hugh le Despenser (the elder) - Mel Gibson John McEnery




Eleanor le Despenser - Debra Messing




Roger Mortimer - Jude Law




Prince Edward -

Book Giveaway - The Greatest Knight!

Another awesome giveaway to let y'all know about. This one is by The Tome Traveler. Click the link below to read the details of the giveaway! She also has an interview with the author, Elizabeth Chadwick.

The Greatest Knight Giveaway!!

This Day in History...

September 4, 1985 - For the first time in 73 years Dr. Robert Ballard photographs the RMS Titanic. Ballard was leading a joint American-French expedition and had finally located the ship only 4 days earlier. Her exact location had been a mystery since the night she disappeared under the waters of the North Atlantic with the loss of 1,500 lives.

Info for Friends...

For those of my friends that are following this blog for info on me, the fam, scrapbooking, etc, etc, etc, all of that will be moving to my new, personal blog "Bloggin' from Home" (blogginathome.blogspot.com).

This blog is going to be focused on historical fiction, history, all things British, book reviews, etc. If that interests you, please keep following! If not, please head over to my other blog and start following that one!

Hope to see some of you in both places! :)

Book Review: The Daughter of Time

The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey
4 roses

*May contain spoilers*

This was a fascinating read by Josephine Tey. It is the story of Alan Grant, a policeman with Scotland Yard, who is laid up in the hospital after being injured on the job. A friend brings in a portrait of Richard III and he has a hard time believing that the man in the picture is the horrible, nephew murdering hunchback that he is familiar with. This sparks his interest and to relieve his boredom he takes up the 400+ year old case of Richard III - did he or did he not murder his nephews in the Tower? He and an American researcher working in the British Museum sort through all the evidence they can get and look at the case through a policeman's perspective - considering motives, opportunities, written accounts from the times, looking for breaks in the normal routine of the main players, etc. Grant becomes convinced that, based on the evidence, that Richard did not murder his nephews. In fact, he had absolutely nothing to gain and quite a bit to loose if he did.

It should be mentioned that Tey is writing a work of fiction here so I'm sure some things that didn't fit into her story were most likely left out. But that aside, it is an intriguing look at a man who history has made out to be a horrible monster. One of the points Grant realizes (and probably the biggest) is that, basically, history is written by the victors. Anything that might make them, the victors, look bad is going to be changed and anything that can discredit the vanquished will be trumped up as much as possible.

Some of the evidence/points that Grant comes across:

1. The accepted history of Richard III was written by Thomas More who was about 8 when Richard was killed AND he was writing for a Tudor King. He certainly wasn't going to publish anything that would make Henry VIII's father look bad. Also, a lot of his information apparently came from a certain John Morton, who hated Richard. (It should be noted that Shakespeare used More's account of Richard's life when writing his play Richard III, which most people today base their idea of Richard on.)

2. Richard had declared all of Edward's children illegitimate but there were still several heirs in line ahead of him and they continued to live happy lives during his reign. No reason to do away with just two of the heirs between him and the throne and leave all the others.

3. When Henry VII was having all of Richard's crimes laid out never once was the murder of the Princes mentioned. He wasn't even accused of it.

4. After Richard took the throne, Elizabeth Woodville came out of sanctuary, her daughters went to Richard's court, and she wrote to one of her Grey sons in France to come home because Richard would be kind to him. Would she have done this if she thought Richard killed her sons?

5. Henry VII, to bolster his claim to the throne after killing Richard, married Elizabeth of York, the sister of the Princes in the Tower. To make her claim to the throne valid, he had to make her (and ALL her siblings) legitimate. Once he did that, her brother was the rightful King again.

These are just a few of the points Grant considers when he finally comes to his verdict at the end. Some of the information Tey puts into her story certainly will make you think about what you accept as history, especially in a case such as Richard's. I do wish the story had been longer and more detail given about some of the evidence presented but I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Richard III.

Booking Through Thursday - Big

Booking through Thursday is hosted by Deb over at Wordpress.

Q: What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently?
(Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)


If we're talking biggest in size then The Sunne in Splendour (944 pages) by Sharon Kay Penman is the winner, followed by her When Christ and his Saints Slept (784 pages).

I absolutely loved Sunne and was so disappointed when it ended. It could have been another 100 pages or more and I would not have cared. And of course, even though I knew what was coming at the end, I still wanted to cry and wished that somehow, history could change. If a book is really good, really pulls you in, you usually do not notice if it is actually a really big book in size.

You've always heard the old saying "Don't judge a book by its cover." Well, we need to add to that "Don't judge a book by its size" as well. I've certainly found that some really short little books are absolutely horrible and a waste of my reading time.

This Day in History...

Today's history tidbit is quite appropriate as I'm reading Sharon Kay Penman's novel on this right now!


September 3, 1189 - Following the death of his father Henry II, Richard I (the Lionheart) was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey in London. He spoke very little English and spent very little time in England (he preferred to live in his Duchy of Aquitaine). During the whole of his 10 year reign he was in England for about a total of six months.

Wishful Wednesdays

Wishful Wednesdays is hosted by Should be Reading.


What books have you been wishing for lately?


1. Legacy, Susan Kay - A great book about Elizabeth I

2. Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey (which came in the mail two days ago!) - A detective sets about redeeming Richard III after seeing his painting.

3. Court of the Midnight King, Freda Warrington - Another good book on Richard III.

4. The Seventh Son, Reay Tannahill - Again, a book on Richard III, though not a romanticized version.

5. Harold the King, Helen Hollick - A story about Britian's Kings right before the Norman invasion.

6. Anything by Elizabeth Chadwick - She comes highly recommended by folks over at Goodreads (and other historical fictions sites) and I am anxious to get a hold of her works.

Book Review: Time and Chance

Time and Chance, Sharon Kay Penman
4 roses


This is the second book in Sharon Kay Penman's Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy. This one focuses mainly on the break between Henry II and Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. I enjoyed this one though some of the stuff about Becket did drag a bit for me.

Two of the people Henry II trusted most were Eleanor, his wife, and Thomas Becket, his very close friend. In this continuation of Henry and Eleanor's story, they now many children, including several boys, and they seem to have a very good marriage. Henry has become close friends with his chancellor, Thomas Becket. Things start to go awry when Henry, against the advice of his wife and mother (and probably others as well), appoints Thomas Becket as the Archbishop of Canterbury. He thought he would have a great ally with his close friend in this position. He soon found out he was very wrong.

The break between Henry and Becket and their ongoing quarrel is well documented in history. While both men were very stubborn, I found that I really had no sympathy for Becket. I believe that he brought most of the problems down on himself. He could have accomplished more of what he felt was "right" if he had attempted to stay friends with Henry. That's not saying that I did not get irritated at Henry for his stubbornness as well, I just never felt anything towards Becket except that he did it to himself. This could be because there really was not much of an in depth look at WHY Becket acted in this way; no delving into his thoughts to see why he thought he was right. Of course, Henry's rash statement of "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest" is well known to people familiar with the period and Penman uses a variation of this in the novel, though the outcome is the same. Becket is murdered by 4 knights in Canterbury Cathedral and almost becomes a saint overnight. This murder haunts Henry for the rest of his life. He even goes into self exile in Ireland for a while, though he proclaims that he is going to settle matters in that country. In the novel we see a Henry who is upset at the murder and knows that even though he did not order it, the knights thought they were doing his bidding. A lot of his sadness at this point could also be because he knows the blame is going to be placed solely at his feet.

During the mess with Becket, another of Henry's relationships begins to crumble and it is solely his doing. By taking a mistress and actually keeping her, setting her up at the royal manor at Woodstock, he inflicts a deep wound in his wife, Eleanor. I truly felt sorry for her. She had been a good wife to him from the beginning, baring him several children and even tactfully ignoring his other mistresses. Eleanor acts like a queen indeed when she finally confronts Rosamund Clifford at Woodstock (after traveling across the Channel, in winter, while almost at the end of her last pregnancy). If it had been me I would not have been able to act so calm and aloof; I would have torn into the girl. After this confrontation Eleanor gives birth to her last son, John (who most people will be familiar with as the evil King John in Robin Hood stories). After finding out about Henry's affection for this girl, Eleanor begins to drift away from him. This will lead to the final, explosive climax of their story in Devil's Brood. As to the character of Rosamund Clifford, I did not like her. I saw her as a young girl who was dazzled by the King, "fell in love with him," and then kept putting herself in his way until she got what she wanted - in his bed. I wanted to smack her, not only for going after a married man but for her constant sniveling and crying because Henry was not there with her (he was a King after all and had important things to take care of). I don't know why her character grated on my nerves so much but if there was one person in the story I'd want to go back in time and really knock around, it was this silly girl.

We see more of the fictional Ranulf in this story and quite a bit on the state of political affairs in Wales. Ranulf is, again, torn between his loyalty to his cousin the King and his love for his Welsh home. This is the story within the story in this book, even more so than it was in the first novel. Henry and Eleanor's son, Richard, also begins to pop up more in the last 1/3 of the story as well, which sets things up nicely for the last book in the trilogy.

Again, another great work by Penman. While the whole Becket issue dragged a bit for me, everything else moved along nicely. I came out of this one feeling extremely sorry for Eleanor, thinking Henry was a bit blind, Becket brought the trouble on himself, Wales was in trouble, and Rosamund Clifford was a silly little trouble maker. I am looking forward to the last installment in this trilogy to see how Penman brings that explosive climax to life.

Wordless Wednesday

Sponsored over at Wordless Wednesday.

Stonehenge

I took this picture when I was in England in 2001. Sorry for the poor quality. I had a
regular 35mm camera at the time...no digital!

This Day in History...

September 2, 1666 - The Great Fire of London began in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane. It rapidly spread throughout the city, finding easy fuel in the closely built, wooden medieval buildings. It destroyed most of London's buildings and houses. Amazingly, Although 13,000 buildings were destroyed, including St. Paul's Cathedral, in the four-day blaze only six people died. The city was rebuilt (obviously) but the medieval style of the city was gone and Charles II ordered that no buildings in London were allowed to have thatched roofs. The British author Samuel Pepys gives lots of interesting details in his Diary.


September 2, 1945 - World War II officially ended aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay when Japanese officials surrendered on behalf of their country.

New Look for My Kingdom!

Thanks to Marie over at The Burton Review for her help in figuring out how to change the more technical things on the blog! :)

So...here is the new background I've picked out. I'm still looking around but this is my favorite so far. PLEASE let me know what y'all think!

Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Bring back the castle? :)

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Should Be Reading. Here's how it works:




*Grab your current read.
*Open to a random page.
*Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.
*BE CAREFUL NOT TO USE SPOILERS.
*Include the title and author so others can add it to their TBR list.

Here are my two teaser lines for the week. I am still working on finishing Sharon Kay Penman's 2nd novel in her Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy, Time and Chance.

He had never been a man to let lust command his brain. This surge of sudden desire was distracting enough, though, for him to reconsider his tactics. She'd never been shy about speaking her mind in the past. Would she have permitted him to brush her hair like this if she was not amenable to reconciliation tonight?

But of all her virtues, the one that shone the brightest for him on this December night at Argentan was her sophistication. She was wise enough to understand that men were born to sin, and worldly enough not to let it trouble her unduly. He should have realized that Eleanor, the most celebrated queen in all of Christendom, would not be threatened by a mere slip of a girl like Rosamund Clifford.

This Day in History...

Wow...this day has been a pretty bad one all around!


September 1, 1939 - At dawn, Germany invaded Poland and bombed Warsaw at 6am, beginning World War II in Europe. Within one day of the invasion, Hitler was setting up SS "Death's Head" regiments to terrorize the citizens, giving a horrific glimpse at what was to come later in the war to those that opposed him or he didn't like.


And because this one is about where I live....

September 1, 1864 - General Sherman laid siege to Atlanta, Georgia, shelling civilians and cutting off supply lines. The Confederates troops retreated, destroying the city's munitions as they went. Later that year on November 15, Sherman's troops burned the city to the ground before continuing their march through the South.