A Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England

A Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
© 2014 Ian Mortimer
415 pages

Previously Ian Mortimer has offered readers with access to a time machine a handbook for medieval England. Perhaps mystery plays based on Scripture are not your interest, however, and you'd prefer dining with a little more variety. Come then to Elizabethan England, where the secular theater is in its ascendancy, and the rising merchant marine is bringing the world's produce to English plates. The Elizabethan era is commonly thought of as a golden age for England, between its triumph over the Spanish Armada and the appearance of luminaries like Shakespeare, Spenser, and Jonson.   Mortimer warns curious travelers, however, that this is still not an age for the cautious:  death  by disease, crime, war, or the law are never too far away, and Elizabeth's crown is so questioned that "Gloriana" must rule with a firm hand, using a zealous secret service keeping tabs on the population and dealing with those who would foment rebellion.

Although Mortimer breaks from his faux-guidebook style (regarding it as contrived if repeated), he still covers the whole of everyday life in England during its 16th century.  Covered at length are dress and occupations, architecture, law, and the evolution of the theater and literature. Material from the previous book which is still in effect - -the feudal ordering of society, for instance -- is  recapped but not plumbed in full again. Mortimer is forced by Elizabeth to focus an entire chapter on religion,  given that the legal union which gave her birth and rule was a religious and political controversy that led England to break from the Church, and cost many men their heads, from the noble to the base.  (Mortimer still focuses on the political aspects of religion, however, with little on religious practice;   it remains more of a background than a subject considered in full. I thought this was odd in a book on the medieval period, and it's still odd.)

As much interest as there in in the lives of those gone on, and of the structures they created which we still use, I also appreciated Mortimer's general appraisal of the age. He is strikingly empathetic of his medieval subjects, including those in an age which is not quite medieval but definitely not industrial-modern, and conveys this to the reader well. He gives the people who breathed and died in this age their full consideration -- sharing their verse and graffiti, imagining the smells and sights,  putting readers into their heads so that we may read the landscape as they did. To them, hills and rivers were not a Windows XP wallpaper, but places to keep the sheep that kept them alive, and the best transportation away.   Mortimer's final appraisal is that as dangerous and uncertain as their lives could be, we see in the Elizabethan age a growing self-confidence -- one that saw men throw themselves into the unknown expanse of the oceans in search of new lands and possibilities, and one that allowed intellectual knowledge to definitely surpass the aura of classical learning. Despite the perils and problems of the age, it  was also one of hope and ambition, one that spurred England to become the greatest maritime power yet seen.

Oh, earlier in the week Ian Mortimer did an "ask me anything" thread on reddit, inviting questions from the public. He answered questions on his sources, inspirations, etc.

Related:
The Life of Elizabeth I, Alison Weir
The Age of Faith and The Reformation, Will Durant
The works of Frances and Joseph Gies

The Armada

The Armada
© 1959 Garrett Mattingly
443 pages

In the late summer of 1588, all of Europe held its breath as an enormous Spanish fleet, consisting of a hundred and fifty vessels of varying sizes, set sail for the English channel. Their mission: to rendezvous with the elite troops of General Parma in the defeated Netherlands, and to transport them to England, there to revenge the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and depose Anne Boleyn’s daughter .    That invasion never happened. As is famously known, the Armada met English fire and northern winds, and a third of its number was lost utterly on the shores of Britain and Ireland.  It was for Elizabeth, constantly confronting intrigue from Catholics and Puritans alike, a glorious moment:  here, before all of Europe,   the wind and waves declared that she was the Dread Sovereign of all England.  The Armada is a storied history not just of the Spanish fleet’s doomed voyage into the channel, but how Spain came to launch such an expensive and unwieldy endeavor.

Much of the weight of The Armada gives the background information for the “English Enterprise”.  Europe is in the throes of the reformation, and rebellions against princes carry with them the fervor of holy wars.   France, who might oppose the sudden envelopment of England into the Spanish empire,  is struggling with its own civil war, and every one of the three contenders is a Henry.  The Netherlands have risen against their Spanish lords, with the military and fiscal support of Elizabeth – who is presumably more interested in having enemies of Spain at her doorstep rather than Spain itself, given the two powers’ mutual hostility.     There is a very good chance that Phillip could get away with styling himself the English king:   he’d already enjoyed the title as Queen Mary’s husband,  and Elizabeth reigns over a divided nation. Many of her subjects maintain faith with the Catholic church,  secretly or openly,  and several rebellions and conspiracies intending to restore a Catholic monarch to the throne have already erupted.  If their former king landed and called them to rise against a woman already declared illegitimate by the Church,   how easy would it be for them to bury their fears about civil war and declare for Phillip?

Fortunately for England’s men in arms, and their mothers, it never came to that.  The English engaged in a running battle with the Armada as it made its way towards the Channel; there was no epic showdown, but a series of smaller skirmishes, two of which – when combined with the storms of the Channel – did serious damage to the fleet. By the time they  neared the rendezvous, in fact ,the admirals in command had to view their stores of rotten food, ailing men, and badly leaking ships in the cold light of reality.  The Armada was no longer capable of breaking the Dutch blockade that would allow the Spanish to take on their army and transport it to Spain. It might not even make it home, if it continued to be harassed.  Part of the problem was that the Armada was so enormous and unwieldy.  Its ships were gathered together from across Spain’s domain, and many were Mediterranean galleys built for ramming that were out of place in a battle that involved more artillery than swashbuckling shipboard raids. Even in the age of standardized equipment and radio communications, the Allies required months of planning and stockpiling to prepare for D-Day.  Spain had a similar challenge, but its every piece of equipment might vary from casting to casting, and its barrels of food spoiled as quickly as they could be found.   The Spanish sailed in the hopes of a miracle, but they found none.  When news reached Phillip II, he wrote to the his bishops and could express only thanks that -- in the light of the storms -- more men were not lost.

I knew virtually nothing of the Armada except that it sailed, met a storm, and failed. Although in retrospect a brief review of the history of the period would have served me well as a reader  (particularly in regards to France, whom I seem to ignore utterly between 1453 and 1789) , the author's delivery is indeed novel-like. The personalities of the period, like the swaggering Drake, add to the tale's liveliness.  Although the wars of the day seem far removed from us now, the author's epilogue couldn't be more current: he cautions the reader that wars of ideologies are always the hardest to win.

In the Beginning

In the Beginning: the Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture 
© 2001 Alister McGrath
354 pages

In some circles of American Protestantism, the authority of the King James Bible is coequal with the authority of the Bible itself.   If other translations were mentioned in my childhood church, for instance,  it was only to declare how inadequate, pale, and flaccid they were. Long after I switched to the Revised Standard  for reference and reading, I still find myself comparing its passages with those of the KJV. Its words are the ones I was raised with, the ones I hear most often in culture, the ones written  into my memory.    In the Beginning gives a fulsome history of how the KJV came into being, and then follows this up with much smaller sections regarding its influence on the English language and Anglo-American culture in general.

McGrath begins with the the reformation, naturally,  which championed the translation of the Bible into the vernacular throughout Europe so that all people could read the scriptures and decide on what they meant , without any guidance from above.  English translations of the Bible were strictly forbidden until the reign of Henry VIII, who -- after rejecting the authority of Rome for reasons of state -- became marginally more friendly to other ideas of the reformation.   Sanctioned English translations began appearing, the most prominent being the Geneva Bible.  That bible was the result of Queen Mary's restoration of English Catholicism,  a six-year reign in which Protestant theologians fled to Switzerland, formed their own churches, and began to work on their own Bible.  When Mary perished and a more Protestant form of religion returned to England, the Geneva Bible would arrive and begin achieving prominence. One reason it was popular was that it came with an abundance of annotations, annotations which supported other ideas of the reformation and enlightenment-era zeitgeist: namely,  a criticism of the divine right of kings.   When King James assumed the throne, having long butted heads with Scottish Presbyterians, he determined not to brook any of that anarchic nonsense in England -- and so commissioned a translation that would exceed others and omit those anti-monarchical side comments.

There is more to the King James Bible than religion, however, and McGrath provides extensive historical context.  He gives, for instance, a brief history of the English language. Englishmen yearned for an English bible not simply because they believed people should read the scriptures for themselves, but because it was English.   Medieval Christendom was fading; the age of the armed and passionate Nation State was at hand.  For most of their history, when Englishers heard the Bible it was either in Latin or French -- and French, after the Hundred Years War, might as well be spoken in Hell, so odious was it.  Throughout the medieval period, English re-asserted itself: once the tongue of oppressed peasants,  it became the language of State, a source of pride and identity.  Indeed, McGrath argues that the King James Bible arrived at an absolutely pivotal time: by the age of Elizabeth and James, English was truly maturing as a Language instead of hodgepodge of dialects, and  the KJV was able to set an example throughout the entire island: this is what English is. The KJV's English provided the standard, rather like newspapers standardized German, French, and Italian later on.   When Englishmen traveled overseas and began creating a new life for themselves in North America, the KJV kept their roots planted in England --  and shaped the American language, so that it maintained many older words of English long after they'd been forgotten on the sceptered isle itself.

Although In the Beginning is largely a history of the KJV's inception and execution -- and only marginally about its effects on the Anglo-American language and culture --  this is a book to consider if one has any interest in the Bible at all.  McGrath covers not only the political and cultural genesis of the book, but explains the translation and printing process itself. Considering the sheer scope of the project -- Bibles are an enormous amount of text --  little wonder bibles used to be considered heirlooms, to be passed down from generation to generation.  There's also quite a few amusing stories in here, like variant editions that resulted from typesetting problems: the "Wicked Bible", for instance, which commanded readers to commit adultery,  and another edition that declared that Israel's enemies would vex Israel with their...wives. In general, I think this history will foment a greater appreciation for the KJV translation, especially given that it was intended to build on the best of preceding English volumes, and includes their successes along with its own.

Next up in Read of England.....a splash of Inklings,  followed by medieval lit or late-medieval history.

Sister Queens

Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of  Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castille
480 pages
© 2011 Julia Fox

Virtually any reader of Tudor fiction is familiar with the sad story of Queen Catherine,  the lawful wife of Henry VIII who was not merely abandoned, but cruelly cut off from her own daughter Mary, after she refused to partake in the murder of her marriage to Henry.   Less known is the equally sad story of Catherine’s family, and particularly her sister Juana -- who was likewise placed under house imprisonment and defamed as a lunatic.   Sister Queens is a joint biography of Katherine and Juana which aims to plumb their full characters, however, not just the one aspect (“tragic wife”/ “tragic mad widow”) that  plucks the heartstrings of readers the most.  At times it wears a little heavy with all the details of court life -- dresses,  draperies, that sort of thing -- but  for those who know little about  Queen Katherine and her family,  Sister Queens is most accessible, and is a book which offers a look at the most influential family in late medieval Europe.

Ferdinand and Isabella are known to American schoolchildren as the patrons of Christopher Columbus’s foolhardy but accomplished voyage across the Atlantic, but in Europe they were the Most Catholic Monarchs, the pair who united Spain and reclaimed it for Christendom against the armies of the caliphs. (And, tragically, by expelling Jewish subjects.)  Their marriage was fruitful, producing five children: Isabella,  Juan, Juana, Catalina, and Maria.  Royal marriages were then the stuff of diplomatic alliances, and all four of the daughters would be married abroad.  Tragedy would visit the family again and and again, claiming Isabella, Juan, and several children -- a theme that continued throughout Juana and Catherine's lives.

Most readers are aware of the general trajectory of Catherine's doomed marriage to the swine-king Henry, of the series of tragic child-deaths and miscarriages that convinced him that their marriage was cursed. Catherine was not merely the King's consort, however, hanging about in the royal chambers and waiting for babies. Catherine's diplomatic role didn't end in marrying into the English dynasty. She served as Spain's primary ambassador,   attempting to keep English preferences aligned against France  Her influence would wane sharply, however, after Henry began wondering if perhaps he shouldn't have married his brother's widow after all.  Even there, Catherine proves herself a wily adversary, sending secret messages, defending herself in trial, and twisting even the Holy Roman Emperor's elbow for aide. It helped that  Emperor Charles was her nephew, the son of Juana.  Fox is somewhat less successful with Queen Juana, though not for lacking of trying; there's just so little evidence to go on about her life once she became a captive resident of Tordesillas.  Fox argues that Juana's histrionics were a form of manipulation -- aimed first at her husband Phillip, and then at her captors --  in the hopes of  effecting her own will. Her captivity was less a matter of illness than control, for after her mother's death Juana was the legitimate heir of the Castilian throne -- and through her name, her father and husband sought to rule  Fox argues that the people who lived with Juana, namely her daughter Catalina, and those who visited her or exchanged letters with her never remarked on any instability.  Only those who tried to control her -- Phillip and Ferdinand, and their agents -- encountered the desperate Juana, who would lash out in tantrums against them.

Unfortunately, there's so little information about the imprisoned Juana that I don't know if this book does too much for her.  Having already developed an appreciation for Queen Catherine's character through other biographies and novels, I enjoyed Sister Queens most as  look into the joined Spanish-Hapsburg dynasty that would create that pivotal character of the reformation, Charles V. (For more information, read Will Durant's The Reformation.  Charles V holds a commanding position throughout.)

Katherine of Aragon

Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen
© 2016 Alison Weir
624 pages

Mention the Tudor court, and invariably people think of Henry VIII and his famed mistress, Anne Boleyn. But the wife Henry abandoned came from a far more interesting family. Catherine of Aragon was the daughter of Ferninand and Isabella, the power-couple who united Spain and bankrolled Columbus' journey across the Atlantic. Alison Weir, a historian-novelist who has produced both formal histories of the Tudor court and novels hailing English queens, now gives Henry's only true queen her due. She begins the story in on the high seas, where a young Catherine is anxiously wondering what awaits her in England.

I daresay virtually everyone reading this is familiar with the particulars of Catherine's ill-fated marriage to the swinish Henry VIII. We see a Catherine here who, while often at the mercy of the will of her father or English royalty, is not a passive creature. She serves as the de facto Spanish ambassador at one point, and later as regent of England when Henry is off fighting Frenchmen. When Henry's desperation to sire a mini-me destroys the shared sorrow that once brought he and Catherine together and prompts him to begin looking for excuses to shack up with someone else*, she fights as best she can. To her is given an impossible task: to be obedient to her husband, who insists he isn't, and simultaneously protect the marriage he has decided for reasons of state was a fraud. She does fight, though, using her position as the daughter of one of Europe's most intimidating families, the Hapsburgs. She eventually loses all of her support, until like Thomas More digs in on the strength of conscience and honor alone. When my copy of the book vanished into the digital ether, she had been reduced to poverty, and Henry held her in bitter, angry contempt. (Darned magically-disappearing e-book checkouts!) The slow death -- deliberate murder -- of their relationship makes the book. There are other interesting relationships, too, like the appearances of Sir Thomas More, and even letters between Catherine and Erasmus.

Catherine's character is the most compelling reason to read the book; I wasn't particularly awed by the writing -- at one point Henry declares that we can't have every every Tom, Dick, and Harry can going around interpreting the Bible for himself. The phrase can be dated to the 17th century, but it sounds anachronistic -- weird, even. I found Katherine largely enjoyable, but I was excited to find it to begin with; I've previously looked for novels that featured Catherine and Mary sympathetically.

Note: I didn't quite finish this one. I was nearly late to town trying to finish it, and figured I'd take care of the last couple of chapters after work. No such luck; the checkout expired and now I'm #20 in line. If there's a drastic alteration in my opinion based on the very end, I'll repost.

* I could give Henry the benefit of the doubt if he'd made a wife of Anne, was faithful and such, but instead he chopped off her head and married four others. At some point we must call a pig a pig!

A Man for All Seasons

"A Man For All Seasons"
© 1966 Robert Holt
163 pages

"...the king wants either Sir Thomas More to bless his marriage or Sir Thomas More destroyed."

"They seem odd alternatives, Secretary."

            The king wants a son, Sir Thomas – what are you going to do about it?   King Henry, eight of that name and possibly last of the Tudors,  has decided to change wives. His lawful queen, Catherine of Aragon, has so far only given him one long-lived child: a girl, utterly useless for succession purposes.   Convinced that his marriage is cursed, Henry seeks to have it declared null and void by the Pope, but said pontiff is unwilling. He already made special dispensation for Henry to marry his brother’s widow in the first place; now they want to him to un-dispensate?   Anxious to replace Catherine with a younger model, and in fear of dying without a proper heir, Henry decides to resolve the succession  problem via secession.   Assume leadership of the Church  in England, appoint someone pliable as archbishop, and hey presto, instant divorce.    Henry can do nearly what he wants; the Pope may object, but he is across the Channel, and even the Queen’s Hapsburg family doesn’t have the energy to invade England just for marriage counseling.  Henry intimidates both Parliament and the church into giving in, but still—there is an itch of sanction. The compliance of dogs is easy to find; they can be appeased with food or cowed with beatings, and dog-men abound here, epitomized in the person of Richard Rich   What Henry needs to sooth any lingering qualms that he is following the straight and narrow path is approval from a man of virtue and conscience – a man like his Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. But More cannot approve; he is a faithful husband and doting father to several daughters, and a good Catholic who finds Henry’s easy disposal of his wife and the Church’s authority to be utterly alarming.   Choosing discretion as the better part of valor,  More retires from the court in the wake of Henry’s break with the church, but Henry is not content. He and his minions want either More’s sanction, or his destruction.  “A Man for All Seasons” follows the king’s pursuit of More,  a path that ends only with the subject's martyrdom.   More never explicitly opposes the king’s behavior;  never writes a tract, never denounces him from the chair of office,  never even says a word to his wife.   His silence, however, is forbidding, and the king will not have it.  There can be no law in   England save the King’s – not even More’s private reign over his conscience.   The import of “A Man” is not lost centuries ever the times they portray, nor decades after the play was written. Its championing of conscience against coercion, of moral conviction against swaggering license, remain relevant so long as those in authority continue to pursue their every impulse,  dressing their wrath and lust for power in the clothes of law and demanding obedience. Sophie Scholl lost her head for the same reason More lost his;  they had a better one than the king’s.  More’s stand for conscience was such that the Church of England – which More opposed – hails him as a saint.  Truly he was as Holt describes him, a man for all seasons,  including ours.

The Other Queen

The Other Queen

© 2008 Philippa Gregory

448 pages

 Bess of Hardwick has survived three husbands, but her fourth may be too much. Sure, he’s the Lord High Steward, whose family came over on the Norman Mayflower,  but the man’s sentimentality will be his undoing. Sixteenth century England is wracked by reformation and political conspiracy; it's a time that warrants discretion and pragmatism, not romantic heroics. Look at Scotland, where the lords have just deposed their queen, accusing her of conspiring to blow up her late husband!   Of course, the Earl of Shrewsberry didn't mean to drive his family, the Talbots, to ruin.  He was asked by the Queen to provide shelter her ousted cousin the Queen of Scots. Is it his fault that she attracts conspiracies  like a flame attracts moths?  And is it his fault that this damsel in distress is so utterly, utterly, lovely? So obviously in need of protection? Such is the story of The Other Queen, of a woman who tears a man's life apart by undermining his loyalty to both Queen Elizabeth and his own wife. 

At first, keeping a ward of Queen Elizabeth seemed like an honor and a boon. If she had only been a confined guest for a short time, she might have very well been.  Alas for the Talbots  the young queen initially being sheltered from those rampaging Scots quickly becomes an object of suspicion and intrigue. As the English court dithers about what to do with her, she hangs as a millstone around the neck of the Talbots. She's a very royal creature, Mary;   Queen Consort of France, Queen Regnant of Scotland, and -- shall England be added to the list? It could, for Mary has Tudor roots, and that posits a problem for  Good Queen Bess and an opportunity for her enemies. How easy would it be to justify overthrowing a spinster queen reigning over a schismatic church , replacing her with a merry young princess who Europe loves and who is perfectly capable of producing a few proper heirs?  She's a lightening rod for trouble, this Mary, and maybe it's just as well that she's in England, under watchful eyes. Mary's royal appetites, however -- the size of her staff, her curious insistence on bathing her face in white wine --   are going to drive her guardians into bankruptcy if she doesn't get them killed first. Although the model of saintliness to her hosts, Mary is constantly writing letters and scheming ways to escape to Scotland and regain her throne, or even to claim Elizabeth's.  England's leaders aren't blind to this, and they have a spy within the house that casts suspicion on Shrewsberry himself.  For his part, he is slowly smitten by Mary, and doubly so when people keep asking him pointed questions. What has she done to make them so angry, poor innocent lamb?  Eventually things go south, of course, and this being Tudor England it ends in executions.

 There's a lot going on this novel. It's historical fiction, and Tudor drama gives an immediate kind of soap opera drama. Personal and political are mixed;   Elizabeth's advisers want to keep a close eye on Mary, but her presence in England heightens her threat. Throughout the book the Earl of Shrewsberry is gradually seduced by Mary;  not sexually but in a style reminiscent of courtly love. He wants to be her knight in shining armor, even though her whims are destroying the fortune his wife has painstakingly built up and his defensiveness regarding Mary erodes  his reputation at court.  Mary is playing him like a lyre, though,  as her own chapters reveal to the reader.   I'd expected this to be sympathetic, and the book does make her out to seem a utterly lovely creature much of the time, but...jellyfish are also pretty. They are no less deadly for it, and when Mary is finally tossed into the tower and dispatched the only person I felt sorry for was Bess.  I may give Gregory another try or two;  soap operas aren't much my style, but she has a great variety of works out there from the looks of it. She certainly succeeds in bringing to life again a long-dead queen.

Ruled Britannia

Ruled Britannia
© 2002 Harry Turtledove
458 pages

1597. The 16th century is drawing to a close, and with it -- seemingly -- England's fortunes. Nine years ago the vast Spanish armada triumphed in delivering its army to English shores, where grim veterans easily cast aside the hastily-drawn levies that met them on the beaches. Spain's daughter reigns as queen, while England's own languishes in Bell Tower.  The Catholic church has been restored to power over Protestantism, and with such severity that the mention of the English Inquisition can cause a man's blood to chill.  One of the most popular of English playwrights, enjoyed by even the overseeing Spanish, is one William Shakespeare, who has been asked to write a play celebrating the life of Spain's aging monarch, Phillip. But what if instead of memorializing the crown occupant, he celebrates the tragedy of Queen Boudica, a Celtic chieftess of yore  who lead her proud Britons in battle against a Roman invader? So begins what must for me be Harry Turtledove's most fascinating piece to date, a tribute to a master wordsmith via alternate history.

Ruled Britannia stands apart from Turtledove's other work, being largely dominated by  the one figure of William Shakespeare instead of drawing from an ensemble cast. There is another viewpoint character, the likewise famous Lope de Vega, but Shakespeare is the star.  Even when he is not telling the story, he is present: lines from his work absolutely riddle the dialogue. The language, too, is unusual: Turtledove switches between present-day English for narration, and Elizabethan English for his characters' conversations.  This requires adjustment on the part of the reader, but like tugging on a boot, it seems natural enough after a little effort. For once, Turtledove's annoying habit of being repetitive works to the readers' advantage, helping the arcane vocabulary and spellings ("murther most foul!") gain familiarity.  Most of the characters are historic personalities, another unusual move for Turtledove, and one of the few exceptions exists in a netherworld of fiction and fact, being one of the real Shakespeare's characters re-purposed for this set.  Shakespeare doesn't get up to much within the book, instead, while he  writes and prepares two plays at once, consorting with Spanish nobles and rebellious Englishers in such a fashion as to court death from other side, readers experience life in occupied England.  Tension comes in the form of a string of deaths of men connected with Shakespeare and the scheme to release Boudica's rebellion onto the unsuspecting dons. The poet is watched both by suspicious Spainards and calculating revolutionaries, neither of whom are afraid of a little villainy in the name of a worthy cause. Faced with death from either side,  Shakespeare ultimately performs for himself, for his own conscience; for he is an Englishman, called to show the mettle of his pasture. His decision whether or not to be the rebellion's propagandist is never in doubt, and the parts of the play shared with readers are certainly blood-rousing enough. The novel's last fifth is on rebellion itself, with lots of sword-fighting and enthusiastic yelling.

For the fan of Shakespeare and historical fiction, this is gold -- and a most unusual treat for readers of alt-historical fiction. While I could have done without some of the luridness and at least twenty uses of the same phrase ("made a leg"), this is one to remember with fondness.

Armada

Armada
© 2012 John Stack
400 pages

It is the 16th century, and a crisis looms for England.  Spain, who thanks to the plunder of the New World and its Hapsburg connections, is Europe's heavyweight and the declared enemy of England, threatens war. Spanish armies stand just across the Channel, occupying Holland, and a massive fleet has sailed from Iberia to help cover and transport that invading army to a land which has not known a conqueror's boots in five hundred years.  The force from without may have assistance from within, as persecuted Catholics look to Madrid for salvation. In the center of this drama is Robert Varian, a secret Catholic whose father was said to have died in exile following defeat in a rebellion decades ago.  Robert's father Nathaniel is quite alive, however, and from Spain he has helped organize the forthcoming invasion.  If Robert could be convinced to aide his father and provide intelligence on the gathering English fleet,  he could very well pave the way to Spanish victory and the restoration of the Faith in England.  But matters are far from simple.  A recusant Robert may be, but he is an Englishman who loves his Queen -- but does he love her more than his father?  As the hours draw the two massive forces closer to conflict, desperate attempts in England to root out a potential spy dot the landscape with death, and two missions converge in the same running battle as the English fleet and a fickle wind fight fiercely against the armed might and brazen ambition of the Dons.

Robert Varian dominates the lead here in a way  John Stack's other hero, Atticus, never did. Although there is an ensemble of other viewpoint characters, one of whom is his principle Spanish rival, this is Robert's story.  Happily, then, he's a likable fellow; conflicted, but devoted to his faith, his country, and the memory of  his father. He thrives as a warrior in an age of changing seamanship; sailors might pack primitive muskets and fire cannons instead of cutlasses and arrows, but cannons have begun their conquest of the naval scene. While the Spanish still rely heavily on boarding and hacking away,  the English have begun to experiment with using cannon alone to wear down the enemy. It is a tactic that will serve them in good stead during the battle itself, and give the Spanish captain Morales no end of grief. He wants desperately to take down Varian, a man who took his ship but spared his life in a raid, but how can he if the English do not consent to letting their graceful gunships be bludgeoned down by massive galleons? So Varian wrestles with both his conscience and the Spanish, working out the question of how he can be true to his faith, his father, and his country.  His love for both England and the church contrasts with the fanaticism of those on either side working against him, both Puritans in England and holy warriors in Spain.

The story of the Armada's protracted fight against the English fleet, unfolding over the course of several days, is told largely through the repeated brawls between Varian and his Spanish counterpart's ships, climaxing with a frantic duel aboard a burning ship.  It's a strange story, both because of the in-flux state of naval war, transitioning from ancient to modern methods, and because of the way it ends. The Spanish Armada is not destroyed, and neither is the English fleet;  they fight and go home. Stack's historical note comments that it was fortunate for England that the Spanish regarded themselves as spent, for the English fleet was driven to exhaustion as well, and this attitude reflects itself in the story, in that the Spanish lead is driven to despair over his loss even as the English captains are worrying about what the morrow will bring.  Varian, at least, gets most of his ends tidied up, though parts of the ending seem to be begging for a sequel.  It's a slight blemish, however, and if Stacks does more work in this period, so much the better off are we readers!

Come Rack! Come Rope!

Come Rack! Come Rope!
© 1912 Robert Hugh Benson
424 pages

Dear Miss Manners:
      My father, having long been both a leader of resistance against religious tyranny and an inspiration to his countrymen, has surrendered most abjectly and is pestering me into joining him. Whatever shall I do?
Doubtful in Derbyshire

Dear Doubtful:
          Flee to Rheims and become a priest, or marry me.  Your pick!
XOXO
Miss Manners

Young Robin Audrey becomes an enemy of the State when his father forces him to choose between Caesar and Christ. The Audreys are, or were, recusant Catholics; that is, Catholics who refuse to convert to the increasingly Protestantized Church of England.  For years a gentle truce held in Derbyshire:  its squire,  Robin's father, absented himself from church but paid fees for doing so. Thirty years into Elizabeth's reign, however, times are changing. her reign imperiled by rumors of palace revolt and am impending invasion from Spain,  the Virgin Queen wages war against her own people  to maintain distance from Rome, going so far as to hunt down and execute any priest of the Catholic church.   Fees and fears piling up,  Old Audrey finally surrenders: but his son cannot. Raised in the ancestral faith of Europe, he cannot abandon it for mere convenience' sake. Seeking moral support and advice from his secret fiance, Marjorie Manners,  he realizes a call to the priesthood. Retreating to France to take on holy orders, he thus becomes a hunted foe of the crown - and so begins a tragic romance and a stirring tale of resistance against religious persecution.

Our heroes here are of course Robin and Majorie, who sacrifice their own happiness out of devotion to higher deals. A Catholic priest, of course, cannot marry, and even if they could  there would be little domestic bliss to be found when one party is constantly in hiding and the other constantly doing the hiding. Both resist the Crown's intrusion into matters of conscience in their own way; Robin, by  traveling and ministering to the hidden faithful, and Marjorie by helping hide other priests who are engaged in the same business. In an ideal world, perhaps the Queen would have let her  Catholic subjects be, but the English Reformation was far from ideal. Not only has the Pope issued a bull absolving Catholics from fealty to Elizabeth, thus casting a treasonous light upon them in her eyes, but there are serious threats of assassination to contend with. Who but Catholics would want to drive the Protestant prince of England out, and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots? And who but Catholics would welcome an invasion of England by Catholic Spain?  Robin and Mary are not violent insurrectionists, and certainly no sympathizers to any Spanish invasion --  indeed, they urge their countrymen against rash actions. But war would not be the horror that it is if it did not  consume the lives of innocents, and so it is that virtually every character introduced after the opening chapter will be executed at the hands of the State.

But where sin abounds, there grace does much more abound -- and there is grace to be found here. Robin lives a life of grace,  risking torture and death so that he might offer comfort to the hounded - - even listening to the confession of Mary, the imprisoned Queen of Scots. Some of the tragic beauty here comes from the relationship between Marjorie and Robin; even though they cannot marry,  love still unites them. It is not an erotic love, but they are very much partners in the same great enterprise. Another of the tale's wrenching aspects is the relationship between Robin and his father, who have become enemies: in the last hour, it is the father's unwitting signature on the warrant which damns him -- and yet  there is absolution. The finish is heartrending, but fitting.

The Marriage Game

 The Marriage Game
©  2015 Alison Weir
416 pages

            In Greek mythology,  the gods punished Tantalus by subjecting him to perpetual hunger, made worse by the fact that food and drink were both seemingly close at hand.His every attempt to drink the water he stood in or to pluck fruit from the limbs hanging low with bounty above him, was thwarted; the objects of his desire both moved away from his touch.  The Marriage Game tantalizes readers in much the same fashion, being the story of how Queen Elizabeth kept half the royal princes of Europe, and one longsuffering English noble, on the string for two decades.  Although touching on diplomacy and war throughout Elizabeth's reign (diplomacy and marriage being interconnected affairs in Tudor days), The Marriage Game is chiefly a tale of emotional manipulation and self-torture.

   Among the requirements for  peace and stability in premodern Europe was a unbroken line of succession among the monarchy. If a king died without a clear heir, competing claimants could ruin a nation with civil war. Such was Henry VIII's urgency to make sure he had an incontrovertible successor that he went through six wives trying to find one who could given him a son who lived. Elizabeth faced the same dilemma to a greater degree, being the offspring of a suspect marriage: she needed a source of legitimacy more than anything. Why, in days steeped in tradition and with so much at stake, did Elizabeth avoid the marriage bed?  Possible motives are teased out through the novel, among them a skepticism of marriage borne of seeing her father's collection of beheaded and divorced wives,  the fear that husbands and sons would be threats to her supremacy, and the fact that the possibility of marriage was an excellent diplomatic tool. So long as the princes of Europe thought Elizabeth might marry into one of their families, they were less disposed to threaten war -- useful, given that Elizabeth's precariousness, the questionably-legitimate ruler of a state divorced from the Catholic faith of all of Europe. If she actually married into those families, all would be lost: England would be entangled into France and the Holy Roman Empire's innumerable conflicts, or worse yet into the brewing religious wars that would set fire to the blood of England's own bloodthirsty radicals and reactionaries. But if she could only make them think they had a shot,  England might safely navigate the rocks and shoals of 16th century Europe.

    Leading on the aristocracy is one thing, leading on herself and a subject she evidently loved -- along with the reader -- quite another. A variety of European princes try to woo Elizabeth's hand; French princes, Spanish kings, a Holy Roman archduke, some Swedish fellow -- but none stood a chance against her own "Eyes", her Master of Horse, her Robert Dudley. Friends since childhood, and heavy-petting companions, Robert and 'Bess' spend the entire novel being miserable over one another. They are in love, regardless of how many people they lead on, but this is one relationship doomed from having its happily ever after.  They are enraptured by one another, yet never find fulfillment; Elizabeth is forever dancing away, either because the country would riot at a queen marrying a lower-born noble whose parents were condemned as rebels, or because it's too diplomatically useful to be courted as a wedding prize, or because she is intimidated by the very act of consummation. Regardless of the reasons, it's utterly exasperating, because the same scenes reenact themselves throughout: Elizabeth and Robert get close, vow marriage, Elizabeth says 'Just wait next year',  expects Robert to support in council her plans for blowing off this European noble to woo that European noble,  then gets huffy when he  glances at women who aren't royal teases. Two decades this goes on, as he gets fat and tired and she gets toothless and wrinkled.   (And then they die.)  Even when Elizabeth's councilors have given up hope of her marrying European royalty, and grown to appreciate her rascal-at-court, she vacillates.  If it weren't based in part on a true story, who on Earth would subject themselves to 300 pages of two people wanting nothing more to be the other's everything, not letting themselves do it, and then dying, buried with more regrets than flowers?

Although The Marriage Game can be enjoyed,   Elizabeth and Dudley are pathetic in the truest sense of the word, and Elizabeth borders on manipulative. Unfortunately,  aside from some slight mentions of diplomacy (hard to skip the Spanish Armada) and a few token mentions of religion (also hard to skip the Pope giving the OK for Elizabeth to be forcibly removed from office), the entirety of the book is taken up with Elizabeth's romance. It is virtually the only thing anyone is concerned with in the novel. Even when the Armada sets off, it seems to be predicated on the Spanish giving up on an Elizabethan romance.  Elizabeth was a woman worthy of awe, and an admirable monarch, but the Bess of this work is a vain, manipulative princess who allows life to waste away with control games. It's a sad story, and an unfortunate sequel to Weir's charming  The Lady Elizabeth.

Innocent Traitor

Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey
© 2006 Alison Weir
402 pages

I just found Alison Weir this year and have thus far enjoyed her work in history and historical fiction. Innocent Traitor marked her introduction to historical fiction, and since The Lady Elizabeth and Captive Queen were so enjoyable, I looked forward to reading the work that presaged them. Innocent Traitor is set during the same period as The Lady Elizabeth: Henry VIII, the aging Tudor monarch, has  failed despite six wives to generate a brood of sons. All of England's hopes for avoiding a bloody war of succession -- bloodier still now with the Protestant Reformation gaining in strength and promising to make such a war one of religion to boot -- are pinned on the health of Henry's only male offspring, Edward. Meanwhile, charismatic and wily characters compete for power and influence: court intrigue abounds, and our titular character is thrust into it by her ambitious parents.

The Lord and Lady Dorset are mightily displeased at their daughter Jane for having been born a girl, but the timing of her birth -- close to that of Prince Edward's -- and her Tudor blood make her a viable candidate for marriage  to Edward when he reaches his majority. From the moment Edward's birth is announced, Jane's parents scheme to insert her into English politics.  Jane lacks the imperious will of her friend Elizabeth: she has no interest in ruling, or in most affairs of aristocracy. She prefers studying theology and the simple pleasures of reading and conversation to noble sports like hunting, gossip, and conspiracy. Still, the examples of Elizabeth and others put enough steel in her backbone to give those who wish to casually use her pause.

Although Jane is the primary character of Innocent Traitor, hers is not the only voice. Weir relies on a half-dozen voices to tell the story: Queen Katherine (Parr); Frances, Jane's cold and oppressive mother;  Ellen, her governess;  the future Queen Mary, and John Dudley. Weir uses the first-person voice for all of them, which required some getting used to: Dudley's inclusion seemed especially odd at first, although he is instrumental in dragging poor Jane into court in an attempt to prevent the Catholic Mary's succession and the return of England to the "yoke of Rome". Unfortunately for him and Jane, Mary is a force to be reckoned with.

Innocent Traitor is not as tightly focused as The Lady Elizabeth, but it's still a good read: Jane is as sympathetic a character as I've ever read, and Weir's training and work as a historian are put to good use, portraying the flamboyant, dangerous, and miserable world of Tudor-era England in rich colors. The final fifty pages are particularly poignant. Dialogue has a historical flair, but is not overly stilted -- though Jane's childhood narrative chapters have an adult formality to them. (This was also present in The Lady Elizabeth).

All in all, an enjoyable novel, and yet one bettered by Weirs' succeeding works.

The Life of Elizabeth I

The Life of Elizabeth I
© 1998, 2003 Alison Weir
542 pages

"She certainly is a great queen [...]. Just look how well she governs! She is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all! " - Pope Sixtus V, p. 399

When I received a bookstore gift card from my place of work as an end-of-the-school-term gift, I put it to use and bought The Life of Elizabeth I.  Weir's biography of Elizabeth was recommended by Elizabeth's Facebook "fans", and Weir's biographical novel of Elizabeth has been one of the year's most enjoyable reads. I've been meaning to read it, but have been otherwise occupied. Six hours spent accompanying someone to the emergency room and an afternoon without electricity in the wake of a severe thunderstorm gave me ample opportunity to visit Weir's treatment.

Weir chooses to focus on Elizabeth in her role as queen in this novel, beginning with her coronation and ending with her death: Elizabeth's early years were covered in The Children of Henry VIII. She places general emphasis on foreign affairs and life at court, which are tangentially related: more than a few members of her court are involved in urging her to marry one European prince or another, and in an age where nations' destinies were decided by members of interrelated royal families, marriage and politics were conjoined. The Spanish and French empires are Elizabeth's most powerful adversaries, and she spends much of her life delicately arranging the protection of one while avoiding the wrath of the other. This is not always possible: her reign reaches its greatest when Spain's "Grand Armada", intending on delivering an invasion fleet, is destroyed. Scandals among Elizabeth's court constitute most of the text dedicated to domestic affairs, with religious strife occupying the rest. Elizabeth has inherited her father's role as governor of the English church, now formally divided from the Catholic church, but not moving too much in the direction of the Protestants. Religion and politics are closely linked in this age:  her cousin Mary Stuart, a rival to the throne, relies on Catholic resentment  to continually scheme to overthrown the Queen,

Weir's treatment is one grand chronologically-arranged narrative, divided into sections but ever moving forward. Thus we gain a picture of Elizabeth maturing from giddy youth to graceful age, supported by an ever-changing court.  Elizabeth's marriage prospects dominate the opening of the book: as she ages and loses childbearing potential, her rivals and foes choose to attempt to bend England to their will through force: religious insurrections become a constant threat, particularly from Catholic quarters. Although Elizabeth is generally well-liked, both Puritans and Catholics give her cause to grief.  Weir occasionally breaks from the constant stream of stories to offer general assessments of Elizabeth as a person: these segments interested me most. I am particularly interested in Elizabeth as a free-spirited intellectual who loved dancing and who resorted to translating classical orders into English to maintain control of her temper.

The recommendation from Elizabeth's fans was warranted. The narrative is easily digestible and Weir offers plenty of background for fully understanding some of the episodes in her life. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Related:

• The Lady Elizabeth, Alison Weir
• A Bookshelf Monstrosity's comments

The Lady Elizabeth

The Lady Elizabeth
© 2008 Alison Weir
480 pages

"Can you do what you like when you are king? [Elizabeth] asked, a whole new vista of freedom opening up in her mind.

"Of course I can," her father replied. "People have to do my will." There was an edge to his voice that, young as she was, she missed.

"Then," she told him, "I am going to be king when I grow up." (p. 19)

I have long been taken with the personality of Elizabeth the First, the storied 'Virgin Queen of England' who ruled long and well, setting England's course away from the Roman Church and continental wars, and towards Anglo-Scottish union and the New World.  Alison Weir's biography of Elizabeth came highly reccommended to me, but I do not have access to it: I do, however, have access to Weir's biographical novel of Elizabeth. Weir's account begins with the death of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother, and the royal decree that Elizabeth and her older half-sister Mary are cut off from the line of succession. Weir tells Elizabeth's story beginning with this loss of favor, following the future queen's trials and triumphs until she is at last crowned Queen at the age of twenty-five.

Elizabeth, for me, is an almost-larger-than-life character, and her depiction in this book pays homage to her irrepresible indivduality and strength of will. "Precocius" is nearly an understatement, for even as a toddler Elizabeth is startlingly bold and mature, sounding at times like an adult. This may be due to the inherent difficult of an adult rendering how a young child might think and speak, to the tendecy for royal children to be raised as adults in miniature, or to the fact that Weir's sources -- letters penned by the young Elizabeth and recollections of her by her guardians -- depict a child with supreme self-collection.

Elizabeth's earliest memories are the blizzard of new stepmothers, for her father would marry four more times in his life, having done so six times in all.  Mary and Elizabeth are both bewildered by this quick succession, but their respective responses to their own mothers' fates define their characters: while Mary is partially broken by the humiliation of her mother (Katherine of Aragon) and lives her life forever dependent on others and weeping for the loss of what she loves, Elizabeth is determined not to endure her mother's fate. She develops inner strength, demanding independence and self-effected security for herself. The primary actor in Elizabeth's life is Elizabeth. She steels herself with philosophy -- being especially fond of Cicero -- and meets challenges with bristling defiance.

Elizabeth will need that strength of character to withstand her adolescence: when the king dies, she and her siblings become the pawns of ambitious nobles who seek to increase their fortunes and influence England's course during times of political and religious turmoil. Elizabeth must also resist the advances of lusty suitors, struggling against her body's innate desire to propagate. She scorns marriage, for her father's string of wives proved how little the status of wife is worth, and she distrusts the power her emotions have over her when encouraged.  Early adulthood is no easier, as rebellions against the Sovereign ensnare Elizabeth and send her to the Tower of London, where she occupies the very apartments her mother occupied before her own beheading. Her path to the throne takes her through a vast minefield of religious, political, diplomatic, and personal problems.

Weir took me by surprise: although my interest in the subject character played a part, The Lady Elizabeth was for me a genuine page-turner. Although I kept putting it down in order to read another book, it continually appeared in my hands again. I'm always pleased when authors comment on their sources and discuss how they used (or took liberty with) them, and Weir is generous in providing disclosure. I look forward to reading more of her fiction and nonfiction and recommend this with ease.