Lately, I've been reading some very good books that all seem to have a theme in common, and I've been pleasantly surprised by some of them, so I thought I would share my impressions in case any of you were interested in doing some reading of your own.
We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill is a fantastic exploration of the royal marriage, and a good overview of the backgrounds of both partners. I've read many books about Victoria, but almost none about Albert, and I was really fascinated by what the author has to say about his childhood. I also enjoyed the story of how Albert "transformed" Victoria, for lack of a better word, into a more compliant spouse, and tried to take for himself the powers of the monarch, despite Parliament having refused to grant them to him officially. Albert's influence on Victoria and on England was really astounding, and this book does an excellent job of exploring those relationships. This is an excellent introduction to them as people, and as rulers, and I think many readers would find this enjoyable, even if you are already well versed in the history of Queen Victoria.
Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria by Julia P. Gelardi tells the story of how Victoria and Albert's descendants took the lessons learned from their formidable grandmother and spread them across Europe. I would classify this as an intermediate level read, because there is a lot of jumping back and forth between the five women's stories, and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas were a very fertile group, so there are a lot of supporting characters, and you have to really be paying attention to keep them all straight. But Gelardi does an excellent job tying them together, and it is a fascinating read. I'm working on a blog post about how Queen Victoria and Christian IX of Denmark managed to populate almost all the thrones of Europe, and this book feeds directly into that. The five Granddaughters led lives that encompassed the great events of late 19th century and early to mid 20th century Europe, so the scope of Born to Rule is broad but fascinating and manages to convey an impressive amount of detail. I would heartily recommend this to anyone interested in Modern European history, or the legacy of Queen Victoria.
Sovereign Ladies: Sex, Sacrifice and Power - The Six Reigning Queens of England by Maureen Waller analyzes the reigns of Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II through the lens of their gender. It deals only with the Queens regnant, that is women who actually ruled, not the wives and consorts of Kings. It covers how each one came to the throne, and how each Queen dealt with the fact of her gender. All of them, with the exception, to a degree, of Elizabeth II, ruled during a time when women were seen to be inferior by nature of their gender, when womanhood was equated with subservience, obedience, weakness, and submission to a man, either father or husband. The result of this varies widely, from Elizabeth I who built up the cult of the Virgin Queen to Mary II who claimed the throne, but essentially turned it over to her domineering husband, William of Orange, as her co-monarch. Each section deals with one Queen, and gives enough biographical data to build a solid line of reasoning without overwhelming the reader, or needlessly covering ground well tended by other biographers. I found the parallels and divergences in their stories fascinating. This is a fairly easy read, and is handily broken up into sections by Queen, so it's easy to read in chunks, or even put down and come back much later without losing the thread.
Royal Feud: The Dark Side of the Love Story of the Century by Michael Thornton is the most gossipy of the group. The premise is basically that Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, HATED Wallis Simpson almost from the moment of meeting her, and describes how that tension played out over the course of their lives. Now, this book was published in 1985, so some of it reads as being slightly dated (most notably because both protagonists were living at the time of publication, although Wallis died in 1986 and the Queen Mother in 2002), but since most of the events it covers happened decades before that even, it's not a handicap. According to Thornton, Wallis Simpson referred to the Queen Mother as "The Dowdy Duchess" (she was Elizabeth, Duchess of York at the time they met) and the Queen Mother basically called her "that woman" or tried to refer to her not at all if it was possible. The two women did not meet from the time Edward VIII abdicated the throne until close to twenty years later. Thornton blames the royal family's poor treatment of Wallis on both Queen Mary and the Queen Mother, but mostly the Queen Mother. Thornton seems to think that George VI's unwillingness to receive Wallis at Court, and his refusal to allow her to be styled Her Royal Highness was the result of his wife's opinion. He does a fairly good job at relating the story without censure for either party, and I came away feeling sorry for both women. This is another book where there is a large cast of supporting characters, and some of them can be difficult to keep straight. But it is a fascinating insider account of one of the great scandals of the 20th century, and well worth a read.
Well, that's it for now. I've got a couple more stacked up on my nightstand, one covering Queen Victoria's daughters, two other books about Wallis Simpson, one dealing with her later life, after Edward's death, and one about the two of them, plus another Julia Gelardi book dealing with royal mothers and their daughters tragedies (Queen Victoria, Catherine of Aragon, and Marie Antoinette feature heavily), so there will undoubtedly be another round of book reviews down the road. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for things I should read, leave them in the comments section, I'm always looking for ideas. And let me know if you read any of these, I'd love to know what you think.
A.H.
