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Mistress of the Monarchy The Life of Katherine Swynford Duchess of Lancaster Alison Weir 9780345453235 Books

Download As PDF : Mistress of the Monarchy The Life of Katherine Swynford Duchess of Lancaster Alison Weir 9780345453235 Books

Mistress of the Monarchy The Life of Katherine Swynford Duchess of Lancaster Alison Weir 9780345453235 Books

Katherine Payn Roet,daughter of an impoverished knight serving the Plantagenet Court in fourteenth century England,married another almost equally impoverished knight,Sir Hugh Swynford,who served John of Gaunt,Duke of Lancaster, on his various military excursions into Europe,After Swynford's death,Katherine began an affair with John of Gaunt which lasted,intermittently,for the rest of their lives,bore his children,the Beauforts,and culminated in John of Gaunt marrying her a few years before his death,thereby making her the Duchess of Lancaster, the First Lady of England, and the ancestor of the Royal houses of the Nation,all the way down to the present day.
During all the years before her eventual marriage to john of Gaunt,although still under the loose protection of Lancaster,she led a reclusive life mostly in Lincolnshire,tending her manor,and involving herself quietly,in some of the business and developments going on in the City of Lincoln, where she now lies buried in the Cathedral.
It is this period of comparative mystery that Alison Weir has researched so carefully,there was never even a portrait of Katherine to show us what she looked like,and for the first time,interested readers can learn about the woman as she probably really was,rather than just as the much vilified adultress and begetter of royal bastards. Tthe story,which also covers her entire life, is historically accurate too.
For those millions of readers around the world,who read Anya Setons marvelous "semi biographical"novel"Katherine",this is an essential work with which to complete the known picture of this historically important,enigmatic,woman. Highly readable,and recommended.


Tags : Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster [Alison Weir] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Acclaimed author Alison Weir has been prolific with her books on English royalty covering everything from the Houses of York and Lancaster to the reigns of the Tudors and beyond. Now this remarkable historian brings to life the extraordinary tale of the woman who was ancestor to them all: Katherine Swynford,Alison Weir,Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster,Ballantine Books,0345453239,General,Great Britain;Court and courtiers;History;To 1500.,Nobility;Great Britain;Biography.,Nobility;Great Britain;History;To 1500.,BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography & Autobiography General,Biography Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,Court and courtiers,GREAT BRITAIN - HISTORY,General Adult,Great Britain,Great BritainBritish Isles,Historical - British,History,History Europe General,History Europe Great Britain General,History Europe Medieval,Nobility,Non-Fiction,Royalty,To 1500,United States,Women

Mistress of the Monarchy The Life of Katherine Swynford Duchess of Lancaster Alison Weir 9780345453235 Books Reviews

This is a very interesting read. It is thoughtful, well researched, and evenhanded. Miss Weir has spent considerable effort researching the available records involving gifts of cloth, wine, and assorted other things to place where and when people were. She resists the temptation to absolutely place people without collaborative evidence. Lots of very interesting information. I enjoyed reading this book.
When I want to read a book on a topic that interests me and I don't know much about the author, I really enjoy reading the reviews - both for and against. I especially value the reviews that summarize the contents briefly so I can get some idea of how the topic is treated. Sometimes the evaluations for are unbelievably favorable, and I could well believe they are written by friends and relatives. On the other hand, the negative reviews go far in the other direction, especially when the author has hit nerves on sensitive issues or debunked a point of view. The negative reviews of this book are good illustrations of that.

I read KATHERINE by Anya Seton in the late 1950s, and I loved it. I reread it many times. I've been fascinated by medieval England since I first read Howard Pyle's stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood when I was in grade school. As I grew older and started reading nonfiction and histories, I started putting myth and legend into perspective with historical research. I went through a period of almost sadness to learn my favorite stories had maybe just a smidgen of fact, but I quickly shifted into appreciating the imagination of the storytellers who could bring dry records to life to form a picture of what life was like in the distant past.

One of my college professors in a history of England class gave us a beginning assignment - write your version of the conquest of England using only sources dating no later than 100 years (I think - maybe 200 years) of 1066. These included the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Bayeaux tapestry, three or four other chroniclers - when we looked at them, there was maybe five or six pages of information mostly from Norman French sources. None of us had brains enough in gear to attempt to evaluate who the writers of these "histories" were and who they were trying to impress or were paid by, or to think that just maybe none of them even attempted to give us the whole story. Yup, I was one of those who flunked the paper big time.

Historical research is not for sissies. I knew even back in the late 50s that KATHERINE was a romance. It wasn't until maybe 10-15 years later when I had studied the sociology as well as the history of the middle ages that I realized just how romanticized it was. We surely don't think about ourselves and our values today as did people living centuries ago. Ms Seton's book is still a good story (I still own it and reread it with pleasure), and it fed my interest in studying history. Thank you, Anya Seton. And thank you, Alison Weir. You have both made my life much richer.
Overall, a pretty informative book, but not so complex that you start to lose track of who is who amongst the people surrounding Katherine, and on what side someone is, which is easy to do as switching loyalties seemed to be rather common in the high Middle Ages.
The book moves along nicely for the most part, only occasionally hanging somewhere a tad longer than it needs to, holding the reader in limbo waiting for something to come along and push it free.
When this happens, though, it does a fine job breathing life and definition into Katherine as a person. You finish the book feeling like you honestly know something about who she was as a person and not just an historical figure.
It’s a story about a long-standing love and a mother who would sacrifice everything for her children.
Alison Weir is THE writer of this and the Tudor period. In this book on Katherine, Weir is blocked by the fact that nothing exists regarding this very important woman. For reasons unknown all written correspondence and only or two land and several annuities are visible on other records. Weir connects Katherine's probable actions to other events. It is a masterful book of detail. The fictional book she talks about written about Katherine in 1950's. Is fabulous. I have carried it with me from my teenage years( which disappeared a long time ago). No in depth story leaves the book a disappointment but the detail of the end result of her life is superb. The 1950's book is still in publication. Get both "Katherine" by Seton and the book for a perfectly rounded view.
Katherine Payn Roet,daughter of an impoverished knight serving the Plantagenet Court in fourteenth century England,married another almost equally impoverished knight,Sir Hugh Swynford,who served John of Gaunt,Duke of Lancaster, on his various military excursions into Europe,After Swynford's death,Katherine began an affair with John of Gaunt which lasted,intermittently,for the rest of their lives,bore his children,the Beauforts,and culminated in John of Gaunt marrying her a few years before his death,thereby making her the Duchess of Lancaster, the First Lady of England, and the ancestor of the Royal houses of the Nation,all the way down to the present day.
During all the years before her eventual marriage to john of Gaunt,although still under the loose protection of Lancaster,she led a reclusive life mostly in Lincolnshire,tending her manor,and involving herself quietly,in some of the business and developments going on in the City of Lincoln, where she now lies buried in the Cathedral.
It is this period of comparative mystery that Alison Weir has researched so carefully,there was never even a portrait of Katherine to show us what she looked like,and for the first time,interested readers can learn about the woman as she probably really was,rather than just as the much vilified adultress and begetter of royal bastards. Tthe story,which also covers her entire life, is historically accurate too.
For those millions of readers around the world,who read Anya Setons marvelous "semi biographical"novel"Katherine",this is an essential work with which to complete the known picture of this historically important,enigmatic,woman. Highly readable,and recommended.