5 comments about Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King.

1. nell gwyn was born from a impoverished and abusive childhood but never became a cruel or bitter woman.she stole the heart of a king bearing him childern.their love affair last 16 years became one of royality greatest love story.



2. I lived for a while by Nell Gwyn's house in Newmarket, Suffolk, England and so was interested in her greatly. I've read biographies of Charles II and had a perspective of his mistresses. The details of Nell's life are great; however, as a descendent of Charles II and Nell Gwyn, Mr Beauclerk's bias is obvious. His descriptions of the other mistresses are vicious at times. A great perspective of Restoration England.



3. I was spellbound as I kept reading this fascinating biography, written by a direct descendant of Nell Gwynn and King Charles II.
   This is a true life biography of the rag to riches ascent of a girl living in grinding poverty who scaled the heights and became the mistress to the King of England. The true story of the beautiful, enterprising, intelligent Nell Gwynn is sure to fascinate.



4. 
   I've been prone to reading about the Tudors so the Stuarts and the merry merry life of Charles II was new to me. Beauclerk's readable biography of his famous ancestors has really piqued my interest in the Stuarts.
   
   He notes in the text that 15 biographies have been written about Nell. Not having read any of them, I don't know how this one differs, but it reflects the author's broad knowledge of Restoration theater and poetry. He depicts the strange sort of liberation that followed Cromwell. He describes the changing role of women who now had a crack at few careers besides prostitution such as orange vending, acting, playwriting, and, well, courtesanship.
   
   The author is disciplined and sticks with his subject. He gives us enough background in Restoration politics so that we can understand Nell's (precarious) position.
   
   Nell's success in her short life was certainly made possible by the times in which she lived. The King's early life required normal socializing with commoners. Without this, his life and court might have been more like any other, with not so many out of wedlock children, and certainly none acknowledged. Nell would have had absolutely NO access were Charles' succession linear.
   
   Nell must have been a real card. I'm trying to think of a contemporary equivalent, and cannot. The description of the bed she had carved (and the cost of it) really takes the cake! It's hard to imagine her lack of prentense in the world in which she moved.
   
   The final chapter on her many descendants from her one surviving son is interesting. There were too many to keep track of but the general discussion is heavy with the weight of the British class system.
   
   That Beauclerk has written of his foremother, not of his forefather, is a sign of our times. It has been all too frequent for children to "reach up" to the male for prestige, career and/or status, as Beauclerk notes that the Duke of Monmouth does. This is often accompanied by ignoring or insulting the mother and what she brings to the match. Beauclerk does not minimize his royal line of which he could very well boast (I'm a descendant of a king!) He celebrates the intellegence talent, wit and adventuresome spirit that is part of his matrilineal side.
   
   After reading the book I checked Wikipedia and learned that Princess Diana is a direct descendant of both Barbara Palmer AND Louise de Keroualle and Charles II, and that Camilla is a descendant of Louise de Keroualle and Charles II!



5. Far more than a mere recitation of dry facts, Charles Beauclerk's biography of the magical life of Nell Gwyn displays rare insight into the human condition, which insights one soon realises are acutely applicable to the here-and-now of politics, art, and the mysterious attachments of the heart. To history, Nell Gwyn was all to often misunderstoond to be merely (pg. 297) "...the stuff of legend, the girl from the slums who had won the heart of a king." In the author's hands, however, this story of love reciprocated (for such it was) is more than romance- it shines a spotlight on the theatre of politics and power which was the 17th century and still is today, in which nothing is as it seems to be, and fame provides a most convincing disguise for the truth. Beauclerk's evident erudition is worn lightly, and in this biography the richly comedic serves to illustrate the philosophical. Beautifully written, the author's style is both polished and relaxed, not unlike the later diaries of James Lees-Milne, with a limpid clarity of prose interspersed with surprising imagery, like his description of the Protestant rabble-rouser Titus Oates, (p. 279) "His mouth, we are told, was in the centre of his face, and he was built like an orc, with short bandy legs and long lifeless arms." On nearly every page one finds apt insights as, for example (p. 293) referring to the death of Nell's mother, "...like many alcoholics, old Madam Gwyn probably found a way of abandoning decent surroundings for a life of misery somewhere." The world of Charles Stuart and Nell Gwyn was a theatre, both metaphorically and literally, and whether on stage or at court everyone acted a part. In his biography of Nell, the plays of Dryden, Marvell, and others are neatly dissected by Charles Beauclerk to reveal unexpected depths of meaning. Nell was above all a comedienne, a star in her own right whose alliance with the saturnine, tricksy Charles Stuart made them the most successful double act of the 17th century. And there is, of course, the well-known account of Nell, whose coach being attacked by a mob mistaking her for the King's French (and Roman Catholic) mistress Louise de Keroualle, ordered her driver to stop, and flinging open the window (p. 307) "...cried out good-humouredly, 'Pray, good people, be civil, I am the PROTESTANT whore!' Immediately, the curses turned to cheers, caps were tossed in the air, and a path cleared for her coach. Waving and smiling, she passed on." And so, waving and smiling, Nell's brightly shining spirit has been well and truly awakened in this present biography.

No comments about Jennie Churchill: Winston's American Mother.

2 comments about Henry V: The Scourge of God.

1. Disappointing. If you're hoping for a balanced treatment of the life of Henry V, this is not the book for you. If you wish to read a pro-French, late-twentieth century politically correct biography, this is it.

   Seward is biased in his use of sources--if it contradicts his conclusions, he does not use it. For example, there were contemporary French historians who blamed Henry's execution of many prisoners during the battle of Agincourt on the actions of the French, but Seward makes no mention of this. Seward also sins against good biography in telling us what Henry was thinking at times--not what he may have been thinking, and not what he wrote or said or others said he said, but what was actually going through his mind.

   Seward also refuses to take Henry as a man of his times, instead comparing him to the ideal Politically Correct leader of the late twentieth century. Understandably, Henry is found wanting. Since Henry did not have our modern concept of religious tolerance, he was an intolerant bigot, etc. Sigh.

   Not everything Seward writes is negative--he seems to have a grudging admiration for his subject at times--but his bias and use of sources are such that you cannot trust him. This book might be useful as a balance to books on Henry V written by biographers who refuse to see any warts on their subject, but it fails to be a balanced treatment by itself.




2. This is an essential piece of scholarship on the life of Henry V for the lay reader. Recently re-printed as "Henry V as military commander". Loved by Shakespeare fans or anglophiles, Hal is given the overdue and necessary analysis by one of the finest writers on medieval history for the lay public. (And if you like to think of Shakespeare as an accurate source, check out his vicious & bigoted portrayal of Joan of Arc in "Henry VI".) This is no character assasination however, as the diplomatic skill and administrative abilities of Henry are illuminated by research as well as his megalomania and barbarity. More comparable to a more vicious Edward I than noble prince of courtly virtue. Only faulted by it's brevity or lack of background on Plantagenet family pre-Richard II

1 comments about Charles A. Lindbergh and the battle against American intervention in World War II.

1. Today we're used to the ritual of the media building a 'star' and then sacrificing them on the altar of publicity. Diana. John Lennon. Lindbergh, the son of a WW1 Congressman, was one of the first to go. The celebrity that followed his epic flight forced him to reclusivity. A devastating low blow was dealt by papparazzi breaking into the autopsy room to photograph the dead body of his kidnapped son. The aviator thus turned against the press, and they never forgave him for it.
   
   Written with interviews and full access to Lindbergh's private papers, this book demonstrates why Wayne S Cole is "the" historian of WW2 non-interventionism.
   
   Lindbergh Senior was an "old school" foe of entry into WW1. His opposition derived from an agrarian radicalism with roots deep in Jeffersonian soil. Cole has already ably analysed agrarian 'isolationism' in his book onNorth Dakota's Senator Nye. Lindbergh Junior explicitly rejected father's approach and it's opposition to to "big Eastern money". Maybe that was his mistake.
   
   Cole doesn't provide a full biography, he focuses mainly on Charles' career in the movement up to and through World War Two. And into the '60s, by which time Linbergh, somewhat ahead of his time, espoused the cause of indigenous peoples and wilderness before they became fashions for a new generation of celebrities. In the war, denied by a spiteful administration an opportunity to fight with his beloved USAAF, Linbergh worked as a civilian consultant improving the range and armament load of Navy fighters. Despite old age for a pilot, he spent enough time at the front to personally down a Japanese aircraft. This wartime 'quasi-military' career reprised the pre-war career that led him to both non-interventionism and notoriety.
   
   In the thirties the US government's air force capitalised on Air Force Reserve Colonel Lindbergh's international fame by encouraging him to tour the air ministries and industries of europe. His access furnished confidential reports to the USAAF that were, as Cole reports, highly appreciated, and for the most part, in line with their assessments from other sources. It was on this assignment, in the company of a US ambassador, that Goering's surprise award of a medal was made. An incident that gained notoriety only after Lindbergh went public with his anti-war views.
   
   Lindbergh's non-interventionism in many ways paralleled the new internationalism of the interventionists. Based not on his father's localism, Junior had wider concerns for the fate of western civilisation. He believed a war in europe would weaken the west as a whole, only to benefit the USSR and the growing power of Asia. This geopolitical analysis should be considered mundane today as almost all accounts trace the end of the empire to WWII. But it was clothed in racialist terminology, rightfully unacceptable today, but still flourishing in the rhetoric of all parties then. Indeed two decades after Lindbergh, Churchill was still writing histories that elevated anglo-saxons in terms that, to unsympathetic modern ears, smack of 'master race' status.
   
   The new world aviator put air power at the centre. To Lindbergh, American air power not the Royal Navy was the guardian of North America and with a focused effort undistracted by expensive and dubious foreign campaigns, investment in aviation research would make America invulnerable. Such a position, whether right or wrong, should not of itself really be considered surprising from a senior official of NACA, the government aeronautical bureau that would become NASA. And it would seem Lindbergh's views must have had some currency in the Air Force.
   
   Cole only seriously tests one point of Lindbergh's overall analysis. Maybe he should have done more. Cole doesn't mention it but Lindbergh's main prophetic error was in exagerating the importance of aircraft. This occupational hazard was certainly not his alone. Note the later belief that bombers could win wars. It led him to over-estimate the figthing prowess of the Luftwaffe, which was not unreasonably seen as europe's premier air force in the late 1930s. But, in hindsight, it was probably radar, not aircraft, that won the war, even if the atomic bomb ended it. And radar, at least centimetric band radar, was really the product of the world's first true "military-industrial-scientific complex". Britain's. Germany may have had better generals, scientists and industrialists but their coordination was inferior. The reich's industrial tail was divided into uncommunicative "silos" to use corporate-speak.
   
   Cole provides insights into "The Great Debate". I was surprised to learn that the leadership of America First had virtually given up three months before Pearl Harbor in the wake of FDR's "shoot in sight" order to the Navy. They saw this as a de facto declaration of war merely waiting a response from Hitler. They considered folding up shop there and then. And the debate lines were not clearly marked. William Whtyte, the midwestern newspaperman, handpicked by FDR to lead a 'grassroots' public group to support the "all aid short of war" was himself ultimately removed as he apparently really believed in aid, short of, ...but not including..., war. Cole examines Lindbergh's Des Moines speech in detail and provides a chapter dedicated to each of the groups Lindbergh accused of pushing for war, and their reactions to the speech. It generated a furore of criticism from non-interventionists and interventionists alike for it's alleged anti-semitism. Cole suggests the speech may even have been, at least in part, deliberately self destructive. In any event politics magnified the event and Cole finds nothing in Lindbergh's personal papers to find him anti-jewish.
   
   Indeed about the "worst" charge against him that bears the historical support, at least based on the evidence presented here, is pessimism. Or, to those determined to be pejorative, defeatism. But then again, if action speaks louder than words, Linbergh's personal actions in the war years were hardly the behaviour of a defeatist.
   
   As mentioned above, Cole makes one test of Lindbergh's analysis, his pessimistic predictions of the war to come. Cole sees them as, if anything, a near miss. We can easily overlook that the Nazi-Soviet war broke out only six months before Pearl Harbor. If it hadn't been for the Eastern Front, any invading Americans presumably would have faced much stronger German forces than they actually did on D-Day. Up to seven million German troops were killed or captured fighting the Red Army. Had they been deployed west rather than east, victory may not have been as "easy". Most of the former 'isolationist' leaders, including Vandenburg, who became an outright WW2 and cold war internationalist, never conceded any pre-war error. Their position does not seem extreme. Nor was Lindbergh's. He never joined Robert Taft in his post-war opposition to NATO and the Marshall Plan. Post-war Lindbergh became more of an Eisenhower Republican convinced that with the damage already done, American troops and dollars would be needed in Europe for decades.
   
   Lindbergh proved remarkably forgiving to those who plainly smeared him. Talking to Cole in the late sixties he noted that public figures cannot expect gentle treatment. His father suffered worse. And unlike the Vietnam issue, then raging, the Great Debate had been argued without violence. Cole reminds us that Lindbergh still remains something of a lost hero to modern Americans. Unlike the Cold War mud thrown by Joe McCarthy, WW2 mud, perhaps even more groundless continues to stick. It's long past the time Lindbergh was given permission to land. Recommended.

No comments about EVELYN WOOD VC - PILLAR OF EMPIRE.

2 comments about Michael Collins: The Man Who Won the War.

1. Dwyer tackles his Collins biography by focusing on Michael's roles as a military man and a politico. As a matter of fact, Dwyer's opening chapter addresses the speech from which his subtitle was taken: Arthur Griffith's proclamation in the Irish Dáil that Collins was "the man who won the war." From there, Dwyer explores Collins' part in the Easter Rising, his productive time in jail, and his reintroduction to the republican movement in Dublin. The core of the book is dedicated to how Collins dismantled the system of British counter-intelligence in Ireland and the subsequent retalliation, Bloody Sunday. The last thirty pages examine Collins' duty in negotiating and then defending the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Collins' assassination and the aftermath of his death are not discussed. In the epilogue, Dwyer takes a moment to reassess Collins' awe-inspiring contributions to Irish independence and the sad conflict that developed between he and de Valera. Throughout the work, it is easy to see that Dwyer is obviously an admirer of Collins and pulls no punches as he evaluates de Valera, his followers, and the anti-Treatyites. He is not afraid to inject his own opinion into the text and such commentary is part of what causes Dwyer's biography to stand out from the rest of the pack. All things considered, this book is well worth your time, especially if you already have a basic knowledge about Collins' life and would like to know more. Because this book really contains no information on Collins' younger years, his early work in London, or the months prior to his death, I would not recommend it as a good Collins biography to read first. Make Dwyer's work second or third on your list.



2. T. Ryle Dwyer (who also wrote "Big Fellow, Long Fellow")has written a study of Michael Collins that revolves primarily around his leadership of the war of independence against England and his interaction with his compatriots and competitors in that war. Dwyer takes praticular interest in the rivalries and tensions among the leading characters in the conflict, especially those between Collins and De Valera and Cathal Brugh. Collins is presented as a complex and charismatic man whose objective was independence for his country, not personal power, and who could charm and cajole, or terrorize and assassinate with equal effectiveness in pursuit of that goal. It is a fascinating, intimate portrait of a man whose peersonality was central to the success of the independence fight, after 800 years of unsuccessful rebellions, and who, while he may not have single-handedly "won the war", was the one single factor without which the war would most likely NOT have been won. A fascinating read about a fascinating leader.

No comments about Old Ironsides: The Military Biography of Oliver Cromwell (Phoenix Press).

No comments about WINSTON CHURCHILL: Studies in Statesmanship.

5 comments about Bosie: The Man, The Poet, The Lover of Oscar Wilde.

1. There are a number of reasons why "Bosie" is a remarkable book--even setting aside the youth of the author. (He was 14 when he began the research and 20 when this biography was published.) First, Murray somehow gained the confidence of the surviving family members related to Lord Douglas and his circle, and he enjoyed unprecedented access to both reminiscences and documents. In addition, the author managed to secure the release of the British government files from Douglas's imprisonment--papers that, by law, were to remain sealed for another half century. And third (and foremost), he has upended the portrait of Lord Douglas written by one of the twentieth century's foremost scholars, Richard Ellmann.
   
   As readers of the now-standard biography of Oscar Wilde know, Ellmann portrayed Douglas as a manipulative yet beautiful cipher with not much in the way of wit or intelligence. Murray, in contrast, depicts Douglas as a worthy companion to Wilde (in spite of their frequent and legendary spats) and an artist in his own right. While certainly not on a par with Wilde, Douglas produced a respectable body of work and was, during his life, an appreciated (if litigious) editor. A true assessment of Douglas's worth, I think, would fall somewhere in between these two portraits, although Murray's book contains the more well-rounded assessment: while trying to revive Douglas's reputation, it does not try to whitewash his notoriety and imprudence.
   
   Indeed, most readers will share Murray's fascination with Lord Douglas's life. Even after Wilde's death and Douglas's conversion to Catholicism and renunciation of homosexuality, Douglas refused to fade away, becoming "a man who confessed that he was popularly believed to revel in litigation." And litigate he did: the dramatis personae of Douglas's court cases are a veritable who's who of the English literary scene, and the parade of libels and lawssuits culminates in a bizarre and foolish challenge to none other than Winston Churchill.
   
   Although Douglas's life is perversely intriguing, I am hard-pressed to share Murray's enthusiasm for the poetry itself--and this, of course, may be more a matter of taste than of intrinsic worth. Douglas's oeuvre divides rather neatly into three categories: nonsense verse (mostly for children), biting--and often nasty--lampoons, and staunchly traditional sonnets and lyrics. The first group is best forgotten, and the second is (naturally) dated; it is in the last group where one can find the occasional gem, the memorable stanza, the well-turned phrase. The most famous of these poems, because of its notoriety, will always (and justifiably) be "Two Loves," with its celebrated closing line: "I am the Love that dare not speak its name." Murray also rediscovers for the reader a few other notable pieces. But, in spite of the handful of contemporaries who touted the "belief that Douglas ranked as a sonneteer with Shakespeare," a few clever lines and outstanding verses does not a master make.
   
   Murray does, however, raise a valid point. As with Douglas's life so with his poetry; the man was his own worst enemy even when it came to his literary reputation. While Douglas was threatening, cajoling, and suing most of his enemies and many of his friends, he also spent three decades inveighing (rather vituperatively) against modernism. Auden, Eliot, Isherwood, Pound, Yeats, H. G. Wells, D. H. Lawrence--he regarded them all as barbarians at the gates. His taste proved to be obstinately backward-looking, and his outspokenness not only brought into question the relevance of his own verse but also helped to reveal him as a bit of a dinosaur. In many ways, his verse was a hundred years behind the times, but had he been born a century earlier, his meager output still would have been eclipsed by the poetry of Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and even the lesser Romantic poets. Nevertheless, Douglas's life and his poetry are deserving of this valuable and refreshingly lively reassessment.



2. 'Bosie' paints as rounded a picture of a character known usually for his supporting role in the Oscar Wilde circus as is possible for a subject widely viewed as having little worth beyond his time with his lover and muse. As a first book for so young a writer, Douglas Murray has done us the inestimable favour of elucidating from Lord Alfred Douglas' poetry, letters and other writings the flawed character and lesser talent of someone significantly more interesting than the two-dimensional upper-class arm candy he is frequently portrayed as. Having burnt his first flame in the dazzling candelabra of Wilde's celebrity, Bosie is so often overlooked and dismissed. Murray's thorough research and ample quotation from Bosie's life and works independent of Wilde cannot but help an enquiring reader to a better understanding of their relationship and of the bearing that Bosie's family had on Wilde's fate. This is all the more remarkable for coming from a writer so close in age, and convceivably the outlook of a yet-to-mature individual, to his subject than most other biographers. I look forward eagerly to Douglas Murray's future work.



3. Having read The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde by Joseph Pearce, I decided that it would be interesting to know more about the person who is made out to be the villain in Oscar Wilde's downfall.
   
   Bosie by Douglas Murray is a detailed book chronicling the life of Lord Alfred Douglas. It is a detailed account of a man hounded by family traits, his own desires, repentence, regrets and sad ending. It really is unfair to blame Alfred Douglas for Wilde's downfall. Wilde, if anything, was self destructive and not only destroyed himself, but everyone around him, including his wife and children, as well as Alfred Douglas. Murray is clear that upon renouncing his wasted and immoral youth Douglas became a moralist, like the father he hated, and became addicted to litigating every slight made against him. Wilde's circle of friends and admirers needed someone to blame for his demise, so they picked Lord Alfred Douglas. This book shows that like all moralists Douglas became paranoid and biased, but later in life did truly repent and apologized for all the harm he had done. He died penniless, alone and very, very sad. Like Wilde, Douglas's actions also destroyed his marriage and the life of his child. Bosie by Douglas Murray is required reading for all those who want to make up their own minds on Oscar Wilde and know more about the man who figured so prominently in Wilde's life.



4. While Douglas Murray had access to Douglas family materials heretofore unavailable, he of course did not have access to Bosie Douglas himself. But another, now deceased scholar of all things Wildean, Rupert Croft Cooke, did. Cooke, author of dozens of novels, biographies and other books, knew Lord Alfred Douglas when he, Cooke, was a youngster. As a result, his book, entitled Bosie: Lord Alfred Douglas, His Friends and Enemies, gives an intimate look at Bosie in more mellow old age. Cooke, a former newspaperman in the glory days of Fleet Street, was also a much more lively writer than Douglas Murray. His book is out of print, but can commonly be found in used book shops.



5. I was stunned by the quality of Mr. Murray's writing.

   Mr. Murray enables the reader to feel as if he knows Bosie, understands Bosie, and has been a witness to Bosie's life himself. Bosie's life as well as his relationship with Oscar is so well written that the reader understands the spirit and tone of the life and the relationship. Very well done !!!

No comments about Clementine Churchill.