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The ship strained at its moorings, like a horse eager to run. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
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It's 1135, and England's monarch, Henry I, dies. His designated heir is his daughter Matilda, the widow of the German Emperor, who's now married to Count Geoffrey of Anjou. However, many of England's nobles are unwilling to kneel to a woman, and so they persuade Matilda's cousin Stephen, the son of Henry I's sister Adela, to claim the throne. Thus follows a nineteen-year civil war as Matilda contests for the crown, first for herself and then for her first-born son by Geoffrey, Henry. King Stephen fights for himself, and for the right of his son, Eustace, to inherit.
If this book had been pure fiction, the author could have been faulted for dragging it out over 738 paper-backed pages as the fortunes of war see-saw back and forth, and England's powerful land barons change from one side to the other, and back again. But the major events of the conflict are all based on historical fact, and one wonders why JC and his saints would sleep so long while the countryside and its inhabitants were caught between opposing sides and brutalized. Were they on illegal substances, you think?
During the first five-hundred or so pages, before young Henry is of sufficient age to take serious part in the bloodletting , the author displays fancy footwork in providing a protagonist for the reader to like. After all, Stephen makes an odd villain. He's an honorable man, loving father and husband, and a courageous soldier - but a poor king. Matilda, on the other hand, is brave, steadfast, and a loving mother, but infuriatingly tactless and totally inept at winning and keeping the loyalty of her potential English subjects. So, Penman creates the easy-going character of Ranulf, a fictional illegitimate son of Henry I and a loyal supporter of his half-sister in the wearisome struggle. As Ranulf follows Matilda from slaughter to slaughter and crisis to crisis, he has the time to carry on an adulterous affair with an old flame, and then find his own true love in the mountain fastness of Wales. (Come to think of it, maybe this is too much a chick-book!) In any case, at the risk of unnecessarily extending the storyline, he makes for an engaging character.
The last two-hundred pages pick up as the young Henry meets Eleanor of Aquitaine, who's then married to King Louis of France. It's during this last part of an excellent book that we see the man and monarch that Henry is to become, and which makes me look forward to the next volume in the trilogy, TIME AND CHANCE, especially since, through my knowledge of English history, I know what's going to happen. Count Geoffrey otherwise gives us a clue when he advises his eldest son:
"The best marriages are those based upon detached goodwill or benign indifference. But unfortunately for you, the one emotion you will never feel for Eleanor of Aquitaine is indifference." How true.
For anyone interested in the genesis of the Plantagenet royal dynasty of England, this well-researched book is a pure delight.
When King Henry I died in 1135, Stephen - grandson of William the Conqueror - grabbed the throne from Henry's daughter Matilda leading to an extended period of civil war. It was a period of lawlessness descended upon the countryside, endangering the safety of peasant and noble alike. This lasted almost twenty years ending only with the death of Stephen and the rise of Henry II to the throne. It was a time when Christ and his saints were asleep, truly a dark time in England's history.
After having read the scholarly study on King Stephen I read Penman's novel. If it comes to Penman I am rather biased as I believe she is a wonderful, extremely sensitive author with a unique talent. And this very novel is no exception. She re-creates as usual a long gone time, it is colorful, and it is lively, amazing and sad: the terrible reality what lawlessness means hits home. Civil war is a horror.
The central figures - the Empress Mathilda and King Stephen - are well described and neither is cast in just one role: either evil or good. Both have their good points and their flaws. Their lives were intertwined; from friends to foes their way could be described. And in the end neither won: Stephen rules as king, a crown Mathilda would never wear, but in the end Mathilda's son - Henry II - succeeded.
Penman's novels are a mere pleasure to read. Do not miss it!!!
So I was disappointed to learn that Matilda had never really reigned. On his death her father, Henry I, who had lost his only legitimate son in the wreck of the White Ship, left the crown to her. But her cousin Stephen seized the throne, beginning a civil war of nearly twenty years (1135-1154), a period of misrule, bloodshed and suffering when, as the Peterborough Chronicle put it, 'Christ and all his saints slept.'
Sharon Kay Penman follows the main protagonists - Matilda herself (here called Maude, the vernacular version of her name, because Stephen was also married to a Matilda), her estranged husband Geoffrey of Anjou, Stephen and his wife Matilda of Boulogne - untangling the complex intrigues of the time and providing glimpses of the effects of the war on the unfortunate peasants and townspeople who were caught up in the conflict. She also follows the fortunes of a fictional character, Ranulf, illegitimate son of Henry I, who decides to support his half-sister Maude, but at great personal cost.
Ranulf's adventures provide a link between the first two thirds of the book - the conflict between Maude and Stephen - and the last third, when the next generation reignites the war all over again. Stephen wants to crown his son Eustace king in his lifetime, while Maude and Geoffrey are determined that their son Henry, already Duke of Normandy, will win the crown of England. Although this book and its sequels, Time and Chance and Devil's Brood, are sometimes called the 'Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy', Eleanor herself doesn't make an appearance until 700 pages in. When she does, sparks immediately fly between her and Henry, despite the fact that she is still - unhappily - married to the King of France.
For me personally, this was an excellent introduction to a period of English history I didn't know much about and a chance to meet two fascinating twelfth-century women, the Empress Maude and Eleanor of Aquitaine. There was just one thing about the book which disappointed me - we don't get to meet Henry I, whose actions are the catalyst for much of the plot. I wanted to know more about him and his relationship with Maude/Matilda.
There are some books which leave you feeling glad that you read them, sorry you've come to the end and exhilarated by the whole experience. This is one of them.
terrible turmoil that England endured during the 12th century when the
crown was up for grabs and... Read more
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