Isabella: She-wolf of France, Queen of England
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"This is history that reads like a novel. Weir writes lucidly, with an eye for the details that bring the period to life."
-"Daily Mail"
"Alison Weir succeeds in bringing to life a murky period of history, which has been shrouded in myth and legend . . . and helps us to appreciate how a resourceful and intelligent woman managed to cope and even triumph in difficult circumstances."
-"Literary Review"
"This enthralling biography doesn't just correct the calumny of centuries, it provides a beautifully nuanced portrait of a fascinating lady and gives a vivid sense of the riotous realpolitik of medieval times."
-"Scotsman"
-"Daily Mail"
"Alison Weir succeeds in bringing to life a murky period of history, which has been shrouded in myth and legend . . . and helps us to appreciate how a resourceful and intelligent woman managed to cope and even triumph in difficult circumstances."
-"Literary Review"
"This enthralling biography doesn't just correct the calumny of centuries, it provides a beautifully nuanced portrait of a fascinating lady and gives a vivid sense of the riotous realpolitik of medieval times."
-"Scotsman"
Book Description
The first full-length biography of a much maligned - but astonishingly colourful - Queen of England.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this book, as I have enjoyed many of Ms weir's books (I can particularly recommend Eleanor of Acquitaine). She clearly is an enthusiast for her subject and closely examines and imaginatively interprets her Primary Sources. The tale itself is well worth re-telling (politics and sex it never fails!)and one is always intrigued by the overwhelming folly of Edward II and the novelty of a woman having such an effect on her environment in the Middle Ages. Given the interest of the subject and the way it is absorbingly told the only disappointment in the book lies in the author's determination to protect her subject from many of her accusers. Given the woman's predicament the reader wouldn't have blamed her for anything!
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The first three-quarters of this book are excellent: a lively , clear and absorbing account of a rather murky period of English history. Given the difficulty and scarcity of the sources, I think she has done an excellent job. However, a major part of the book is then taken up with a batty theory about Edward II escaping captivity and living as a hermit through his son's reign. This isn't the forum to point out the crushing illogicalities attached to this theory, but its espousal really lets down the overall seriousness of the book.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As usual, beautifully written and engaging, if you can wade through all the detail of the characters' marriages, living expenses, deliveries of cloth and alms giving.
However, this is the only Weir book I have found personally quite difficult to read. She lets her own prejudice against homosexuality permeate into the text. Given her criticism of the 'Victorian morality' of previous historians who've dragged Eleanor's name through the mud, her double standards were glaring in this respect. First of all, she refers to homosexuality being a capital crime in 'medieval times' which even from my own knowledge is not strictly true. From what I've read, it depends on the specific period in the middle ages, which part of Europe and what class of people are being referred to.
Secondly, Weir assumes that because Edward II was 'capable of normal sexual relations' he might have been bisexual, which overlooks the pressure he must have been under to produce an heir. Her language throughout the book characterises homosexual sex as perverse and morbid behaviour, yet she is quite happy to refer to Edmund of Kent, who kidnapped a young girl presumably to sexually abuse, as of 'great strength and stature'. Indeed, Weir is happy throughout all of her texts that I've read to not judge too harshly men who abused women, took part in orgies with multiple women or who bore illegitimate children through mistresses. And yet Edward's 'normal' sexual relations are characterised as (and this is the other part I didn't like) an affront to Isabella's 'femininity'.
Edward might have been a poor judge of character, and in the end an inept ruler and a tyrant who died by the sword he lived by, but it seems Weir has very set ideas about gender roles which I feel prejudice her against Edward from the beginning. Before the Despensers were in the ascendancy, he was in some ways a decent husband to Isabella, trusting in her far more than many kings would have done their wives, and thus in her 'femininity'. Ultimately, Edward was fatally flawed in being a terrible judge of character, easily led, while his pent up frustration from years of being relatively merciful yet facing one rebellion after another because of his poor leadership led him to morph into a ruthless and brutal tyrant almost as if to prove his masculinity, one felt. Up until that point, when he also turned against Isabella under the influence of Despenser, I had felt some empathy for him.
However, this is the only Weir book I have found personally quite difficult to read. She lets her own prejudice against homosexuality permeate into the text. Given her criticism of the 'Victorian morality' of previous historians who've dragged Eleanor's name through the mud, her double standards were glaring in this respect. First of all, she refers to homosexuality being a capital crime in 'medieval times' which even from my own knowledge is not strictly true. From what I've read, it depends on the specific period in the middle ages, which part of Europe and what class of people are being referred to.
Secondly, Weir assumes that because Edward II was 'capable of normal sexual relations' he might have been bisexual, which overlooks the pressure he must have been under to produce an heir. Her language throughout the book characterises homosexual sex as perverse and morbid behaviour, yet she is quite happy to refer to Edmund of Kent, who kidnapped a young girl presumably to sexually abuse, as of 'great strength and stature'. Indeed, Weir is happy throughout all of her texts that I've read to not judge too harshly men who abused women, took part in orgies with multiple women or who bore illegitimate children through mistresses. And yet Edward's 'normal' sexual relations are characterised as (and this is the other part I didn't like) an affront to Isabella's 'femininity'.
Edward might have been a poor judge of character, and in the end an inept ruler and a tyrant who died by the sword he lived by, but it seems Weir has very set ideas about gender roles which I feel prejudice her against Edward from the beginning. Before the Despensers were in the ascendancy, he was in some ways a decent husband to Isabella, trusting in her far more than many kings would have done their wives, and thus in her 'femininity'. Ultimately, Edward was fatally flawed in being a terrible judge of character, easily led, while his pent up frustration from years of being relatively merciful yet facing one rebellion after another because of his poor leadership led him to morph into a ruthless and brutal tyrant almost as if to prove his masculinity, one felt. Up until that point, when he also turned against Isabella under the influence of Despenser, I had felt some empathy for him.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A well-researched and thoroughly interesting read
I have read many of Ms Weir's books and applaud her extensive research as always. However, her tendency to place her own interpretation on sources jars at times. Read more
Published 8 days ago by MollyH
Isabella the Queen
Always portrayed as a "wicked woman", this biography shows a completely different lady to that which we have been led to believe. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mrs. S. A. Charlewood
She Wolf of France
Well researched to the point where one is confident of the material one is reading and also that it is reliable to quote from while remaining a singular approach to the life of... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mr. William J. I. Thompson
THE definitive book for the life of Queen Isabella of England
Queen Isabella, wife of King Edward II of England has gone down in popular historical perspective as a power hungry adulteress and possible facilitator of his (suspected)... Read more
Published 17 months ago by janien
St Isabella
I very much enjoyed this account of Isabella's life and world. In the past, Isabella has often been vilified. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Aunty Pog
Stimulating
When I read history books in my younger days, I believed almost everything that was written about, as if it were a fact. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Nigel Davies
hard work
Fascinating biography of 14th century queen of England, Isabella. The author says, in the book, "history has been unkind to Isabella. Read more
Published on 11 May 2010 by S. Mcgregor
Isabella-Heroine and Jezabel
Alison Weir's book on Queen Isabella was a fascinating read. For once, I was able to view the reign of Edward II through the eyes of a woman. And a very powerful woman indeed. Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2010 by Edward Rex
Interesting enough
Isabella, like most of Alison Weir's work, has a wealth of wonderful detail about the world which her subjects inhabited and succeeds in really bringing the period alive. Read more
Published on 28 Feb 2010 by Oracle
Isabella - the she wolf
This is a good insight into the historical era of Edward II and Isabella. Factual, not a pick up and drop book, but good if you are interested in this period of history
Published on 27 Dec 2009 by Mrs. Mn Edwards
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > Britain
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > France
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland
- Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > Historians > Weir, Alison
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
