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Amazon.co.uk Review
Novelists are all too conscious of the pitfalls of the second book in a trilogy--traditionally, the weakest before the rallying of the final volume. Penman deals with this problem with panache. We knew from her earlier work the scalpel-like precision of her character building, but the emotional lives of Henry and the troubled Eleanor are powerfully realised. As in the first book of the sequence, When Christ and his Saints Slept, conflict is ever the driving force. Henry and Eleanor's remarkable partnership was proving highly fecund, both politically (as Henry created a new image of medieval kingship), and physically, as Eleanor gave birth to five sons and three daughters, laying to rest her reputation as a barren queen and founding a dynasty that was to last three centuries. But auguries of trouble ahead were apparent: war with the Welsh; acrimonious battles with Eleanor's first husband, the French King. But the truly destabilising factor was Henry's decision to appoint his friend and confidant Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry had assumed that the worldly, ambitious Becket would be the perfect ally, and was devastated when the new archbishop cast off his own worldly past as he embraced his role as Defender of the Faith, swapping dissolution for piety.
As Penman vividly demonstrates, Henry saw Becket's action as a humiliating betrayal. One of the most famous murders in history ensued, with further conflict in the kingdom caused by a liaison with the daughter of a baron. In bedding Rosamund Clifford, Henry put his marriage and even his kingship at risk. As always Penman wears her research lightly: the personal drama is the engine of her narrative, with each fresh scandal and intrigue delivered with a beguiling combination of relish and restraint. She is assured in her detailing of the political and ecclesiastical clashes of the court, but it is Henry II who strides her novel like a colossus--just as he did the kingdom he ruled. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
TIME AND CHANCE, the second part of the trilogy about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, opens during the glory years of their reign.
While Henry redefined the role of medieval kingship, Eleanor gave birth to their children, founding a dynasty that would endure for 300 years. But even in these happy times, shadows were lurking. Battles on two borders. The disastrous appointment of Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. And when Henry took lovely young Rosumund Clifford into his bed, little did he realise that in making an enemy of his proud, passionate queen he was making the gravest mistake of all ...
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Customer Reviews
I highly recommend this book, but also do read its predecessor, When Christ and the Saints Slept, this will illuminate the story even more.
Thus, in TIME AND CHANCE, is author Sharon Kay Penman's version of the angry words that compelled four of Henry II's knights to commit one of the most famous assassinations in Western European history, that of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The second in an ostensible series of three works of historical fiction - the last has yet to appear - about the first Plantagenet King of England and his consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine, this volume spans the period 1156 - 1171. Woven into the plot are the four pivotal events (for historians, novelists and screenwriters, at least) of that period: Henry's subjugation of the Welsh king, Owain Gwynedd, Henry's taking of Rosamund Clifford as his mistress, Henry's disastrous relationship with Becket, and the crowning of Henry's oldest son, Young Henry, as Ol' Dad's heir apparent.
Judging from Penman's other novels, she has a fascination with medieval Wales. Here, she fleshes out much of the Owain Gwynedd subplot through a completely fictional character, Ranulf Fitz Roy, carried over from the first book in the series, WHEN CHRIST AND HIS SAINTS SLEPT, which dealt with that period of English civil war before Henry II's accession when his mother Maude, the daughter of Henry I, fought to dethrone the then English monarch, Stephen. As Sharon would have it, Ranulf was an illegitimate son of Henry I by a Welsh mistress, and therefore half-brother to Maude and half-uncle to Henry II. In any case, I accepted his presence in the first book because the main player in the series, Henry II, had yet to take center stage. Now, with the fully developed characters of Henry II, Eleanor and Becket, Ranulf's presence doesn't do much more than pad the novel to an unnecessary length and, for that reason, I'm reluctantly knocking off a star. Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor are, for me, the two most interesting individuals in history, and their dysfunctional family life provides more than enough entertainment without the introduction of a make-believe ringer.
For English history buffs, TIME AND CHANCE provides a gripping perspective on the calamitous collision between the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury, especially as the dialogues that occurred between the two men in the book, as well as the circumstances of Becket's murder, are, according to Penman, transcribed from numerous eyewitness accounts.
I've been looking forward to the release of the third book in the trilogy for quite some time, and I wish Penman would get on with it.
I did like the fact that the author continued with the Welsh side of the story, as so many authors of English history paint the Welsh as pagen barbarians.
I am anxiously awaiting the publishing of the last in this series, The Devil's Brood, which I suspect will be the most fascinating, as it covers the period when the animosity between Henry and Eleanor heats up and the power plays for her sons. I read on the author's website that she's had health issues that have slowed down completion of the book, hopefully out in 2008.
The first instalment, the monumental When Christ and His Saints Slept (Eleanor of... Read more
epic... Read more
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