No comments about Genealogy Of The Early Generations Of The Coffin Family In New England (1870).

No comments about Berkshires: Past and Present.

No comments about The Unfolding History of the Berkshires.

No comments about A Genealogy & History of the Haggard Family in England & America, 1433-1899.

1 comments about Elizabeth & Leicester.

1. This book, writes Jenkins in the preface, is not a definitive biography of Lord Leicester. That much is certainly true. But is it the definitive biography of the romance of Leicester and Elizabeth? Not either. According to Jenkins, the romantic feelings of the couple were real, but Elizabeth was almost too much of a monarch, and too much the traumatized daughter of Anne Boleyn, to give into them on ANY level. Jenkins satisfyingly explains this with much attention to detail, saying what Dudley and other important courtiers gave to the Queen at New Year's for example, and then commenting on the spirit in which the gifts were given and received. And she maintains enough of a distance from her subjects, Elizabeth, and Leicester's relationship to her, to keep the mystery of their romance vivid. One feels a History book about this couple OUGHT to be this detached and reverent. One learns a great deal about the personal likes and dislikes of the great Queen (a very sensitive nose, a passion for flirting, a thirst for power) and reads the reported, but obviously public, dialogue between the couple. "You are like my dog," Elizabeth tells Robin, "whenever people see you they know I am coming." Snippets like this make it understandable that Dudley would have been a bit frustrated with his Queen and his love. On the other hand when Dudley becomes curious about the Queen's relationship to her much younger suitor, the Duc D'Alençon, he asks her if "she is a maid or a woman." The Queen laughs and replies "a maid." Jenkins concludes, to the disappointment of Historical novelists everywhere, that this 'shows he had never deflowered her'. Uhuh, or that he didn't want the entire court to know that he had. That could explain why she laughed before answering. Nonetheless, the book is a gift for its information and insight, particularly into the political world in which Leicester operated.

No comments about Genealogy of the Lord family: Which removed from Colchester, Conn. to Hanover, N.H. and then to Norwich, Vt (A Heritage classic).

3 comments about Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England.

1. I was very impressed by this book which is both very readable and scholarly. I like in particular how the History of each Anglo-Saxon kingdom was dealt with differently. I have greatly enjoyed this book and the only thing that stops me from giving it 5 stars is a personal preference. I would have rather there had been a more in depth analysis of the early history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. However, if you are interested in Anglo-Saxon history, particularly of the individual kingdoms, then this book is what you should buy



2. I was very impressed by this book which is both very readable and scholarly. I like in particular how the History of each Anglo-Saxon kingdom was dealt with differently. I have greatly enjoyed this book and the only thing that stops me from giving it 5 stars is a personal preference. I would have rather there had been a more in depth analysis of the early history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. However, if you are interested in Anglo-Saxon history, particularly of the individual kingdoms, then this book is what you should buy



3. Barbara Yorke has written a nice summation of the current state of research into the origins of six of the seven kingdoms of the Heptarchy, the classic seven-kingdom division of England (defined as the land held by the Anglo-Saxons) in the Sixth through Eighth Centuries (the seventh, Sussex, is even more poorly documented than the others, and she treats it in the sections on Kent and Wessex). There are various ways to approach the king lists for this period, and Yorke is somewhat of a minimalist, preferring not to list rulers who cannot be attested by relatively reliable sources (and for early Anglo-Saxon England, "relatively reliable" is itself a relative term), so her lists do not include some rulers mentioned in that reliable old stand-by, the "Handbook of British Chronology." She also includes useful notes on what little is known about some of the less-known groups which may have been sub-kingdoms with brief flashes of autonomy, like Lindsey, Wight, the Hwicce, Middle Angles and Maegonsaeten, and Elmet.
   
   Most interesting to me was her careful reconstruction of the political trajectory of Kent, suggesting that instead of being a single state, it may have been for much of its history divided into two kingdoms, East Kent and West Kent, the latter at times including Sussex, and that many of the kings listed. whose chronology has been so debateable, may in fact have ruled concurrently in its two halves.
   
   This is a useful addition to the library of anyone interested in Anglo-Saxon England or the "Dark Ages," and a nice guide to the period that fascinated J.R.R. Tolkien and from which he drew much of Middle Earth.

3 comments about Life at the Court of Queen Victoria.

1. A very excellent book for those interested into the aspects of Queen Victoria's court life. A definite must read. This is a rare jewel of a find.



2. This books is an absolute treasure - filled with all kinds of wonderful details such as the seating plan at Queen Victoria's Jubilee dinner, and lots of beautiful illustrations of menu cards and entertainments. Snippets from the Queen's diaries and wonderful pictures...It's a book to return to again and again. I love it!!
   
   Most Beautiful Princess



3. She was a tiny, extraordinarily plain lady, barely five feet tall (although at the end of her life she weighed 170 pounds). She was meddlesome, selfish, but amazingly down-to-earth, sturdy as the Rock of Gibraltar, the symbol of integrity and the heart of the British Empire. She crowned an era with her name. Victoria. There has never been anyone like her and she's irresistible.
   
   This beautifully illustrated journey into Victoria's court will titillate, amuse and fascinate you. Luckily for us, Victoria's Master of the Household- Lord Edward Pelham-Clinton- had kept an incredible scrapbook of the Victorian years and it is this memorabilia that illustrates this remarkable book.
   
   The running narrative for the book is Victoria's own journal, almost seventy years of astute, opinionated observations, the horse's mouth if there ever was one. You'll look over Victoria's shoulder as she writes in her diary- in her frank way- of everything. (The Queen simply could not prevaricate and she said it as she saw it). She didn't like Wagner's face, loathed poor Gladstone but adored Benjamin Disraeli, agonized over the deaths of Prince Eddy and so many others in her family, including two of her own sons. She bemoaned her own physical weaknesses (but without self-pity) as her life drew to a close.
   
   There are marvelous reproductions of beautifully engraved dinner menus, wedding announcements, even train schedules that'll take you right to the scene and make you part of it. The photographs are rare and wonderful: little Beatrice with her long fair hair, the arrogant Kaiser Wilhelm II, Dickens and Robert Browning and Oscar Wilde. There are gorgeous full color reproductions of paintings such as the wedding of Bertie Prince of Wales and of Sir Edwin Landseer sculpting the lions for Trafalgar.Victoria had a charming talent for drawing and you'll see many sketches she did of her own children as well as an interesting one of Lehzen, her old governess.
   
   "Life at the Court of Queen Victoria" is a wonderful potpourri, very, very satisfying to the Queen Victoria buff! Don't miss it!

3 comments about Warwick the Kingmaker.

1. Excellent reading which you won't want to put down. Traces the life of THE KINGMAKER as he is buffeted by the winds of fortune, endlessly rising and falling until meeting his death at Barnet Field. Will make you feel Warwick's surging energy as he carries the fortunes of the White Rose on his back. His self contemplation before the Battle of Barnet is powerful stuff.



2. As one of the two best biographies of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, this book enables one to understand the complexities. He was not the "Last of the Barons" - especially since he was an earl ;-), as Shakespeare made him out, but rather a betrayed and fair person who did not want power, but rather good government. The book brings out the trials of a man betrayed and finally defeated, but his ideals lived on. A Warwick! A Warwick!



3. A very balanced biography of this enigmatic figure. It presents his intense energy and desire for good government, but also as an extremely ambitious, proud man who allowed himself to be caught in the web of the great Spider King, Louis XI of France. I wish Kendall had not included his periodic flights of fancy (imaginary dialogue, going into the mind of a man long dead), but this is a highly readable and detailed book.

No comments about Fifty Great Migration Colonists to New England & Their Origins (Heritage Classic).