Royal revelations
TRACY BORMAN rates the year’s best works exploring the medieval and Tudor periods
One of the greatest thrills of historical research is delving through original manuscripts written by an nd about the people and events in qu uestion. But so often these same manuscriptsm are relegated to the footnotes of even the most scholarly works.w Meetings with Remarkable ManuscriptsM (Allen Lane), Christopher de Hamel’s brilliant book, restores them to their rightful place in the sun. It explores 12 of the most famous manuscripts in existence and reveals what they tell us about almost a thousand years of medieval history. Sarah Gristwood’s Game of Queens:Q The Women Who Made
16th-Century1 Europe (Oneworld) is an engaging and highly readable bbook telling the interweaving stories of aan extraordinary group of women whose struggles for power left an indelible mark on 16th-centuryy Europe. This was an age when women were viewed as secondclass citizens and the notion of female rule was ‘monstrous’. Yet, as Gristwood convincingly proves, these queens played far more than just a supporting role..
Its perfect companion iss the scholarly and entertaining Four Princes s( John Murray) by John Julius Norwich. Subtitled ‘Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe’, it is an account of four men who dominated theirt era. The book provides a vivid and compelling picture of this turbulent centuryy, when Renaissance andd Reformation were the backdrop to an obsessive rivalry that would have dramatic and, at timess, disastrous consequences. Catherine Fletcher’s The Black PrinceP of Florence: The SpectacularS Life and TreacherousT World of AlessandroA de’ Medici (Bodley Head) is a brilliantly written and impeccably researched biography. The story of Alessandro’s brief and bloody ascendancy reveals the darker side of this most dazzling and cultured of cities, beset bby intrigue, violence and betrayal. Not to be missed. Another stunning biography is Nicola Tallis’s Crown of Blood: TheT Deadly Inheritance of LadyL Jane Grey (Michael O’Mara), which throws new light on the dramatic life of one of the most tragic figures in history. Lady Jane Grey was executed for treason at the age of just 17. Her only crime was her royal blood – irresistible to ambitious relatives who plotted to usurp the Tudor succession and place her on the throne. Drawing on new research, Tallis presents Jane as complex, intelligent, charismatic, radical and, ultimately, courageous.
It’sI the st story of women who left an indelibleinde mark on 16th-16 century EuropeEuro