Marie-Therese by Susan Nagel

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Genre - Non Fiction


When Louis XVI & Marie-Antoinette were guillotined during the French Revolution, they left two children behind in the Temple Prison. Their son, the little King Louis XVII, died soon after of neglect & abuse, but their daughter, Marie-Therese survived. She escaped from prison on her seventeenth birthday, but her experiences during the Revolution affected her for the rest of her life. She was tormented all her life by rumours that she was an imposter & that her brother had survived. After her escape, she lived in Vienna with her mother’s family, but, apart from short periods back in Paris when her uncles were restored to the throne, she was in exile from France for the rest of her life. Marie-Therese married her cousin, the Duc D’Angouleme, but had no children. She became a mother to her orphaned niece & nephew, & was known as a kind, charitable woman, but with an indefinable sadness caused by the shocking experiences of her childhood.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

Becoming Queen by Kate Williams

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Genre - Non Fiction


Queen Victoria was never meant to be Queen of England. Her cousin, Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent, was the heir to the throne. Charlotte’s tragic death in childbirth meant that George III’s many children had to scramble to marry & have legitimate children, one of whom would inherit the throne. Although George III & his Queen had fifteen children, when Charlotte died, there were no other legitimate heirs. The royal Dukes had illegally married unsuitable women or kept mistresses & had over 50 illegitimate children. There was an undignified rush to ditch their partners & find respectable princesses to marry. The Duke of Kent married Victoire of Saxe-Coburg & Victoria was born. This fascinating book tells the story of Charlotte & Victoria. Charlotte’s childhood was unhappy as her parents hated each other & used her to score points off each other. Victoria’s childhood was dominated by her mother as her father died when she was a baby. Victoire came under the influence of Sir John Conroy, who ran her household. They were determined that Victoria would not rule alone & made plans for a regency if her uncles should die before she was eighteen. Victoria was equally determined to rule without her mother or Sir John. Her childhood was one of virtual imprisonment as her mother schemed to promote her daughter to the public as the heir to the throne. An interesting picture of the formative years of a Queen.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

The fears of Henry IV by Ian Mortimer

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Genre - Non Fiction

Henry IV is one of the lesser-known English monarchs. Most lovers of English history would know that he deposed Richard II, had leprosy & was the father of Henry V, & most of that was learned from Shakespeare. Actually, he didn’t have leprosy, just a nasty skin disease. He did depose Richard II, but Richard was far from the noble monarch depicted by Shakespeare. He was a paranoid tyrant who planned to disinherit Henry when his father died & threatened the inheritance rights of all the nobility. Parliament virtually begged Henry to accept the crown, but once Henry was king, they thwarted his plans by keeping him short of money. His reign was plagued by rebellions in Wales & in the North of England, wars with France & Scotland, & the struggle with Parliament. In contrast with the glorious military achievements of his son, Henry V, his reign seems disastrous. However, Mortimer’s portrait of the king is a sympathetic one. He had little choice but to depose an unfit monarch, but then had to live with the consequences of an act that was seen to be violating God’s laws.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport

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Genre - Non Fiction


The fate of the Romanovs is well known. Many books have been written about the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II & his family – Tsaritsa Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexey & the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria & Anastasia – many of them full of wild speculation that some of the family survived the murders in 1918. Helen Rappaport’s new book focuses on the last two weeks of their lives, imprisoned in the Ipatiev House (known to their Bolshevik captors as the House of Special Purpose) in Ekaterinburg, a small town in the Urals. The book is based on extensive research among Russian sources not generally accessible to Western researchers & this is its great strength. Rappaport alternates between taking the reader inside the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Ipatiev House, as the family’s horizons are narrowed to the few rooms on the first floor, circling back through time to fill in background detail on the inept rule of the Tsar which led to the upheaval of revolution, & moving to Moscow, Petrograd & London as political forces influence the family’s fate. The final chapters are harrowing with the description of the family’s murder & the almost farcical ineptitude of the executioners. A compulsively readable book for anyone interested in the Romanovs or Russia in the 20th century.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters