Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84802 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-16
• Binding: Hardcover
• 319 pages

Sunday Times
'David Starkey tours England's monarchical horizon with gusto.'

Sunday Telegraph
'Excellent...This is Starkey at his fluent and entertaining
best.'

Allan Massie, Daily Telegraph
'Starkey is never dull...this book...is vivid, lucid and
engaging...a very enjoyable book.'

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
Having admired Mr Starkey's previous works both the written word and his televison work, I found this book very disappointing. Rather than a detailed history of our Royal Houses from the middle ages what he gave us was just a bland and non discript overview. There was no passion in his writing and he did reveal anything new about the various kings and queens that we didn't already know. There were parts of the book which I found interesting but then just pittered out and went onto the monarch's successor without fully exploring his subject.
Mr Starkey obviously loves his subject matter, it is just a pity he didn't do justice to it this time around.

Interesting Slant on British History
Being of a confirmed republican slant, this doesn't seem like the best history book for me. I did see some of the Channel 4 programme that this is based on, which was enough to whet my appetite.

However, David Starkey writes clearly and intelligently on how Britain (mostly England let's be honest) has been shaped by monarchy and in turn shaped their Kings and Queens. It moves at a fair clip and is very readable. This book runs form Henry VII to Victoria with a short chapter on the 20th century.

I think he documents the difficulty of balancing the monarch's power with the subjects and the vacillation between monarch, nobles and later parliament and the volatile mix that religion brought into this.

It's also interesting to speculate, for example, would England still be a Catholic nation if Catherine of Aragon bore a surviving son? Henry VIII was almost completely opportunistic and heedless of the consequences , and his legacy was religious schism which essentially lasted until the civil war.

Well worth a read.

A detailed glimpse on the politics and polcies that shaped our Kings and Queens.
David Starky's Monarchy - from the middle ages to modernity, is just what it says on the 'tin'... This book explains in sometimes mind boggling detail the true politics and practices that put our monarchs on the throne... someone always had an ulterior motive...(usually power or money or religion) nothing new there!! for those of you that thought that our Royals always inherited the throne by birthright think again!!. This book also has lots of detail about the life and times of England... very interesting and well worth reading.