Queen Isabella: Treachery, adultery, and murder in medieval England

by Alison Weir

Ebook, 2005

Library's rating

½

Library's review

I knew nothing about Queen Isabella of England or this era of English history (early 14th century) so I really feel like I learned something, in addition to being an interesting tale of an English queen (daughter of a French king) who wound up leading an invading force to depose her husband King
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Edward II and put her son on the throne, only to suffer her own deposition of sorts when her son (Edward III) returned the favor a few years later. Weir's stated aim was to rehabilitate Isabella's reputation as a bloodthirsty "She-Wolf of France", and as far as I could tell she succeeded. As always with books set in this era and earlier, there is too much mundane listing of household goods and purchases, land grants, day-to-day movements that are not momentous etc., presumably because these are the only things that are solidly documented in what remains of the written record, but it's still fairly absorbing for all that. I thought Weir provided adequate backup for her claims, which apparently run counter to the conventional historical view of Isabella (generally written by men, of course).
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Description

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Alison Weir's Mary Boleyn. In this vibrant biography, acclaimed author Alison Weir reexamines the life of Isabella of England, one of historyâ??s most notorious and charismatic queens. Isabella arrived in London in 1308, the spirited twelve-year-old daughter of King Philip IV of France. Her marriage to the heir to Englandâ??s throne was designed to heal old political wounds between the two countries, and in the years that followed she became an important figure, a determined and clever woman whose influence would come to last centuries. Many myths and legends have been woven around Isabellaâ??s story, but in this first full biography in more than 150 years, Alison Weir gives a groundbreaking new per… (more)

Language

Original publication date

2005 (copyright)
2006-12-26
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