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The Capetian Kings are dead and John II “The Good”, who is anything but good in any sense of the word, is on the throne. As his arrogance, incompetence and vanity drive France from one catastrophic failure to another, the English take the ascendancy in the hundred years war and it seems that the church is the only barrier between the Kingdom of France and English rule. How will France survive?
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Author Webiste: https://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk/
British Solider and Spy James Burke has returned from South America with his faithful Sergeant William Brown to help General Wellesley fight Napoleon’s armies in French occupied Spain. His mission is to help locate and organise Spanish guerrilla forces and gather intelligence on the size and location of the French armies. But the line between outlaw and guerrilla is a fine one, the French are far more organised than expect, and when he is forced to send his Sergeant back to help with the fighting at the battle of Talavera it will take the help of an old friend to save the British armies from disaster.
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Phillip the Long is dead, and his youngest brother is now Charles IV, King of France, enjoying a period of stability his unlucky older brother never had. England, however, is close to open rebellion. When Roger Mortimer escapes the Tower of London and flees to France, his lover, Isabella, Queen of England, follows him in the hopes of raising an army and overthrowing her weak husband Edward II. How many Kings are going to survive this book?
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Louis X is dead of poisoning after hardly more than a year of being King, leaving the question of succession in turmoil – split between a daughter accused of being a bastard and the widow Queen’s unborn child. Now the race is on to determine who will be regent until the Queen’s child reaches majority. Yet why settle for regent when it is but one step from being King?
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Druon M, The Strangled Queen, Historical Fiction (Harper: 2013), tr. Humphrey Hare
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Philip the Fair is dead, and his feeble, sadistic son Louis X is King of France. Even though France is in the grip of Famine, and divided between warring factions at court, Louis is obsessed with the state of his marriage. His first wife cuckolded him and has been confined to a monastery, he cannot have the marriage annulled as there is no Pope, and he lacks the political and financial power to install a new Pope. Will victory for this weak-minded King be the beginning of the end for France?
I have spoken elsewhere of how Druon is both a fabulous historian and writer, and this book reads just as well as the first in the Accursed Kings series. It does, however, face a particular problem: the reader already knows the outcome. You do not need to know anything of the history of France to be aware that if a King wants rid of one wife to replace with another, he is going to get his way. Plus, there is the title of the book.
Druon’s clever solution is to tell you straight away. He is totally up front about how things are going to work out for Louis (in this regard), and the long-term consequences for France. This lets him concentrate on the ancillaries, the nobles and clergymen and bankers, fighting one another to be the one to realise or defy the Kings wishes, and whether or not they will survive them. It makes for compelling reading – almost like wondering who will get off the Titanic. This is a time when life is precarious and power fleeting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns on the way to the strangling of the Queen.
Rating: *****
