Title: Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's CrownAuthor: Maureen Waller
First Published: 2002
No. of Pages: 402
Synopsis (from B&N): "British historian Waller reveals how Mary and Anne slipped the English throne out from under their father James II and delivered it to William of Orange while their infant brother, the rightful heir, was still alive, thus replacing the natural order of succession with an elective monarchy."
Fiction or Nonfiction: Nonfiction
Comments and Critique: I want to find something good in every book I read, but this one put that intention to the test. I love history and, purely by coincidence, this one continues the story told in Royal Charles, which I just finished. But I found this book very frustrating.
The book begins with separate chapters for each of the major persons involved; since their stories overlap, this results in the author repeating information unnecessarily. Next, there is a great too much supposition as to what a person "must have felt" or what "may have been" without reference to historical documents to back up the opinions. There are some quotes from documents but they are limited to mostly unimportant sections of letters full of terrible spelling (the royal daughters did not receive any education to speak of) and the reader has to struggle to understand what was meant.
And then there is the problem of names. The nobility had surnames but then also had their titles; for instance, one of the King's mistresses was Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth. It was common to refer to them by their title; Louise was generally referred to as "Portsmouth." Here, the author continually alternates how she refers to an individual, causing the reader to have to stop and figure out who she's talking about. This is very disruptive and could easily have been avoided by footnotes explaining that "so-and-so will hereafter be referred to as X."
The story itself reads like a soap opera, full of intrigue, deception, and greed. The current royal family have nothing on their ancestors. But while I found the story highly interesting, this book simply has too many problems. My conclusion is that it is just average and I'll be looking at other authors for books in the future.
Challenges: 999 ("Biographies"); Support Your Local Library
1 comments:
I think a lot of history books about British Royalty tend to alternate between various titles when referring to one person! That's why family trees in those books are so important. It's too bad there were other points in this book that made it a less than satisfying read.
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