Review: The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau

I was kindly sent a copy of this book by the author Nancy Bilyeau and her publishers after winning a giveaway on English Historical Fiction Authors. It arrived on Thursday, and by Friday evening I had finished it - and now I'm not normally one to coin this phrase but I just couldn't put it down. Now you guys know me, I'm not normally one to break into historical fiction if I can help it as more often than not it disappoints me - the only exceptions recently have been Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" and Ken Follet's "Pillars of the Earth" and normally I steer very very clear of Tudor fiction (please see Tired Of The Tudors, and you'll understand why). "The Crown" is Bilyeau's debut novel, and I have to say, she has done a very good job. Whilst the book isn't perfect, with some inaccuracies, the fast paced storyline and exceptionally well developed characters kept me hooked from the first page right until the last. And I have to say it was a much needed break from my heavier non fiction that I've been reading lately.

First of all, the story is set within Dartford priory in Kent, which was the only house of Dominican Nuns in England., and the main character is Sister Joanna, or Joanna Stafford. Joanna is part of a much bigger family unit, related to the executed Duke of Buckingham and family ties to the Duke of Norfolk...and thus also a family connection to Henry VIII! But why do we encounter Stafford in a priory as a Novice? Quite simply, she had agreed to the dying Queen/Dowager Princess of Wales Katherine of Aragon, that she would take vows due to a huge sense of kinship, and her own huge religious faith. I found Stafford a hugely interesting character from the get go, she came across as hugely intelligent and incredibly loyal to her friends. The story is set amongst the dissolution of the monasteries in 1537, an exceptionally turbulent time for England, and after being arrested at the public burning of her cousin, Joanna finds herself embroiled in a quest for a lost Anglo-Saxon artifact. And at the same time, as the story unfolds, we get a sense of how the dissolution affected not only those who were losing their homes but normal people too - there was one part of the book where Joanna was making her way out of the priory (and I'll try not to give away any spoilers) only to be greeted with hostile looks and words. It was incredibly evocative, and I found myself feeling deeply for the characters.

Bilyeau does a fantastic job with her writing too, considering the massive cast of characters in the book and you find herself creating ties to each character for different reasons, even if they are only briefly mentioned. For instance, I found myself particularly to like John the Stable Boy - he was just awesome (and again I won't go into too much detail of why because spoilers) and even with the characters who were the bad guys as it were, I found myself finding parts of them that I liked. The characters were not inherently good or evil, they were just human. And I liked that characterisation. It helped that the narrative was detailed, conveying a believable view of Tudor England, and hugely evocative visions of the frightening Tower of London; yet not too detailed to spend pages and pages talking about what someones shoe looked like (trust me, I've read books like this - and you get bored very quickly!). The story was fast paced and exciting, and it was that as well as the well rounded characters that meant I just could not put it down. Which has to be a good thing right?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and cannot thank the author and her publishers enough for sending me a copy. I will certainly be keeping an eye out for further work by this promising author. For anyone who likes Tudor fiction then I definitely recommend picking up this book, particularly if you like historical mysteries, and as I described it to my partner last night "It was like a historical Da Vinci Code only written a lot better, much more exciting, and with better characters...and without anything to do with Da Vinci!". Sums it up nicely I think.

Hampton Court Take Two

So as I'm sure you're all aware from the amount I've been harping on and on about it on twitter and facebook for the past few weeks that yesterday I went to Hampton Court. The main reason for the visit was to see the Wild, the Beautiful & The Damned, all about sex and beauty at the Court of Charles II. But of course, Hampton Court isn't all about that and there was plenty of other stuff to see and do. So here we go, complete with lots and lots of photos!

Of course, Hampton Court is full of Tudor bits and bobs and is best known as "the home of Henry VIII", as well as the stories that haunt the entire Palace. The one that always gets me is that Hampton Court is where Henry found out that Katherine Howard was having it away with other men, thanks to Cranmer leaving him a note in the Chapel Royal. Katherine was confined to her chambers (the staff reckon this was where Mary II's chambers now are) and she ran down the gallery where all the Tudor Portraits now hang, screaming out for him. Is this a true story? Who knows, but there are plenty of stories about visitors getting creeped out in the gallery, and staff members noticing some funny goings on!

Hung along the so called Haunted Gallery are an absolute cornucopia of Tudor portraits, including the famous family portrait, the famous portrait of the young Edward VI and the well known face of Henry VII.

At the end of this gallery you have the Great Watching Chamber. When we were here last time, a dude dressed up as Henry VIII received petitions in here, and I had the honour of asking him to help my "unmarried sister" find a husband. Today there were no costumed interpreters (they were too busy in the courtyard) but the room still managed to take my breath away.

Just off from here is the Great Hall, where the royalty would have eaten their dinner/massive banquets. My photos of the Hall didn't come out very well, but here goes...

Now then, earlier on I mentioned costumed interpreters. We found these in Clock Court...

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn decided to have a full scale argument about the fact Katherine of Aragon was still making his shirts! After Anne stormed off, Henry just couldn't work out what he had done wrong and wandered off leaving George Boleyn to get help from the audience! Later on, Anne was much happier as Katherine was no longer allowed to make his shirts and she was going to made Marquess of Pembroke. I did wonder whether George took forward my suggestion of flowers!

After lunch we decided to take a walk around the Gardens because the weather was actually AMAZING and last time we were there it was raining too hard to even think about going for a walk around them. I was absolutely stunned at their beauty. And it was Charles II who introduced the central avenue of trees!

After this, we headed back inside and discovered a whole wing of the Palace that we had never seen before. I spotted a sign pointing to William III's apartments leading to an extraordinarily grand staircase. Now the staircase I had seen before but we hadn't gone up there, which is a shame because I was completely in awe seeing these wonderful rooms.

At first I thought this was a painting of a group of people in the room where we were standing. But at a closer look I realised that it was actually a photograph of people re-enacting a scene from the time of William III! This room as well (I didn't manage to get any pictures due to rubbish lighting) was decorated with guns all over the walls in incredibly beautiful patterns. After this we were taken through a series of room which made up grand bedrooms, huge rooms with gorgeous portraits hung on the wall...

And then I was surprised by this guy...

Standing there, in all regal and kingly glory was Charles I. I may have had a bit of a moment when I saw it and jumped up and down squealing with joy. Yes, I adore this man almost as much as I adore his son and I have far too many feelings for the Stuart family. They were just incredibly unlucky, and made some bad decisions but just...wow. I adore them. As you may have gathered from my 17th Century, Stuart family rambles on this blog. And after this room full of fab, there were even more rooms that just made me long to live in the palace. Oh, and I discovered the royal toilet as well!

Wait? More Charlie? I'm not sorry at all. Anyway, after finding more fabulous portraits of Charlie I we stumbled across this absolutely stunning corridor which reminded me, somewhat weirdly, of the mansion from the original Resident Evil game.

Isn't it just fantastic? And the best bit was that there was literally no one there! It seems these parts of the Palace are much less known about than the Tudor areas, which is so sad because these hallways and galleries are just absolutely stunning.

And that was that. I'm sure there are many more nooks and crannies to discover in this fantastic palace and I will say now that next time I go I will be spending more time in the Stuart and later era rooms than the Tudor parts. Just because...I mean look at them. I just adore Hampton Court, and it has a really special place in my heart - mainly for the massive Charles II portrait that hangs in Mary's apartments. But not only that, it's like something out of a fairy tale with so many hidden gems it's unreal. I doubt I will ever love anywhere as much as I love Hampton Court, the stories that just come at you from every angle. It is certainly a very magical place. Now, I will leave you with a picture of me and a wooden man getting drunk in Base Court.