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Title: The Royal Bastards of Medieval England by Chris Given-Wilson, Alice Curteis, Wilson Chris Given ISBN: 0-415-02826-4 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: September, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: nice work on the royal kiddos who lacked the name and power
Comment: Simply broken down to the Kings in order this book covers just what it says: children born of royal blood, but not of royal name. Part I starts with a brief discussion of the royals of England in the Middle ages, and the conditions that affected them, such as laws governing marriage and divorce. Part II covers the Kings from Henry I's to King John. Part III covers the late medieval England of the Plantagenets. The Postscript work touches on the Tudors.

Many of the children born on the wrong side of the blanket, went on to play large roles in the forming of England's royal families. It is rich in details, more than just a thumbnails of these royal embarrassments, that is a wealth for writers to mine.

One slim spot, I had wished for more information on John Botetourt, a mere falconer who rose be to a powerful Baron under Edward the Longshanks. For centuries debate has battled over whether Longshanks was his sire. Given-Wilson and Curteis give him two pages, but for such an interesting character in Longshanks life, it given but two sketchy pages.

A must quick reference to writers of this period.

Rating: 4
Summary: Fascinating and intriguing
Comment: Royal promiscuity sometimes has political consequences, as demonstrated in 1483 when Richard, Duke of Gloucester and brother of the recently deceased Edward IV, had his royal nephews declared illegitimate. He acceded as Richard III, the "princes in the Tower" were never seen again, and the Plantagenet royal line ended two years later at Bosworth Field. Ironically, the victor there, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, was descended on one side from a legitimized bastard of one of Edward III's sons and on the other from a Welsh clerk who had secretly married a former queen of England. It might be said that the crowning of Henry VII marked the low point of the concept of legitimacy in determining the succession to the throne of England. Medieval monarchs married not for love, of course, but for political reasons -- to acquire territory or to cement alliances. Personal compatibility and mutual consent were irrelevant (with occasional exceptions, such as Edward IV's secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, which outraged his advisors). The Church preached the indissolubility of the marriage bond but that didn't carry much weight with the aristocracy and the monarch. So it's not surprising that kings had mistresses. Sometimes these were casual liasons, sometimes the relationship spanned many years and produced multiple offspring. Henry I had twenty illegitimate children whom he acknowledged, and three or four others have good claims. Adding in the unknowns who didn't survive early infancy, a total of forty bastards by this one king is not impossible. (Even Charles II only managed sixteen.) The exceptions also are surprising: William the Conqueror, himself a bastard, was singled out by the chroniclers for the purity of his personal life. The authors examine in great detail the sort of women who became royal mistresses between the Conquest and Bosworth, what sort of future awaited their offspring, and why some of those children went to the headsman's block for rebellion while others had distinguished military and diplomatic careers and founded noble lines of their own. Detailed lineages are supplied and discussed at length, which makes this a very useful source in an area not often covered in sufficient detail, as well as an intriguing study in its own right.