The King's Mistress by Emma Campion
Sunday, August 08, 2010 Posted In actual book review , historical fiction , kings , romance , royalty Edit This 1 Comment »
Let's get one thing out of the way: This book has the title of a bodice-ripper. Yes, Alice Perrers was the king's mistress, but we could have done better than that, no?
The good news is this isn't a bodice-ripper (well, I suppose if you like bodice-rippers that is bad news, but...). In fact, most of the sexual situations -- of course there are some, because we are talking about a book about the king's mistress, after all -- are handled with a great deal of decorum, sometimes even employing the 
literary equivalent of fade-to-black.
If you have ever read Anya Seton's Katherine
(What do you mean you haven't? Get on that!) then you have encountered the character of Alice Perrers at least once. And it wasn't a pretty picture. History has not been kind to Ms. Perrers, to the point where even the sympathetic Seton, able to understand Katherine Swynford's role as mistress, still paints Perrers as the villian.
Popular history says that she was... well, let's let this site tell it: "She was an ambitious, unscrupulous, indiscreet and greedy woman of humble origins who became one of the most powerful figures at royal court of Edward III" (Source: middleages.org)
The good news is this isn't a bodice-ripper (well, I suppose if you like bodice-rippers that is bad news, but...). In fact, most of the sexual situations -- of course there are some, because we are talking about a book about the king's mistress, after all -- are handled with a great deal of decorum, sometimes even employing the literary equivalent of fade-to-black.If you have ever read Anya Seton's Katherine
(What do you mean you haven't? Get on that!) then you have encountered the character of Alice Perrers at least once. And it wasn't a pretty picture. History has not been kind to Ms. Perrers, to the point where even the sympathetic Seton, able to understand Katherine Swynford's role as mistress, still paints Perrers as the villian.Popular history says that she was... well, let's let this site tell it: "She was an ambitious, unscrupulous, indiscreet and greedy woman of humble origins who became one of the most powerful figures at royal court of Edward III" (Source: middleages.org)
Ouch.
Emma Campion doesn't see it that way. The refrain of her Alice is "What choice had I to be other than I was?" Campion states that she rejected the notion that any common woman could "choose" to become the king's mistress -- rather it is far more likely that the king chose her and that it was an honor Alice Perrers didn't dare refuse. A compelling theory, I think.
Campion also gets the chance to make Alice, about whom we actually know very little, into something of a medieval "everywoman," through whom we get to learn a little bit about common life, court life, luxury and plague.
Campion's Perrers is the daughter of a modertly well-to-do merchant and a mother who doesn't much care to compete with her pretty daughter. So she is soon wed to another well-to-do merchant named Janyn Perrers -- a step up since he is known to hob knob with royalty. Dangerous royalty, though.
Perrers' years with Janyn are happy ones, but his dangerous connections mean she is eventually placed in the household of Queen Phillipa of Hainault, wife of Edward III. (This much is true.) While there, the beautiful Alice catches the eye of the king and is given implicit permission by the barren and aged queen to lie with the king.
Perrers is very much in love, but much like her husband before her, she is messing with dangerous royalty.
This is a great novel of the court-life variety, with all the usual twists, turns, and villains lurking around every corner ready to bring our heroine down. It's also a passable, if not always believable, romance. As medieval fiction, it both packs a lot of period detail, while not quit delivering quite the medieval feel. Like many historical fiction heroines before her, Alice Perrers has a decidedly modern tone.
What few flaws it has, though, are ultimately forgivable, and this is a really readable and exciting story. Campion has done a good job of redeeming the naughty Alice. Maybe it will catch on.
1 comments:
This book sounds so very good. Sad that the giveaway is with restrictions but postage is so expensive that its understandable.
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