Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Book Review: Britain's Kings and Queens: 63 Reigns in 1100 Years
by Sir George Bellew, K.C.V.O.

Well, friends, I have stooped to a new low, lower than the previous new low and probably not quite as low as what I shall attain tomorrow, but nevertheless, I am going to review a schnucking pamphlet for you today. The title of the pamphlet is Britain's Kings and Queens: 63 Reigns in 1100 Years by Sir George Bellew, K.C.V.O. It's a pamphlet because it's 32 pages long, and I snuck it into my reading as a nonfiction entry while I slog through Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in an omnibus paperback that includes two other short-but-tedious Russian novels (although they beat the regular-sized-but-tedious Russian novels). So pity me whatever affliction I have that drives me to read Dostoyevsky without an impending final, and just hear what I have to say about the short book I did read.

The edition I read, in its unknown softcover binding, was published in 1968, 15 years after Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne, but the whole thing's an explication of the line of royalty in Britain, who they were, and why Liz II was going to be a great ruler.

All right, I shouldn't go dumping royalty in the harbor with the tea, but the tone of the book is adulatory. It seeks to connect Elizabeth II with her ancestors and to shine a light on, or perhaps reflect the monarch's own light, upon the history that legitimized the monarch.

After a brief forward, the book goes into brief capsules of monarchs starting with Egbert and on through the Saxon kings, William the Conqueror, the Tudors, the Stuarts, and on and on. Each monarch gets a couple of paragraphs, more if they're remembered fondly.

They have to be brief. After all, only the even pages contain the biographies. The odd pages contain asides, photographs of Elizabeth II's coronation, royal portraits, and other sundry trivia. You've heard the expression The Crown Jewels, haven't you? Well, I know all four pieces of the regalia because they're listed on page 7. I won't mention them here because it will ruin the impact when I suddenly uncork that bit of trivia in a conversation.

So it's not a bad little treatise. For its size, it makes a handy reference guide for those who might someday write something about a monarch. Hey, Shakespeare wrote his body of plays with a similar, albeit more fleshed out, history. So if you can nab one of those two dollar copies on an auction site, it might be worth it for you.

It'll be more than worth it if you can correct me at some future date about the order of English monarchs or the dates of their reigns.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:21 PM