A Brief History of British Kings & Queens

Rating:
Summary: Hefty tome covering all Brit royals
Review: With individual portraits of all the kings of Britain, no one could accuse this of incompleteness, but the solemn tone and lengthy paragraphs make for a rather dry read.

Billed as from "Alfred the Great to the Present" it begins long before Alfred, with overviews of the Celts, the Roman Occupation, and the Dark Ages. Ashley's organising principle, unity versus disunity within Britain, results in some confusing arrangement of material. For example, in the first Section, Kingdom Against Kingdom: Early Britain: after "The House of Normandy 1066-1154" he backtracks several hundred years to the Kingdoms of Wales (500-1240) and Scotland (850-1165). Then the narrative resumes in 1154 with The House of Anjou.

This mine of information, though daunting at first glance, covers monarchs' appearance, character, consorts, political, social, religious and cultural history. Among 100 pages of appendices are lists of Roman emperors and governors, kings of British provinces, royal consorts, family trees. The massive bibliography, handy for historic royal watchers, precedes the index.

You would probably want something more snappy and anecdotal on your shelf as well as this. However it's worth investing in as a reference source.