Tag: england

K. M. Ashman, In Shadows of Kings (Silverback Books 2014)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20810891-in-shadows-of-kings?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=e3BDAcc9v5&rank=2

Rhodri ap Gruffydd, nicknamed Tarian (Shield of the Poor), has summoned his knights to a secret banquet. King Henry of England is dead, Edward Longshanks yet in the Holy Land, but more battles with the Welsh are in store on his return. Tarian and his knights are doubting the leadership of Prince Llewelyn.
At Brycheniog Abbey, Abbot Williams, the man who murdered Garyn’s parents, discusses the transport of the True Cross to Rome. Garyn ap Thomas, the blacksmith’s son, joins his wife Elspeth for dinner, exhausted from rethatching the roof. His brother Geraint, missing the camaraderie of the Crusades, is about to leave on a journey aboard a ship commissioned by Tarian.
Owen Cadwallader comes to the manor of the deceased Sir Robert Cadwallader to forge a marriage between Sir Gerald of Essex and the elder daughter, Suzette.
Father Williams and the newly betrothed Sir Gerald seem to have it in for Garyn’s family and livelihood, and he has to flee. He joins the Blaidd (Wolves) mercenaries to fight brigands. The rescue of a kidnapped girl brings new information about the True Cross, leading Garyn to realise that he had been double crossed.
Tarian’s flotilla disembark on a new world and battle with the natives, aided by the Mandan, a people who speak their language. They’ve come seeking the descendant of Madoc, who travelled three times to the New World.
The characters are lively, the dialogue credible and the plot exciting, alternating interestingly between Wales and the new World. The writing is just archaic enough to pass, but without any embellishments. This is Book 2 in the Medieval Series, and Book 1’s backstory of the retrieval of the True Cross and the persecution of Garyn’s parents is handled skilfully. It keeps the promise of the ‘direction you will not expect’ promised in the Foreword.
This review was originally written for Historical Novels Review.

John Mullen, The Show Must Go On (Routledge 2016)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29442612-the-show-must-go-on-popular-song-in-britain-during-the-first-world-war?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=E2KG6SiRij&rank=1

A Marxist history of Music Hall during the war years, this work was originally published in French in 2012. Mullen is a Marxist historian and Professor of History at Rouen University. He has extensively written academically on popular culture in the 20th century and politically on Islamophobia and anti-capitalism.

Building on extensive research of trade press of the period and an enormous corpus of songs, Mullen studies Music Hall ‘from below’. There is no showbiz tittle-tattle in this study, but there are copious relevant facts illustrating what the songs say about the lives and fantasies of their audience.

Mullen critiques scholars who see Music Hall either as a ‘culture of consolation’ or as a commercial project to inculcate conservative ideas. Nor should it be understood as an unmediated vox populi, but rather as an ‘expression of working-class experience’.

Beginning with an analysis of the British entertainment industry, its economy and industrial relations, he shows that musicians and staff were part of Britain’s trade union movement, and while generally accepting the need to win the war, did not shy from strike action.

Two dynamics exerted pressure on the industry, the economic drive toward concentration of capital in the search for profits and the ideological drive to build respectability.

The rise of the revue format was not a tragic sign of the decline of the good old days, as some scholars have it, but rather a centralisation enabling economies of scale.

The drive to reassure moralistic organisations and licensing boards meant that ‘vulgarity’ was discouraged, and singers were limited to suggestive gestures and double entendres (e.g., ‘She’d Never Had Her Ticket Punched Before’).

A turn at the Music Hall, where a sing-along chorus was de rigueur, had to reach the widest audience possible, and quickly, before the next act came on. Interestingly, the format of narrative verses plus sing-along chorus allowed the presentation of conflicting ‘voices’ in the same song, the verses mocking the character and the chorus empathising with him. The overall tone was one of ‘working-class neighbourliness’.

There is a valuable chapter on men and women as reflected in song. Women begin to be praised for their wartime work (‘We Thank You, Women of England’, 1917) rather than for their patiently waiting at home (‘Women Who Wait’, Ernest Pike 1914). The occasional anti-women’s rights song was more likely to poke fun at the caricature suffragette rather than propound against women’s votes per se.

The study’s most important conclusion is the challenge to the popular myth of universal working-class jingoism. Support for the British Empire is given, but the emphasis is not pro-war but rather homesickness of soldiers or supporting love ones left at home. They sang more about ‘Mother’ than about ‘Empire’. ‘The majority of songs…were not about the war, and [those that were focused] instead on ‘comic and tragic aspects of the war experience.’ Soldiers’ songs demonstrated black humour in the face of horror and not ‘Tommy’s undaunted spirit’. ‘The general tone is one of dissent’ but almost never of mutiny.

This book is a must for musicologists and WWI buffs but also a fascinating read for any lover of history. Though links are provided for many of the songs to listen to online, there are unfortunately no photographs. It is to be hoped that future printings will consider illustration.

Tracey Warr, Conquest: Daughter of the Last King (Impress Books 2016)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31617066-conquest?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=kT5XiEq1x4&rank=1

Post-Conquest, Norman nobles are scrambling to wed the orphaned princesses of their vanquished Scottish and Welsh foes.
Nest verch Rhys, daughter of the last Dinefwr king Rhys ap Tewdwr, has been placed with Lady Sybil and her husband Robert FitzHamond, in Cardiff Castle. FitzHamond is tasked by the king with subduing the Welsh. Nest nurses hopes of rescuing the Royal Deheubarth line, and wants to realise her betrothal to her noble cousin Owain ap Cadwgan. But she realises she would miss Lady Sybil and her little daughters and the maid Amelina.
Meanwhile, there is a scramble for the English throne, and personal fortunes rest on backing the winning side. FitzHamond is for King Rufus. Duke Robert and other Norman lords depart on crusade. Owain comes to Cardiff dressed as a tinker and slips a whisper to Nest that he will come for her, but on the night he doesn’t show.
Listening around corners, Nest discovers a plot against the king involving Sybil’s brother Arnulf.
King Rufus denies marriage petitions from Arnulf and from Owain. When King Rufus dies, his brother Henry takes the throne, and alliances shift. Those who backed the new man are in favour. Some barons believe the older brother Duke Robert was the legitimate heir. Duke Robert thinks so, too, and challenges his brother in battle.
The new king marries the Scottish Princess Matilda, though Nest had entertained thoughts that he might choose her.
The story is told mainly through Nest’s point of view, but also through the knight Haith and his sister, nun Benedicta, in coded letters containing all the royal gossip.
Book 1 in the Conquest series, this novel is an enjoyable look at the daily lives of nobility during a period of great social change. The story illustrates how, unlike England, the Norman conquest of Wales was slow, though equally painful. Nest’s ‘desire to be resistantly Welsh is… necessarily compromised and hedged about by love’.

Nest’s brother Gruffydd ap Rhys was my 20th great grandfather.