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tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
4.0
‘Something must always die.’
Katherine of Valois was born in 1401, the youngest daughter of King Charles VI of France (Charles the Mad) and his wife Isabeau. Katherine was married to King Henry V of England, and then to Owen Tudor. From these two unions descended the royal houses of Lancaster (King Henry VI) and Tudor (King Henry VII).
The novel opens in France where Katherine has been brought up more by her sister Isabella (the widow of King Richard II) to detest the usurping Lancastrian king (Henry IV) and to dread the prospect of marriage to his son. A shift of scene takes us to Wales, and the home of Owen Glyn Dwr (the last Welshman to be styled Prince of Wales). His godson, Owen Tudor, defies him to join Henry V’s invasion of France.
After the Battle of Agincourt and as part of the Treaty of Troyes, Katherine is married to Henry V in 1420.
This is really the beginning of Katherine’s story: her love for Henry until his untimely death (in 1422) is followed by her love for Owen Tudor. The history looms over this story: the annexation of Wales and the invasion of France provide a rich and at times complicated setting for what can be read as essentially romance in an historical setting. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. I found it took me a few chapters to start to enjoy this novel: while the Valois detail is necessary scene setting, it was far less familiar to me than the history of Owain Glyn Dwr and Henry V.
This novel was first published in 1978, and was republished in 2008. If you are interested in this period of history, or in well-written romance in an historical setting, and you enjoy comparatively complicated stories, you may well enjoy this novel.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Katherine of Valois was born in 1401, the youngest daughter of King Charles VI of France (Charles the Mad) and his wife Isabeau. Katherine was married to King Henry V of England, and then to Owen Tudor. From these two unions descended the royal houses of Lancaster (King Henry VI) and Tudor (King Henry VII).
The novel opens in France where Katherine has been brought up more by her sister Isabella (the widow of King Richard II) to detest the usurping Lancastrian king (Henry IV) and to dread the prospect of marriage to his son. A shift of scene takes us to Wales, and the home of Owen Glyn Dwr (the last Welshman to be styled Prince of Wales). His godson, Owen Tudor, defies him to join Henry V’s invasion of France.
After the Battle of Agincourt and as part of the Treaty of Troyes, Katherine is married to Henry V in 1420.
This is really the beginning of Katherine’s story: her love for Henry until his untimely death (in 1422) is followed by her love for Owen Tudor. The history looms over this story: the annexation of Wales and the invasion of France provide a rich and at times complicated setting for what can be read as essentially romance in an historical setting. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. I found it took me a few chapters to start to enjoy this novel: while the Valois detail is necessary scene setting, it was far less familiar to me than the history of Owain Glyn Dwr and Henry V.
This novel was first published in 1978, and was republished in 2008. If you are interested in this period of history, or in well-written romance in an historical setting, and you enjoy comparatively complicated stories, you may well enjoy this novel.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
shroudofthesea's review against another edition
2.0
i feel like i simultaneously want to give this 4 stars for extremely specific passages, usually those that establish setting or highlight historical parallels, 3 stars for most of the scene-setting, and 2 stars for every single time a character appeared, with maybe even 1 star for certain characters such as eleanor cobham, but i'm going to leave this at 2 because MAN are there some bad takes in here. pretty much all of the depictions of female characters are dripping with misogyny, henry v is woobified and apologized-for to the end, most of the other male characters are one-note villains, save for owen tudor, who we're supposed to like despite the fact that he does something objectively and absolutely reprehensible to catherine, also why are there multiple books about catherine of valois where henry vi is abused by one of his many guardians? i don't regret reading it per se, because it IS frequently entertaining, and the level of attention to detail in some sections is quite beautiful, especially compared to other novels i've read in this genre, but large parts of it are honestly a slog.
katmarhan's review against another edition
3.0
Like many historical fiction novels of 15th century France and England, there are too many names, titles, battles, cities, and factions to keep straight. Nonetheless, this tale of Katharine Valois of France, Henry V of England, and Owen "Tudor" of Wales is well-written and intriguing. At its heart, it is a story of love and loyalty.
lisa_setepenre's review against another edition
1.0
Catherine de Valois grows up in the shadow of civil war and her father’s madness. Traumatised by the loss of her sister and the fierce neglect shown by her mother, Isabeau of Bavaria, Catherine finally finds security and love in her marriage to Henry V of England. However, when he dies just two years later, Catherine – at just twenty-one years old – finds herself facing a long, aimless future on her own. But the Welshman, Owen Tudor, gives her new hope and love.
Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s Crown in Candlelight, published in 1978, might be the best novel I’ve read thus far about Catherine de Valois. Jarman’s characterisation of Catherine and her avoidance of some tropes associated with Catherine are to be celebrated. However, that’s not to say that this is a good novel – my standards for Catherine-centric novels are just very, very, very low.
To begin with the strengths: Catherine’s characterisation is very well done. Her suffering is overstated and not necessarily accurate (for instance, new research on Isabeau of Bavaria suggests she wasn’t a neglectful mother, and far from being prevented from seeing her son, Catherine was actually residing in Henry VI’s household until he was around eight), but Jarman has clearly thought about how the trauma of her childhood and grief and shock at losing a beloved spouse shortly after marriage would impact a person and it shows. This Catherine might not please those looking for a Spunky Historical Heroine™ or a “Strong Female Character” – you know, the stunningly beautiful woman who spouts off witty one-liners, is deeply political aware, intelligent, espouses modern values and a badass to boot – but she feels realistic and rooted in her context as a 15th century medieval noblewoman. She is quiet and passive, though strong in other ways.
Her relationship with Henry V is also done well. So often historical fiction depicts Catherine and Henry as either incredibly awful and rape-y or as a relationship that’s fundamentally flawed – they don’t spend enough time together, they have communication issues etc. – which only seems to happen to be set up Owen Tudor as Catherine’s one true love and Henry either as the guy who’s not quite right for her or yet another trauma for her to suffer through before being rewarded with True Love. Jarman, instead, depicts Catherine and Henry’s marriage as loving and affectionate, and though Catherine describes them differently – Henry is Catherine’s “harbour”, Owen her “storm” – one is not seen as superior to the other.
Additionally, Jarman avoids some of the common tropes associated with Catherine and Henry that deeply annoy me. There’s no scene where Catherine is told she must give birth to the future Henry VI anywhere but Windsor because of the (ahistorical) prophecy about “Henry of Monmouth will gain all, Henry of Windsor will lose all” which she then ignores out of malice or stupidity and thus, Catherine de Valois is the only person to blame for Henry VI being a terrible king and severely mentally ill, the failure of the English conquest of France, the Wars of the Roses and its countless deaths. Henry V’s fatal illness, though oddly figured here as dysentery he keeps at bay with severe fasting and Owen Tudor’s music skills for seven years, is at least not figured as divine punishment but chronic illness.
The characterisation of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is interesting too – he’s a peripheral character but unlike other novels I’ve read that feature him, he’s not characterised as an outrageously simplistic evil villain.
The rest of the novel, though – yikes.
Jarman has a predilection for the grotesque, both in description and in story. Although fairly non-graphic in terms of sex and violence, this is a narrative that sets out to tell the most lurid version of events as possible. Thus, we have Isabeau of Bavaria shouting insults at Charles VI of France during one of his fits of madness before dumping a flask of wine over him while Louis, Duke of Orleans smiles his “depraved maiden’s smile” before a briefly-recovered Charles VI presents Isabeau with the dead, naked body of her lover during dinner. And this is just within the first pages.
The structure of the book is a little disjointed. Divided into sections, we spend a fair amount of time covering the state of France during Catherine’s childhood in 1405-1410 before we jump to Wales in 1414 and focus on a Welsh prophetess stealing fox cubs for magic and sleeping with Owen Tudor before he leaves to join Henry V’s French campaign. Then we’re with Henry departing England for France, at the siege of Harfleur and then marching to Agincourt before we’re back with Catherine, in 1420, about to marry Henry V. From there on, Jarman does largely focus on Catherine’s story but there are still frequent time-jumps and the epilogue returns us to the Welsh prophetess telling us how everyone’s going to get their comeuppance, foretelling the Wars of the Roses and how Wales is going to rule England because Owen Tudor is awesome.
I’m so very tired of historical fiction set in medieval Wales depicting as a mystical, magical woo-woo land where magic is real and they make very accurate and awesome prophecies about future events. It just feels fetishistic and appropriative – instead of celebrating medieval Wales for what it was, historical fiction writers seem to make it a New Age Celtic paradise with real magic. And of course, the magic of the Welsh prophetess is good and pure while the other depictions of real magic is evil and Satanic.
Owen Tudor’s characterisation is pretty… ugh. He’s presented as admirable, loved by both Catherine and the Welsh prophetess, lusted after by a woman he rescues from rape and slavery, a prostitute he meets in gaol, and Henry V (!). He’s an excellent musician whose music soothes Henry V’s dysentery and keeps it at bay for seven years, rising through the ranks almost moments after meeting Henry. Yet he’s basically one of those men who use women – he complains that they “always cry” when he dumps them and moves on – and is obsessively in love with Catherine. The worst thing, though, is that he violently rapes Catherine because he’s heard himself talked about as her “tame stallion” and the narrative and Catherine shrug it off as understandable, really, and still continues to ride the Owen is Great train.
I should also point out that the text itself labels what he does as a violent rape. This isn’t my interpretation, this is me reading, “he threw her on the floor and raped her. Not in play or in pretence, but hurting her” and wanting to shrivel up and die. This is our romantic hero? Thanks, I hate him.
Jarman is famously a Ricardian/Yorkist (or so I gather) and while you might think this should have little impact on a novel set well before the Wars of the Roses, you’d be wrong. It’s apparent in her refusal to let Catherine and Owen marry and the vague excuses given for it. It’s no big deal that the dowager queen pops out multiple babies with her Welsh paramour of no social standing but marrying him, GOD, no. Apparently this is all to do with making sure Henry VII is illegitimate because his father was illegitimate? Owen Tudor also believes that Edmund Tudor was conceived when he raped Catherine so I guess that makes Edmund Tudor – and by extension, Henry VII – soulless. I think it’s pretty likely that the historical Catherine and Owen were married given that their children were treated as legitimate (there’s a stark difference between Edmund and Jasper Tudor and the illegitimate children of Henry IV’s sons who basically disappear into the ether). So the fact that this lack of marriage is such a big deal in this book, apparently because of Jarman’s grudge against Henry VII, is a yikes moment. Also, hilariously, Jarman shoehorns a reference to Richard III into the epilogue by declaring him “a gentler, nobler Gloucester” than Humphrey of Lancaster, Duke of Gloucester, the novel’s resident villain. He didn’t have a great relationship with Henry VI, it’s true, but I’m pretty sure he’d win Uncle of the Year over Richard III, guys.
This is probably the most nuanced take on Humphrey of Lancaster I’ve found in a Catherine de Valois novel but it’s still cartoonish and simplistic. He does, after all, genuinely care about his brothers, Henry V and John, Duke of Bedford. But he is crude, another user of women (unlike Owen, the novel condemns him for it), proud and ambitious. He takes a mistress on the march to Agincourt despite Henry V’s rules to the contrary and not only is she stealing his jewels, she’s also a French spy who reports back with the things she’s learnt from him (Henry V had stricture rules about women accompanying his arm and there is not a single piece of evidence Humphrey flouted them, let alone picked a woman who was a spy). When Catherine first meets him, she thinks he’s evil and is, of course, proved correct, while he sexually harasses her and later attempts to rape her. He bullies, psychologically tortures and physically abuses Henry VI as a child. Jarman describes him in grotesque terms – nearly always drunk, jaw permanently clenched, teeth grinding, veins going pop on his forehead, wearing a scarlet mantle that hurts Catherine’s eyes. And, of course, he gets fat – so fat that even his eyebags are fat, so fat that he wears clothes are physically painful because he’s too fat for them and apparently too vain or stupid to get a new wardrobe, so fat that Catherine thinks he looks pregnant. Because he’s evil, you see, and evil people are always ugly and fat. Nice.
His second wife, Eleanor Cobham, is a secondary villain of the piece and Jarman basically objectifies her so much that Eleanor comes off as inhumane. Honestly, you could tell me that this Eleanor was written as a literal demon and I’d believe that. She is a real witch and tries to kill Gloucester’s enemies for him, causes Catherine to have miscarriages and knows her “sister in skill” (i.e. witchcraft) that she’s never met, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, is going to kill John, Duke of Bedford via magic so she can marry Richard Woodville. Gloucester touches her and finds her cold because her spirit is wandering outside her body. In the epilogue that makes a farce of the historical accounts of the accusations of witchcraft against her, she is “discovered about to administer poison to the King” – she was accused of using astrology to predict his death, she admitted to seeking fertility treatments – and found to have “black books, the corpses of animals, the secrets of herbal and alchemy” in her possession – no such discoveries were ever made, the accusations against her are seen by most historians as being manufactured to discredit and alienate Gloucester from Henry VI – before she is “stripped half-naked and flogged through the streets” – she was made to do penance bare-headed through the streets, otherwise fully-clothed and not physically harmed or molested. We then get told she died and “blackness had her” because she’s EVIL.
Honestly? The trend of historical fiction authors to go “a-ha! The woman was an accused witch! It must be true! They’re EVIL!” is sickening. The historical persecution of women as witches, particularly women living on the outskirts of society or because they were outsiders in some way (in Eleanor’s case, she was a minor gentlewoman who made a match far above her “natural” status), is a travesty and should be interrogated and challenged. And no, it’s not feminist to reframe these historical women as real witches but the good guys especially if you show them employing witchcraft to kill or hurt people (hi, [a:Philippa Gregory|9987|Philippa Gregory|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1560883006p2/9987.jpg]). Eleanor’s treatment was horrific (although better than being burnt at the stake or hanged) and she was likely guilty of nothing more than wanting to get pregnant and of being married to a man who was engaged in a political struggle with a court party that wanted him gone. We should acknowledge that, not make her out to deserve it and that it’s just so unfair she didn’t get burnt to death like she should have been (hi, [a:Mary McGrigor|592188|Mary McGrigor|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png]).
Anyway. Enough soap-boxing.
There are a few blips in the historical accuracy – as well as the grossly inaccurate report of Eleanor Cobham’s disgrace, Jarman ages Charles, Duke of Orleans up (birthdate of 1390 rather than the actual 1394), gets the year of Isabelle de Valois’s death wrong. She presents Catherine as present at Henry V’s deathbed – she wasn’t – and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in England during Henry VI’s birth – he wasn’t, he was in France, it was his brother John, Duke of Bedford who was in England and who stood as Henry VI’s godfather.
Crown in Candlelight is an interesting read and has definite strengths but is ultimately let down by a pile of twaddle that makes it nonsensical. 1.5 stars.
Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s Crown in Candlelight, published in 1978, might be the best novel I’ve read thus far about Catherine de Valois. Jarman’s characterisation of Catherine and her avoidance of some tropes associated with Catherine are to be celebrated. However, that’s not to say that this is a good novel – my standards for Catherine-centric novels are just very, very, very low.
To begin with the strengths: Catherine’s characterisation is very well done. Her suffering is overstated and not necessarily accurate (for instance, new research on Isabeau of Bavaria suggests she wasn’t a neglectful mother, and far from being prevented from seeing her son, Catherine was actually residing in Henry VI’s household until he was around eight), but Jarman has clearly thought about how the trauma of her childhood and grief and shock at losing a beloved spouse shortly after marriage would impact a person and it shows. This Catherine might not please those looking for a Spunky Historical Heroine™ or a “Strong Female Character” – you know, the stunningly beautiful woman who spouts off witty one-liners, is deeply political aware, intelligent, espouses modern values and a badass to boot – but she feels realistic and rooted in her context as a 15th century medieval noblewoman. She is quiet and passive, though strong in other ways.
Her relationship with Henry V is also done well. So often historical fiction depicts Catherine and Henry as either incredibly awful and rape-y or as a relationship that’s fundamentally flawed – they don’t spend enough time together, they have communication issues etc. – which only seems to happen to be set up Owen Tudor as Catherine’s one true love and Henry either as the guy who’s not quite right for her or yet another trauma for her to suffer through before being rewarded with True Love. Jarman, instead, depicts Catherine and Henry’s marriage as loving and affectionate, and though Catherine describes them differently – Henry is Catherine’s “harbour”, Owen her “storm” – one is not seen as superior to the other.
Additionally, Jarman avoids some of the common tropes associated with Catherine and Henry that deeply annoy me. There’s no scene where Catherine is told she must give birth to the future Henry VI anywhere but Windsor because of the (ahistorical) prophecy about “Henry of Monmouth will gain all, Henry of Windsor will lose all” which she then ignores out of malice or stupidity and thus, Catherine de Valois is the only person to blame for Henry VI being a terrible king and severely mentally ill, the failure of the English conquest of France, the Wars of the Roses and its countless deaths. Henry V’s fatal illness, though oddly figured here as dysentery he keeps at bay with severe fasting and Owen Tudor’s music skills for seven years, is at least not figured as divine punishment but chronic illness.
The characterisation of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is interesting too – he’s a peripheral character but unlike other novels I’ve read that feature him, he’s not characterised as an outrageously simplistic evil villain.
The rest of the novel, though – yikes.
Jarman has a predilection for the grotesque, both in description and in story. Although fairly non-graphic in terms of sex and violence, this is a narrative that sets out to tell the most lurid version of events as possible. Thus, we have Isabeau of Bavaria shouting insults at Charles VI of France during one of his fits of madness before dumping a flask of wine over him while Louis, Duke of Orleans smiles his “depraved maiden’s smile” before a briefly-recovered Charles VI presents Isabeau with the dead, naked body of her lover during dinner. And this is just within the first pages.
The structure of the book is a little disjointed. Divided into sections, we spend a fair amount of time covering the state of France during Catherine’s childhood in 1405-1410 before we jump to Wales in 1414 and focus on a Welsh prophetess stealing fox cubs for magic and sleeping with Owen Tudor before he leaves to join Henry V’s French campaign. Then we’re with Henry departing England for France, at the siege of Harfleur and then marching to Agincourt before we’re back with Catherine, in 1420, about to marry Henry V. From there on, Jarman does largely focus on Catherine’s story but there are still frequent time-jumps and the epilogue returns us to the Welsh prophetess telling us how everyone’s going to get their comeuppance, foretelling the Wars of the Roses and how Wales is going to rule England because Owen Tudor is awesome.
I’m so very tired of historical fiction set in medieval Wales depicting as a mystical, magical woo-woo land where magic is real and they make very accurate and awesome prophecies about future events. It just feels fetishistic and appropriative – instead of celebrating medieval Wales for what it was, historical fiction writers seem to make it a New Age Celtic paradise with real magic. And of course, the magic of the Welsh prophetess is good and pure while the other depictions of real magic is evil and Satanic.
Owen Tudor’s characterisation is pretty… ugh. He’s presented as admirable, loved by both Catherine and the Welsh prophetess, lusted after by a woman he rescues from rape and slavery, a prostitute he meets in gaol, and Henry V (!). He’s an excellent musician whose music soothes Henry V’s dysentery and keeps it at bay for seven years, rising through the ranks almost moments after meeting Henry. Yet he’s basically one of those men who use women – he complains that they “always cry” when he dumps them and moves on – and is obsessively in love with Catherine. The worst thing, though, is that he violently rapes Catherine because he’s heard himself talked about as her “tame stallion” and the narrative and Catherine shrug it off as understandable, really, and still continues to ride the Owen is Great train.
I should also point out that the text itself labels what he does as a violent rape. This isn’t my interpretation, this is me reading, “he threw her on the floor and raped her. Not in play or in pretence, but hurting her” and wanting to shrivel up and die. This is our romantic hero? Thanks, I hate him.
Jarman is famously a Ricardian/Yorkist (or so I gather) and while you might think this should have little impact on a novel set well before the Wars of the Roses, you’d be wrong. It’s apparent in her refusal to let Catherine and Owen marry and the vague excuses given for it. It’s no big deal that the dowager queen pops out multiple babies with her Welsh paramour of no social standing but marrying him, GOD, no. Apparently this is all to do with making sure Henry VII is illegitimate because his father was illegitimate? Owen Tudor also believes that Edmund Tudor was conceived when he raped Catherine so I guess that makes Edmund Tudor – and by extension, Henry VII – soulless. I think it’s pretty likely that the historical Catherine and Owen were married given that their children were treated as legitimate (there’s a stark difference between Edmund and Jasper Tudor and the illegitimate children of Henry IV’s sons who basically disappear into the ether). So the fact that this lack of marriage is such a big deal in this book, apparently because of Jarman’s grudge against Henry VII, is a yikes moment. Also, hilariously, Jarman shoehorns a reference to Richard III into the epilogue by declaring him “a gentler, nobler Gloucester” than Humphrey of Lancaster, Duke of Gloucester, the novel’s resident villain. He didn’t have a great relationship with Henry VI, it’s true, but I’m pretty sure he’d win Uncle of the Year over Richard III, guys.
This is probably the most nuanced take on Humphrey of Lancaster I’ve found in a Catherine de Valois novel but it’s still cartoonish and simplistic. He does, after all, genuinely care about his brothers, Henry V and John, Duke of Bedford. But he is crude, another user of women (unlike Owen, the novel condemns him for it), proud and ambitious. He takes a mistress on the march to Agincourt despite Henry V’s rules to the contrary and not only is she stealing his jewels, she’s also a French spy who reports back with the things she’s learnt from him (Henry V had stricture rules about women accompanying his arm and there is not a single piece of evidence Humphrey flouted them, let alone picked a woman who was a spy). When Catherine first meets him, she thinks he’s evil and is, of course, proved correct, while he sexually harasses her and later attempts to rape her. He bullies, psychologically tortures and physically abuses Henry VI as a child. Jarman describes him in grotesque terms – nearly always drunk, jaw permanently clenched, teeth grinding, veins going pop on his forehead, wearing a scarlet mantle that hurts Catherine’s eyes. And, of course, he gets fat – so fat that even his eyebags are fat, so fat that he wears clothes are physically painful because he’s too fat for them and apparently too vain or stupid to get a new wardrobe, so fat that Catherine thinks he looks pregnant. Because he’s evil, you see, and evil people are always ugly and fat. Nice.
His second wife, Eleanor Cobham, is a secondary villain of the piece and Jarman basically objectifies her so much that Eleanor comes off as inhumane. Honestly, you could tell me that this Eleanor was written as a literal demon and I’d believe that. She is a real witch and tries to kill Gloucester’s enemies for him, causes Catherine to have miscarriages and knows her “sister in skill” (i.e. witchcraft) that she’s never met, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, is going to kill John, Duke of Bedford via magic so she can marry Richard Woodville. Gloucester touches her and finds her cold because her spirit is wandering outside her body. In the epilogue that makes a farce of the historical accounts of the accusations of witchcraft against her, she is “discovered about to administer poison to the King” – she was accused of using astrology to predict his death, she admitted to seeking fertility treatments – and found to have “black books, the corpses of animals, the secrets of herbal and alchemy” in her possession – no such discoveries were ever made, the accusations against her are seen by most historians as being manufactured to discredit and alienate Gloucester from Henry VI – before she is “stripped half-naked and flogged through the streets” – she was made to do penance bare-headed through the streets, otherwise fully-clothed and not physically harmed or molested. We then get told she died and “blackness had her” because she’s EVIL.
Honestly? The trend of historical fiction authors to go “a-ha! The woman was an accused witch! It must be true! They’re EVIL!” is sickening. The historical persecution of women as witches, particularly women living on the outskirts of society or because they were outsiders in some way (in Eleanor’s case, she was a minor gentlewoman who made a match far above her “natural” status), is a travesty and should be interrogated and challenged. And no, it’s not feminist to reframe these historical women as real witches but the good guys especially if you show them employing witchcraft to kill or hurt people (hi, [a:Philippa Gregory|9987|Philippa Gregory|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1560883006p2/9987.jpg]). Eleanor’s treatment was horrific (although better than being burnt at the stake or hanged) and she was likely guilty of nothing more than wanting to get pregnant and of being married to a man who was engaged in a political struggle with a court party that wanted him gone. We should acknowledge that, not make her out to deserve it and that it’s just so unfair she didn’t get burnt to death like she should have been (hi, [a:Mary McGrigor|592188|Mary McGrigor|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png]).
Anyway. Enough soap-boxing.
There are a few blips in the historical accuracy – as well as the grossly inaccurate report of Eleanor Cobham’s disgrace, Jarman ages Charles, Duke of Orleans up (birthdate of 1390 rather than the actual 1394), gets the year of Isabelle de Valois’s death wrong. She presents Catherine as present at Henry V’s deathbed – she wasn’t – and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in England during Henry VI’s birth – he wasn’t, he was in France, it was his brother John, Duke of Bedford who was in England and who stood as Henry VI’s godfather.
Crown in Candlelight is an interesting read and has definite strengths but is ultimately let down by a pile of twaddle that makes it nonsensical. 1.5 stars.
lnatal's review
3.0
AS Barb said in her review, Rosemary Hawley Jarman covers a large of period of time but her plot is quite confusing. It's a pity since the love affair between Katherine and Owen seems to be quite interesting. I give 3,5 stars to this book.
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