A review by liaweneryniel
Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths by Suzie Edge

informative medium-paced

5.0

 

I stumbled upon Suzie Edge’s TiKTok in 2020 – a video about Oliver Cromwell’s head nonetheless :-D I started following her because..well, I’m a history nerd okay! Nothing to be ashamed of! 

 

When Suzie Edge announced that she was writing a book about the Monarchs, I was excited! I couldn’t wait to get even more info on all the mortal monarchs and open more coffins with her  

 

Once the book was available for preorder, I preordered it and then it came and I had so much to do that it went onto my TBR pile and remained there. At the beginning to 2023, I vowed that I would read most books on my TBR pile and I started with Mortal Monarchs. With the Queen having died in September of this last year, I was interested to learn more about the monarchs of Britain. 

 

The book follows all the kings and queens from Harold Goodwinson to Elizabeth II’s father George VI. In her usual fashion Suzie Edge “opens the coffins” of the deceased monarchs and gives great insight in the medical reasons how and why the monarchs died. Sometimes it is quite clear: a red hot iron poker to the rectum while on the toilet (Edward II) or beheading (Charles I)while others remain a mystery to this day because nothing is left except the bones. 

With the passing of the centuries I find it greatly interesting how the illnesses and ailments change. Especially in the last couple of hundred years, the causes of death shifted from diseases that are easily treated today to ailments associated with their lifestyle. Monarchs are neither dying gruesomely on the battlefields anymore nor are disposed and subsequently killed, but they are navigating the modern times and trying to do what is best in their opinion, dying of diseases everyone from commoner to king and queen knows. 

 

If one thing has become undoubtedly clear while reading this book, it is that in death we are all equals. No matter who you were in life, in death we are the same. Give instructions to be carried out after your demise but you cannot be sure that they are going to be fulfilled. And one more thing: I knew that history is written by the winners but in the various descriptions of the deaths of hated or not so well-liked kings, it becomes even more clear that how we see a monarch is rather dependent on how their death is portrayed. 

 

I loved the writing style in this book. Starting with the family history and giving a rough draft about the reign of the discussed monarch was very short so that the rest of the chapter one could focus on the way the monarchs met their ends. Sometimes the medical words were complicated for me, as English is not my native language, but thanks to modern technology, no questions remained  

 

All in all, this book was a great first read for 2023 and I am certainly going to use parts of this book and also probably some of Suzie’s videos in my English lessons. My students are going to be so happy :-D 

 

I would recommend this book to history and medical nerds all the same. The description of the ailments is great and sometimes I was trying to figure out what the sickness was before Suzie explained it. I was more wrong than right, but oh well, I’m not a doctor  

 

Thank you, Suzie Edge for writing this book. I immensely enjoyed and I might have written my own post scripture at the end because well, things have changed since this book was published in August 2022. 

 

Without wax, 

Liawèn