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Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir (view source)
Revision as of 15:53, 11 February 2022
, 15:53, 11 February 2022no edit summary
|website=http://alisonweir.org.uk/
|date=August 2014
|isbn=00995464771472278038
|cover=0099546477
|aznuk=00995464771472278038
|aznus=B00EAJLJQG
}}
Her work on Elizabeth of York is as careful and accurate and interesting as ever. It covers England's transition from the Wars of the Roses to the Tudor era and this is a period about which we never tire of hearing. It's full of huge characters, devastating wars, horrible crimes and grimy politics - no wonder that we can't get enough of it. And what there is to know about Elizabeth, Weir draws out. Was her marriage to Henry VII a happy one? Before it, did she really throw her weight behind engineering a marriage with her own uncle, Richard III? How did she get along with her mother-in-law, the fearsome Margaret Beaufort? Did she ever know for sure what happened to her brothers, the princes in the Tower?
If there is a problem with the book, it's that Weir has so little to work with. The sources are patchy and there really isn't enough for any historian worth his or her salt to draw any real conclusions. So there's a lot of speculation here; a great many ifs and buts and maybes.Those who already know something about the period will find their understanding fleshed out and will be able to form their own educated guesses about the truth of Elizabeth of York. But I wouldn't really recommend it as a first foray into the times because there just isn't enough meat to enable Elizabeth to rise from its pages in more than elusive glimpses at a person so crucial to English history. It's not Weir's fault; it's just the way it is. To those readers , I would say: read more general works first and then return to this book. And for myself: I thoroughly enjoyed it. I knew I would.
Weir has been able to put more meat on the bones of her subjects in [[The Captive Queen by Alison Weir|The Captive Queen]], about Eleanor of Aquitaine and [[The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir|The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn]]. For another Elizabeth by Weir, try [[The Marriage Game by Alison Weir|The Marriage Game]].
{{amazontext|amazon=00995464771472278038}} {{amazontextAud|amazon=B0983TRX1R}}' {{amazonUStext|amazon=B00EAJLJQG1472278038}}
{{toptentext|list=Top Ten History Books of 2014}}
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