16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Traitor against Fate?, July 23, 2006
This review is from: The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England: 1327--1330 (Hardcover)
It was with extreme pleasure that I read The Greatest Traitor, life and time of Sir Roger Mortimer written by Ian Mortimer although the author insisted that there is no relationship between himself and his subject. The book proves to be well written and researched although lack of primary sources in many part of Roger Mortimer's life hampered the author's effort. Many of these parts lies with Mortimer's personal life. He did married young and had host of children but there's really nothing in the book that reflects what Mortimer was like, as a father and husband outside of few references. This proves to be the book's only weakness and it may have been out of the author's control to provide.
The author make his case very well that Roger Mortimer was one of England's greatest traitors. Mortimer's actions against his country, his King Edward II, his oath of fealty, his relationship with Queen Isabella and his dominates over Edward III clearly marked him as worst offender of his class. However, the author also tempered that case with the reasoning that many of the things Mortimer did was in self-defense of his lands, honor and life. That Edward II was a bad ruler who ruled terribly. It wasn't until Mortimer and Isabella had total control during the regency of Edward III that they began to act and ruled like tyrants.
This book goes well with Alison Weir's Queen Isabella biography as both of them reflects on the same theory about the fate of Edward II. The Fieschi letter dominate both books that Edward II died peacefully as a religious exile in Italy and not murdered horribly in Berkely Castle as regular history books goes. Weir introduced that theory openly to exonerate Isabella from Edward II's murder and author in this book did the same to exonerate Roger Mortimer as well from that charge.
Overall, very interesting book about an important mediveal English nobleman who effectively ruled England for nearly 3 and half years with his lover, Queen Isabella. While regular history books shows Edward III following his father in rule, anyone reading this book will realized that there's an footnote between the two. Mandatory reading material for anyone interested in this time period and subject matter.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent., June 1, 2007
This review is from: The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England: 1327--1330 (Hardcover)
I read this book while on holiday in England. It was the perfect companion. If you enjoy history, especially history that is alive and vibrant, you will like this book.
Mortimer takes us back 700 years to become engaged with Sir Roger and his world. We come to understand what a familial dynasty and legacy meant to a medieval knight/baron. We come to fully understand the failures of Edward II, and how those failures drove Mortimer and others to do the unthinkable - overthrow their king.
The scholarship and research that went into this account are top notch and the authors theory (I won't give it away) is quite compelling.
Great book!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life in the fast lane, May 24, 2010
This review is from: The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England: 1327--1330 (Hardcover)
Okay, to begin with, I actually got interested in this period and ran into personalities of it while reading murder mysteries set in the period by Candice Robb,
The Cross-Legged Knight and others. That led me to wanting more of the background of the period. I had run across the story of Sir Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella in reading on the Kings Edward (I-III) of England and their time period. Once one gets started on a dramatic and captivating story, however, it's difficult not to follow up with an investigation of other important figures in the drama. I soon discovered by further reading in Alison Weir's
Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England that this Queen was not just the "evil queen" backdrop for the reign of her son the "good king" Edward that some of the other books suggested. That discovery led me to wonder just how real the "greedy and treacherous" lover, Roger Mortimer, might be. The bibliography in Isabella lead me in turn to this book.
While I have to say that The Greatest Traitor seemed like an effort to rehabilitate the reputation of a rather unsavory character, I also have to admit that the author makes a good case for believing that Sir Roger was indeed the person he had hoped to be until events prevented him from remaining so. In fact more than any other book on the period, this one makes it obvious that the conditions of the time were such that many men of good intentions probably ended up going off the rails for some of the same reasons, mostly survival. The events that could lead to a threat to it were many and endemic--if not down right epidemic at times--to the period--and most people came down with the "disease."
I also noticed that except for the poor and common people, for whom any treatment was considered appropriate and "just," there seemed to be a form of etiquette in waging war on others, one of those being one didn't cause undo discomfort to the opposition's women folk or young children--especially not to young children. Stepping over the line, as Edward II and his favorites tended to do, was what put others off and could turn the tide against one.
Interesting too was the fact that, just like later historians who study it, the individuals of the time were very aware of the precedents they were setting with respect to the laws of the land and to the governmental structures in place to enforce it. The waltzing around over the succession of Edward III and the forced abdication of his father Edward II was certainly an illustration of this, as was the confusing history of Edward II after he left the active stage of government. They were tripping down a particularly greasy set of stairs, but they managed to leave it to others of their kind in later years to actually take the fall.
I felt that the author, though he probably gave Isabella a good deal more credit than earlier authors did, was still missing the fact that the lady was a very adept politician if nothing else. He, like others, seem inclined to see her as more of a pawn in a game played by the "big boys." I'd disagree. For one thing, I suspect the big-blow-up-at-dinner in the French court was a theatrical event staged to give the lady a way to make excuses if things went bad later and they/she had to drop back and punt back at home in Merry Olde England. Secondly, and most importantly, I'd like to point out that she of all of them came out the best. She acquired a great deal of property, and although she had to give up some of it later, she still succeeded in enjoying a comfortable, influential, and lengthy life. Not many of the other players in the game did except Roger's wife, Joan, who survived to age 70 under similar circumstances. Isabella also managed to ensure that her son came to the throne of England before her husband's favorites left very little kingdom behind for him to rule, and without herself and her agents damaging it any more than necessary when she did so. To accomplish this she had to do some pretty fast and serious outmaneuvering against some pretty crafty characters among the aristocratic, royal, and ecclesiastical worlds of her day. I think people have been seriously underestimating this lady for quite some time. I wonder if this isn't becaue historians, both men and women, have this notion that what women want out of a situation is the same as what men want. Visibility and "credit" isn't necessarily part of it, which is why women's history and their effects on it isn't always apparent. Heck, from all appearences there weren't any women in Classical Greece--though there were a few more in Homeric Greece.
This author went into far greater detail and discussion than Weir about the death of Edward II. He gave a thorough treatment of the documentation, it's authenticity, and its likely intent in the final chapter of the book. Although I agree with his analysis of the events of Edward II's last years, I still find it difficult to believe that there was a switch of bodies in his crypt to "fix" it all during Edward III's reign. Maybe our elders were more superstitious, more sentimental, and less pragmatic than we are, but I doubt it.
All in all the book reads like a well written adventure novel. I finished in a day and could hardly put it down. It has everything.
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