Customer Reviews

A Treasury of Royal Scandals: The Shocking True Stories History's Wickedest, Weirdest, Most Wanton Kings, Queens, Tsars, Popes, and Emperors

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The subject is a bit shallow, perhaps, but Farquahar's writing is hilarious and you must admit, it's fun. His stories are well researched and accurate portrayals of some shocking, dirty, horrendous, and often VERY funny escapades in the lives of prominent European rulers down through the centuries. If you're not into European history, you'll read it quickly, enjoy the ride, and accidentally learn a lot along the way. If you are, you'll love the refreshingly funny writing style and unique focus (they don't tell you THAT in textbooks!), and you'll appreciate the detailed geneologies in the front and chronologies in the back that are an inestimable help in keeping straight the tangled branches of Europe's royal family trees.

Michael Farquhar's "A Treasury of Royal Scandals" will delight inveterate royal watchers! As he sniffs in the introduction, he covers not the current crop of royals, as none of them have provided anything worthy of the title of "scandalous," but he goes in-depth to provide us with (as the book is subtitled) "shocking true stories of history's wickedest, weirdest, most wanton kings, queens, tsars, popes, and emperors."

Farquhar provides a handy family tree for major royal families at the beginning--it's most helpful when the scandals reach a dizzying pitch and you need to sort out which royal is plotting to overthrow/marry for money/murder which other royal. He debunks an awful lot of incorrect gossip (like the oft-told tale of Catherine the Great's predilection for beastiality) and comes up with wonderful gems of dirt that will be deliciously unfamiliar to most readers. This is not a scholarly work by any means--it's kind of like a historical PEOPLE magazine, focusing on the faux pas, the foibles, and the fevered doings of all sorts of royals throughout history. Great good fun!

As an avid European history buff, I enjoy reading about the "nasty little secrets" that weave in & out of history. This book certainly lived up to my expectation and more. I found it as a CD book in my local library and thoroughly enjoyed having it read to me. I had to buy the book. If you are at all familiar with European royalty in the 16th thru 20th (yes 20th! remember Edward the 8th and Wallis Simpson?) centuries then you will enjoy this book. I discovered that even though I was aware of the scandals covering about 3/4ths of this book, it was genuinely enjoyable to listen and then read about them in such a light and comical style.

This book is well written and absolutely hilarious! Anyone who wants to learn more about royalty and the quirky things they have done in the past should read this. It is funny and interesting, and never slows its pace, but at the same time it also helps you learn more about the rulers of Europe in the past 2000 years. Although it is named "A Treasury of Royal Scandals", it never becomes overly graphic or tasteless. It is well-organized too; split into chapters according to subject (death, marriage, weird parents, etc.) I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys the livlier side of history!

This book covers its subject matter clearly and with humor. Not a dry book of historical dates and battlefields, but a book that deals with some quite famous and interesting personalities of history and some of the things they did.

It's quite amusing to read about priviledged folks of history and their quirks and picadillos. They may have been 'royal', but many had the morals of an alley cat and the compassion of a viper.

Recommended!

If you eagerly await each issue of The National Enquirer but wish it were less about Jennifer Lopez and more about Henry VIII, this is the book for you. In it, Michael Farquhar has collected charming tales of Europe's royal elite at their finest-fornicating, battling, murdering, backstabbing, beheading, inbreeding, prancing, politicking, and going stark raving mad. You'll read about the touching love of Philip the Fair for Joanna the Mad (who's called that for a reason, as you'll see), the familial love of Napoleon for his brothers, and the not-so-familial love of Caligula for his sister.

Farquhar's gift is not so much for digging up tales of shame, but for the irreverent sarcasm with which he dishes them out. Of King Frederick William of Prussia: "The reply [to his son] was written in the glowing warmth of the third person." "Peter the Great was what might be best described as a super-tsar." [Groan.] "If Louis XIV was France's Sun King, then his brother, Philippe, duc d'Orléans, was its Drag Queen."

Sarcasm and bad puns aside, let's get back to the comparison to The National Enquirer. Unless you are truly the type who subscribes to Playboy/Playgirl for the articles, chances are that you read The National Enquirer for the titillating hints of the scandals, improprieties, infidelities, gifts to the Democratic Party, and other acts calculated to provoke moral outrage that today's royal icons, celebrities have virtually trademarked.

If you have any common sense (and how would you? Look at what you're reading!), of course you realise that little of The National Enquirer is burdened by the weight of the truth, but it is seasoned just right to tempt your sense of gullibility. (For example, a cover lamenting Cher's "heartbreaking disease"-surely cancer, or at least diabetes?-led to a story about her deadly adult acne problem.)

Farquhar takes much the same approach to his subject. Royal Scandals is replete with "reported that" qualifiers as well as apocryphal stories. Perhaps the most obvious is the one about the assassination of England's Edward II, or rather the description of the gruesome way in which it was allegedly committed. You'd be hard pressed to find a historian who doesn't scoff at the anecdote, but you are guaranteed to flinch at it. Farquhar will have you hooked.

While Royal Scandals does not quite qualify as history-don't cite it in your next paper, kids-it may pique your interest in such characters as Bloody Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, and the hapless Jane Grey (whose mother was, "by some accounts . . . romping with a servant fifteen years her junior" at the time of Jane's beheading).

When you've finished reading Royal Scandals, you'll realise Hollywood has nothing on history-or the embellishments thereof.

The appendices, showing British, French, and Russian monarchs, and a timeline of events in the western world are useful. An index would have been helpful as well.

Diane L. Schirf, 2 May 2005.

General reading. That is, unlike the last few books, this one is generally easy reading, witty, and requires only a passing
familiarity with the bare bones of European history. Good light reading for a rainy day, and full of interesting tidbits, Farquhar's not writing a 'formal' history, but one which giddily languishes in the world of sex, torture, death and madness.

Covering both the well known classics of the genre (Henry VIII gets some 39 pages worth of the author's attentions), the reader
is also greeted with the little known and perhaps better forgotten tidbits of royal and papal indignities and misdeeds. Anyone who would really like to know about Catherine the Great's sex life, why Edward VIII really grave up his throne, or the Spanish prince so inbred that he could be his own first cousin several times over should really read this book.

It is however, not scholarly, and the decided lack of a note's section leaves a lot to be desired for anyone who would like to cite Treasury in any academic medium. All in all, though, nice light lecherous reading.

This book was excellent! i picked it up and couldn't put it down. It's very addictive...you get a good history lesson about the royal families and their lineage, and at the same time get a good glimpse into the trials and tribulations of the royal scandals! I'm so thankful that this book was written..it's always something i'd hope someone would write. excellent excellent book! definitely a recommended read.

I could not put this book down. If you have no intererest in royality, this book will get you interested. It has provoked me to continue reading about the history of the royal families of Europe and the history of Europe. I recommed this book for anyone who wants to be entertained as well as educated.

To sum up this book quickly: it's good potty reading. In the forward Farquhar explains that he avoids the entire 20th century (with the exception of a few stories about Wallis Simpson). He basically points out that the "scandals" of the 20th century are nothing compared to let's say ordering a small cache of boys to swim naked with you, so they can nip at the treat between your legs. Marrying a divorcee just seems milquetoast in comparison.

Anyhow, it was an enjoyable read. Sad at times, sometimes even disturbing, but for the most part is written with a witty dark humor that will make you laugh at even the most sickeningly, depraved noble. While Farquhar sticks to European royalty for the book, he does include an entire section on Roman Caesars, and early Popes, all of which easily out-deprave the nobles the rest of the book is about.

Each story is short, a sort of Cliff's Notes. This is especially true if you are familiar with some of the stories. For the stories I already knew, his facts were accurate, if a bit summary. This is good, because each tale is bite-sized, making the book good for niblet reading here and there.

The tales Farquhar chooses to tell are sometimes hits, and sometimes misses. I particularly did not see how the detailed accounting of the murder of the Romanov's really fit with some of the other stories, for example.

If you like a good scandal, need some quick reads for here and there, or have a fascination with the excesses that unbridled power brings, this is a book worth checking out.