Customer Reviews

We Speak No Treason I: The Flowering of the Rose (We Speak No Treason S.)

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2 star:		(1)
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One of my favourite books; I've read it several times in the
last ten years and I'm thrilled to see a new edition.
Beautiful, haunting, extremely moving.

The novel is about the controversial and much vilified
'last Plantagent' Richard III. His story is told
successively by three people who knew him : his first
love, who bears his only daughter and later becomes
a nun, a court jester, and an archer bound in service
to him. The writing is exceptionally fine, lofty and
lyrical and most reviews (including the NY and London
Times) rightly termed it 'poetic'. The journal Best
Sellers termed it a work of art.

"Give me the strength to finish the tale and if it is sad
remember there is truth in sadness; joy is only an illusion."
RHJ

Ms Jarman has written several fine novels, but this was her
magnum opus. Bravo.

If you see this, ma'am, thank you.

This novel is among my all time favorites. It was first published in the early 70's and was a best seller! It was out of print for many years, which irritated me to no end, so I was overjoyed when finding this on Amazon. The novel tells the story of Richard III through the eyes of three people. I will not go into details, other than to say it is NOT the usual Shakespearean treatment, and if you read this you will learn a great deal about the man that history has ignored in favor of Tudor era propoganda. But the problem is that the original 1970's printing contained around four hundred pages - this edition one STOPS half way through the book! There is a notation on the last page that the reader needs to go out and purchase "Book II" of the saga, which was originally part of the earlier novel! Since the entire work isn't THAT long, I feel this is an attempt to drag more money out of the reading public and I find it annoying!!! So be careful when purchasing this; if it says "Book I: The Flowering of The Rose" the novel is not complete and you will have to hunt around for Book II (which I have not been able to purchase as yet)! I did find an older "complete" version which I purchased last Christmas for a friend. If you shop around, I am sure you can get the full story. Otherwise, this is truly a remarkable book and a well written work about an otherwise overlooked part of English history.

I picked up this book because of the Amazon review and it was worth every page! The language of the book was a bit archaic and difficult, but I found that only rather a challenge to my vocabulary and my perception.

I liked the author's use of different character's perspectives. There are in effect 3 "speakers". The first speaker, a young maiden who falls in love with a young Richard, begins her story in Part One, but doesn't finish it until Part Four. Her story was by far the saddest and most interesting. The heights and depths of her love for a man she knew only briefly was thought provoking to me.

Parts Two and Three are male characters with interesting connections to the young Duke/King and to each other. They both gave fascinating points of view of what might have happened. I like how the author tied the different characters together in subtle ways.

I knew the story of King Richard III already, having read other nonfiction and historical fiction books, so I was aware it had a sad ending. But this author's version of it was heart-rending indeed. I was sad as I read further into the story and even sadder to see the book end. Amazing the emotions one story can bring!

This is a great book and well worth your time reading it!

I'm glad to see "We speak no treason" being re-released. I enjoyed all of Rosemary Hawley Jarman's historical novels, but this one has always been my favourite. I read it when it first came out, in, I think 1971, and have re-read it many times. When I first read it I'd just encountered Josephine Tey's "The daughter of time", and the two books together got me permanently hooked on Richard III and the Yorkist period of history. Without them I would never have embarked on years of historical study, or, probably, my eventual degree, and I would not have written my own Ricardian novel "Treason". I therefore owe Ms Jarman a considerable debt -- but aside from that I'm glad to see this grand and very touching novel reissued. I recommend it to anyone who wants a really good historical novel, and I recommend all Ms Jarman's other books, and hope they too will soon be available again. What a beautiful cover this re-issue has been given.

This is, for lack of a better description, apologist fiction for Richard III. It sounds very strange indeed, but apparently this is a popular genre of historical fiction.

The writing is superb, with a medieval flair but not incomprehensible. It's obvious a lot of research was done. The story (this is the first book of 2) is told by two narrators: The Maiden, and the Fool. There are certainly parts that do seem....a little overromanticized as to Richard's intentions and reactions, but so far (so far!) she hasn't strayed too far from generally accepted historical accuracy.

Who the historical characters are is hard to grasp at first; I eventually had to (God forgive me) wikipedia some of them to figure who was who and related to whom, etc. But once I understand the relationships between them, the story flowed smoothly, and kept me completely unable to put the book down for two days. Considering I had a final the day after I finished this book, that's saying a lot.

I'm looking forward to reading the second half of this series; we'll see if it sticks relatively close to historical accuracy of she goes off half-cocked about the Princes in the Tower.