Fascinating, beautifully written and very, very canny: Penn's strategy of doing a triple-biography of the three York brothers -- King Edward IV, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III) -- as a way to take on the chaos of the final decades of the War of Roses, really pays off. Great attention to detail, and a knack for making complicated situations clear and easy to follow --
Describing the Duke of Clarence, Edward younger brother (who never got over his pique at his demotion from Heir Presumptive, once Edward started producing babies with the lovely Elizabeth Woodville): "... if opportunities for self-aggrandizement presented themselves - active intervention on behalf of those interests was sometimes a necessity: intervention that carried with it the latent threat of litigation and violence. Clarence, with his neuralgic sensitivity to any perceived slight to his exalted status and rank, was alert to such challenges." I think Penn had a lot of fun writing lines like that. Butt of malmsey wine, anyone?
One modest little pop culture observation: anyone who doubts that George R.R. Martin really did his homework should come away from this with a bit more respect. The reality was, if anything, more bloody, more perverse, more twisted and amoral than almost anything "Game of Thrones" could throw at us ... The only thing missing were the dragons. And if Warwick the Kingmaker had been able to get his hands on a couple of them, who knows what would have happened ... ?
Describing the Duke of Clarence, Edward younger brother (who never got over his pique at his demotion from Heir Presumptive, once Edward started producing babies with the lovely Elizabeth Woodville): "... if opportunities for self-aggrandizement presented themselves - active intervention on behalf of those interests was sometimes a necessity: intervention that carried with it the latent threat of litigation and violence. Clarence, with his neuralgic sensitivity to any perceived slight to his exalted status and rank, was alert to such challenges." I think Penn had a lot of fun writing lines like that. Butt of malmsey wine, anyone?
One modest little pop culture observation: anyone who doubts that George R.R. Martin really did his homework should come away from this with a bit more respect. The reality was, if anything, more bloody, more perverse, more twisted and amoral than almost anything "Game of Thrones" could throw at us ... The only thing missing were the dragons. And if Warwick the Kingmaker had been able to get his hands on a couple of them, who knows what would have happened ... ?
