One of the delights of The Wives Of The Kings of England is its ability to untangle the density of historic events and focus on specific people. Many of those early kings were despots or indeed absent from England. The evenst around them often shaped their place in history rather than leaving their own indelible mark. By taking each wife in turn, Mark Hichens not only looks at the reign of each monarch froma different perspectve but also sums up each era of history and the potential contribution the queens might have made. For example, it seems that Henry's headstrong wife Margaret of Anjou instigated the War of the Roses as both the Houses of Yorks and Lancashire fought for their respective person to be king. And indeed, with the 100 Years War with France, many of those wives came from the continent, dividing their allegiances. And enough has already been written about Henry VIII's wives, but Hichens manages to give each of the six their own distinctive character traits as well as adding plenty of colour. Imagine the marriage of the virginal Anne of Cleves to the obese Henry - she reeking of body odour and he with a festering leg wound that stank abominably.

It's a book that's pithy, occasionally witty but always accessible, gossipy but factual too. he turns history into an entertaining read, but serving more an an introduction to the shaping of the UK from the Norman Conquests to the end of the Stuarts. A period of some 600 tumultuous years which takes us from Matilda of Flanders trying to temper the tyranical William the Conqueror whilst spending her time sewing the Bayeux Tapestry to Queen Mary having joined sovereignty of the throne with her asthmatic Dutch husband, William of Orange, after her own father has been sent into exile. In many cases, these were mnot marriages born of love or romance but political expediency. With luck, certain compassion managed to prevail otherwise these queens endured humiliation, mistresses, even male lovers. They could have virtuous qualitites such as Philippa of Hainault who managed to curb the worst excess of her husband, Edward III and her son the Black Prince or ruthless ambition like Edward II's wife, Isabella, often referred to as 'the she-wolf of France' because she was accused of adultery, treason and murder.

Hichens paints deft miniature portraits of thirty queens, outlining their individual characteristics or even flaws as well as their contributions to history. But there is a bigger canvas which gives extra delight and that is the broader landscape he depicts of the monarchs themselves and the events which shaped their reigns. In the process he reveals how tumultuous, brutish and ugly those centuries were in British history with many of those qualities being applied to the kings themselves. Undeniably tragic too Perhaps the most appropriate person to encapsulate the life of a almost forgotten Elizabeth Woodville, wife to Edward IV. She was both a commoner and infact the first English-born queen, but it was a marriage born of love for once. However, the late 1400's was also a period of great personal and constitutional instability which saw her father, brothers and sons all murdered with Richard III taking the throne, but also she heralded in the Tudor dynasty being mother-in-law to Henry VII, grandmother to Henry VIII, and great-grandmother to Elizabeth I. The Wives of the Kings of England well rsearched with a passion for the subject and a panache for writing in an entertaining bur informative prose. A right royal read to relish and enjoy.