Queens at War (2025) [+]
Aug 17 2026
Queens at War is the fourth historical book by Alison Weir about England's Medieval Queens. This one spans 1403 to 1485, from Joan of Navarre (Queen to Henry IV) to Elizabeth Widville (Queen to Edward IV) and Anne Neville (Queen to Richard III). The Hundred Years' War ends in the middle. The War of the Roses starts just after the Hundred Years' War and ends a couple of years after this book ends.
The writing style is readable and just a tad of fictional supposition. Weir uses a lot of sources but I guess Queens did not write much or have works commissioned for them so the accounts are from contemporary historians and writers and often there are conflicting accounts because people in these times were not afraid to bald-face lie and rumor monger. Although the printing press was invented halfway through this period apparently no newspapers yet. Weir often points out contradictions in the various accounts and makes deductions based on believability -- who stood to gain from this statement or does it make sense someone would say or do something that is against their benefit?
The closest to the Queens' point of view sometimes are letters. There's a lot made of accounting records: what was bought and where, living expenses which then point to where royalty moved around, recordings of gifts given and received also places people. Taking all this Weir often paints life of the Queen and the people around here and makes conjectures. Weir also writes fiction novels, many (all?) centered on English queens.
I did not expect to find this book interesting but combine a good writing style with lots of research to bring out these queens to life (another thing is that history tends to focus on kings unless the queen is particularly infamous). Overall a great big book that's an interesting and informative read (I'll add that Weir does provide overviews so readers have more context but a good grounding in English history of this time would have been nice to have before I read this book).
The writing style is readable and just a tad of fictional supposition. Weir uses a lot of sources but I guess Queens did not write much or have works commissioned for them so the accounts are from contemporary historians and writers and often there are conflicting accounts because people in these times were not afraid to bald-face lie and rumor monger. Although the printing press was invented halfway through this period apparently no newspapers yet. Weir often points out contradictions in the various accounts and makes deductions based on believability -- who stood to gain from this statement or does it make sense someone would say or do something that is against their benefit?
The closest to the Queens' point of view sometimes are letters. There's a lot made of accounting records: what was bought and where, living expenses which then point to where royalty moved around, recordings of gifts given and received also places people. Taking all this Weir often paints life of the Queen and the people around here and makes conjectures. Weir also writes fiction novels, many (all?) centered on English queens.
I did not expect to find this book interesting but combine a good writing style with lots of research to bring out these queens to life (another thing is that history tends to focus on kings unless the queen is particularly infamous). Overall a great big book that's an interesting and informative read (I'll add that Weir does provide overviews so readers have more context but a good grounding in English history of this time would have been nice to have before I read this book).