Review: The Royal Women Who Made England by MJ Porter

Synopsis: Throughout the tenth century, England, as it would be recognised today, formed. No longer many Saxon kingdoms, but rather, just England. Yet, this development masks much in the century in which the Viking raiders were seemingly driven from England’s shores by Alfred, his children and grandchildren, only to return during the reign of his great, great-grandson, the much-maligned Æthelred II.

Not one but two kings would be murdered, others would die at a young age, and a child would be named king on four occasions. Two kings would never marry, and a third would be forcefully divorced from his wife. Yet, the development towards ‘England’ did not stop. At no point did it truly fracture back into its constituent parts. Who then ensured this stability? To whom did the witan turn when kings died, and children were raised to the kingship?

The royal woman of the House of Wessex came into prominence during the century, perhaps the most well-known being Æthelflæd, daughter of King Alfred. Perhaps the most maligned being Ælfthryth (Elfrida), accused of murdering her stepson to clear the path to the kingdom for her son, Æthelred II, but there were many more women, rich and powerful in their own right, where their names and landholdings can be traced in the scant historical record.

Using contemporary source material, The Royal Women Who Made England can be plucked from the obscurity that has seen their names and deeds lost, even within a generation of their own lives.

~ ~ ~

MJ Porter brings to life some of the many royal women who inhabited 10th Century Anglo Saxon England. An the author of a number of historical fiction books set in this era, it should come as no surprise that this tome should be the germination of much of that self-same research.

"The Royal Women Who Made England" covers are number of areas such as royal brides, religious women, and women who have married into the royal family from areas both within and without England. There is a handy group of resources from family trees to wills and charters, and the women covered off stem from King Alfred unto Aethelred II.

However ..... it it the set up, the structure, of the tome that has me at odds. We begin with a brief history of the period and a list of royal women covered off by the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) database. Then the succeeding chapters diversify, providing biographies of the leading ladies of the period. There is a chapter dedicated to legal documents to and from these women, before concluding with a further set of biographical information of these women.

So my bug-bears with this book:

• the multiple uses of the following phrases: must have, probably, believed, often said, possibly, it appears,might have, the suggestions, potentially;
• the disjointed repetitiveness of the biographical information provided (especially for someone coming into this green)

A suggested structure may have looked like:

• introduction into the period covering off a short who's who of notable (men) connected to each woman followed by a purely biographical dictionary of the women (which might have eliminated the repeated biographical information provided in the relevant chapter then again at the end)

And then this final comment from Porter, who says that in writing this tome and presenting the lives of these women, she has "... drawn on my imagination when considering what their part might have been, for not to do so, would make it impossible to realise them as real people ...". I'm sorry, what??? Are you writing fact or fiction?? Are you using fiction to prop up fact?? What are you telling me - the reader - about this tome? I am left rather gobsmacked.

To put it bluntly, it is no easy task to place any of these women (with a few exceptions) at the forefront of Anglo Saxons politics, and certainly not in any firm role that would have shaped the destiny of England. Their role as wives, mothers, daughters, patrons, religious, was no different from many women of royal ruling houses - either before, after or contemporary. As I have said previously, its all well and good to bring forth a tome on a notable person, but to ascribe to them more than their due is being disingenuous to the reader.

As with a number of other books on notable women from this particular publisher, the author pool appears to be drawn from the blog-o-sphere and the presentation of the tomes in question reads like a collation of related blog posts, cobbled together with the sheerest thread of commonality. And it is disappointing that this book may well find its way into that same grouping. It is disappointing that this may be my last from this publisher.