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The King Concubine A Novel of Alice Perrers Anne O'Brien Books

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The King Concubine A Novel of Alice Perrers Anne O'Brien Books

For the past 6 months, I've become engrossed in everything to do with the medieval time periods of 1100-1500, as can be seen by all the books I've bought from Amazon! This historical fiction book was very interesting and well-written. Because women were thought to be little more than men's property, there isn't much actual historical documents and facts about them, but this author makes good use of what findings there are about Alice Perrers. She also gives you a feel of what life was like back then. It isn't a mushy romantic book, and that was a huge plus. I would put this historical fiction on a level of 9 out of 10 for this genre; she uses what facts there are, she made Alice seem real, and there wasn't mush (heaving bosoms and the like). I'm glad I bought it.


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The King Concubine A Novel of Alice Perrers Anne O'Brien Books Reviews

It's always interesting to see what an author will do with a notorious figure. Alice Perrers has not been treated well by historians; she has been pretty much cast as a grasping, avaricious she-wolf who took advantage of a failing Edward III, taking control of the government in his name. Or something like that. I always wondered how a king’s mistress could wield so much power in the middle ages. I don’t know much of her story, and it was fun to see how Anne O’Brien would make her into a credible character.

Apparently Alice came from an inauspicious beginning, socked away in a nunnery like an abandoned waif. But she was a spunky thing and got herself noticed by no less than the Queen of England, who came to the nunnery for her health. Surprisingly, Queen Philippa later remembered her and summoned Alice to court, to become one of her maids. Of course, Philippa had something else in mind, and Alice found herself to be the King’s plaything as well, placed under the King’s nose by his doting spouse who was no longer well enough to perform her wifely duties. It seemed Philippa preferred that her husband take up with someone of her choosing—someone she could control—rather than risk losing him altogether. It was sort of Philippa and Alice’s secret, though everyone else was scandalized. And Alice was branded for the rest of her life.

Not that her life was bad; Edward liked his mistress very well and showered her with gifts and land. She knew how to take care of herself and proceeded to sock away valuables and manors against the day the King would leave her. How was she to know that after Philippa’s death the King would start to fail, himself? Formidable at the height of his powers, poor Edward fell prey to dementia in his old age, throwing the country into chaos. For his heir, Edward the Black Prince, was dying at the same time and Richard, the next in line was only a child. Alice found herself in the role of nursemaid, trying to protect the king against intrusions that would invariably make his condition worse. While all this was going on, she allied herself with the somewhat disreputable William de Windsor, diplomat and soldier who never took offense at her rebuffs. Although she did not trust him at the beginning, he proved himself her best friend and protector. She would come to need him beyond her wildest fears.

What wasn’t clear in this book was exactly why everyone hated her so much (except, I suppose, for the influence a mistress would have over a king). What did she do to incur such vicious reprisals? There was some suggestion that she might have acquired a manor or two under questionable circumstances, but I didn’t see a whole lot of arbitrary wielding of power. She seemed to spend all of her time in the background. It’s certainly possible that her “crimes” were not well recorded and the author didn’t have much to work with. That wouldn’t surprise me. It’s apparent that Alice was an opportunist, yet at the end she was an unchampioned woman in a man’s world. She found herself abandoned by the men of power who threw her away when they no longer needed her. Her inevitable downfall was more pathetic than explosive, and I felt nothing of the satisfaction I might have expected from a deserving villain. I have a feeling that Alice would have recognized any modern woman in power, whose talents go unappreciated because she is just too much of a threat to the establishment.
Author O'Brien hits all the right notes in this fictionalized version of the life of the notorious Alice Perrers, mistress of the aging King Edward III. Alice has been portrayed unsympathetically throughout history, probably due to reports from her contemporaries of her greed and avaricious behavior. What's more realistic is she committed the cardinal sin (at the time) of being smart and business-savvy. In order to protect her future and her children, she began investing in land and manors - in other words, real estate, according to this book long before she even met the king. She became wealthier than many of those around her, and of course on the king's death, she had to be brought down. Fortunately she'd married a man who was her soul mate, strong, practical, and a best friend.

Alice is pictured as a woman ahead of her time - feisty, independent, unsinkable. This book was a delight after I had tried to read an earlier novel of her life by the usually excellent Vanora Bennett, which I found abysmally uninteresting. Ms. O'Brien's book is a pleasure to read....
For the past 6 months, I've become engrossed in everything to do with the medieval time periods of 1100-1500, as can be seen by all the books I've bought from ! This historical fiction book was very interesting and well-written. Because women were thought to be little more than men's property, there isn't much actual historical documents and facts about them, but this author makes good use of what findings there are about Alice Perrers. She also gives you a feel of what life was like back then. It isn't a mushy romantic book, and that was a huge plus. I would put this historical fiction on a level of 9 out of 10 for this genre; she uses what facts there are, she made Alice seem real, and there wasn't mush (heaving bosoms and the like). I'm glad I bought it.