The Royal Stuarts: A History of the Family That Shaped Britain

This book focuses on the foundational Stewarts until the recognized legitimate Stuart royal line went extinct in the early Nineteenth Century. Naturally the book is hampered by a paucity of written records in the earlier centuries as well as space constraints; by necessity condensed into a single volume of manageable length. It could not possibly achieve in-depth detail on par with the multi-volume set The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon. Seen in those lights the brief overviews and scope of body of work is an ambitious undertaking and earns a grade of ‘E’ for effort.Unfortunately, there are glaring mistakes of omission and commission.The Gunpowder plot is glossed over in Chapter 10. This is inexplicable, given the seriousness of the treason. Moreover, Guy Fawkes events continue to be observed in the UK. Quite simply, it should have been covered.Chapter 9 about Mary Queen of Scots is the worst part of all and needs massive re-writing. As an amateur history buff I have read a considerable amount about the War of the Roses and Tudor periods. The apologist author follows the well-worn trope of poor victimized, tragic sufferer. One almost gets the sense of a gallant knight patting the femme fatale’s hand in a patronizing fashion saying “there, there little lady” and handing her a handkerchief, as if being beautiful and charming should have been enough. Well, no. As it turns out, that’s not enough. People who are egotistical or outright pathologically narcissistic may present as being charismatic, but that does not mean that they possess the requisite skill set - to include keen insight - to become effective leaders. The reality is that Mary Queen of Scots was politically inept and responsive for her own downfall. She often displayed an appalling lack of judgment, which impacted her personally and monarchically. She made decisions that could only have been rightly construed as provocative to Elizabeth I’s reign.The copyright took place a dozen years ago, and the book would benefit enormously by a new edition.The book cover itself is misleading. Mary Queen of Scots was not the elder sister of Charles II and James VII & II. She was their great-grandmother. Even different clothing styles should have been self-evident.The only accuracies of the book cover are that Charles was the elder brother of James, and that James Edward Stuart begat Bonnie Prince Charlie. The cover violates genealogical conventions where lines are drawn intentionally to depict specific familial relationships. Such egregious errors at the outset undermine confidence in scholarly content.Family trees are included at the beginning, and one would expect that the flagrant errors should have been caught. It’s fine to take artistic license and randomly sprinkle portraits across the cover, but they should not be presented incorrectly.I could not find any written acknowledgments of the portraits shown being courtesy of _____ (fill in the blank) collection. Such attribution is customary in works such as these.The greatest value in the book are the Notes and Sources as well as Index sections in the back, which are valuable tools for further reading.

In just 53 years, certainly in the lifetime of many people now living, the English monarchy will observe the jubilee of its first 1,000 years. That would be in 2066 and remembering William the Conqueror and the Norman invasion in 1066 and all that. Sitting on the throne of the United Kingdom at the time will likely be George, who was born and christened this very year, the seventh of that royal name if he chooses to use it. It is called the United Kingdom because it includes other lands than England, paramount among them Scotland which is a crown so old that, unlike the English crown, its origin is lost in the mists of time and of mythology. This wonderful book tells the tale of the Stuarts, by far the most fascinating branch of the family tree that ruled Scotland and whose descendants rule the United Kingdom today.The Stuarts begin in 1371 with the reign of Robert II, at a time when Scots kings were more like terrible tribal warlords than monarchs with kingly dignity. The first proper Renaissance king of Scotland was James IV (1488-1513), who died in war against England at the famously disastrous battle of Flodden, where the flower of Scots aristocracy fell with him. He was followed quickly by the tyrannical James V, the famous Mary Queen of Scots that Elizabeth of England had executed for treason, and then James VI of Scotland who became James I of England and united the crowns of the two lands forever. This happened because, by way of dynastic politics, his great-grandfather James IV married Margaret Tudor, the daughter of Henry VII of England. When Henry VIII's daughter Elizabeth died never having married, James of Scotland, son of the hated Mary, became king of England and Scotland. And in case you ever wondered how a rather obscure family in Hannover, Germany come to be the current occupants of the throne, that is also because of the Stuarts. The granddaughter of that same James VI and I married the Elector of Hannover and many years later (in 1714), their son was the person who had the nearest blood claim to the throne, and he reigned as George I. The Elizabeth II who reigns now is his direct descendant, and so are Charles, William and the infant George, who are next after her in the present royal succession. The improbable dynasty begins its fourth century next year.It is all a fascinating story and it is told here brilliantly by Massie. I have long been a reader and fan of his, and he writes regularly for what is arguably now the world's finest publication, The Spectator of England. The story of the Stuarts is a story of tyranny and tragedy, great passion and great cruelty, love and sex and treason and death. Their story is dripping with drama, so Massie tells it with a cool and detached dryness. Of speculation that the marriage of James III was a love match, for example, he writes: "A few of the Stewarts [the spelling of the family name was changed later] were faithful husbands, even uxorious, though most of them were not." That is a wry understatement. James IV had a retainer who was an Italian alchemist and whom he had hired to discover the "elixir of life". Much Scots whisky was involved in these researches and he was under the influence of it when he unwisely tried to fly from the battlements of Stirling Castle in 1507 using some homemade wings. Massie records drily: "The design of the wings proved inadequate."Of course, it is with Mary Queen of Scots and James and then the great, swashbuckling Stuarts of the 17th Century that the story becomes especially fascinating and familiar. The lives of the latter Stuarts are famously and brilliantly told by Macaulay in his multi-volume series The History England. This is one of those old masterpieces that are so very difficult for a modern reader to digest but which repay the effort handsomely. I know it is too much for many people, so if you want the whole story told in fine detail and with urbane concision, The Royal Stuarts is the book for you.

This is a Family history of my favorite Royal dynasty,the tumultuous Royal House of Stewart who later became the Royal House of Stuart after the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1565, by acclaimed historical biographer Allan Massie. This book explores in seventeen dramatic chapters the events and reigns of this enduring and turbulent dynasty. From the first Scottish Stewart monarch King Robert II reigned 1371-90 through to the exiled Jacobite Stuart king James III and VII who did not die until 1766! and 65 years of exile and misery! This book is exhaustively researched and refreshingly good humored as it chronicles the many reigns of these often troubled monarchs who led dramatic and often bloody lives. In particular, the executions of Mary in 1587 and her Grand-son Charles I in 1649 after the divisive and bloody English Civil war (1642-48) which led to the premature exile of the Stuarts who returned to rule once more in 1660 after the break-up of the Republican Regime following the death of dictator Oliver Cromwell in 1658. There are other key events, such as the Glorious revolution of 1688-89 in both Scotland and England which are detailed in this lively and engrossing study of this tempestuous family. In particular each reign is analysed in-depth and with a balanced view not over critical or too sympathetic in its approach which is good given the complexity of the reigns and the truly seismic events which happened in many of these reigns changing the face of England forever in some instances! such as the Parliamentarian victory in The English Civil war which ended in 1646. I found this book engrossing changing many of the preconceptions I had previously had on this famous Dynasty. This is a wonderful read, history at its best on a colorful, lively ultimately tragic Dynasty which you will love from beginning to end!

I was not very interested in the Scottish Monarchs but found the chapters devoted to English Monarchs very good. Each chapter devoted to each Monarch gave excellent portraits of each of the Monarchs. Too often historians put down everything they know and the character and the story of the main subjects of the book gets lost. Whereas Massie illustrates the characters of the Monarchs very well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this fairly short ( at 330 pages) of the Stuarts and learned a lot about the Scottish Kings before Mary Queen of Scots, as well as those who became kings of England as well. This is a very engagingly written book, as a readable as one of Alan Massie's novels, and was for me an excellent introduction to the period and to various Stewart monarchs (crowed and uncrowned). I will want to learn more about all them now

My daughter will be studying the Stuarts next year for her A level so I bought this so I can 'argue' with her and discuss the subjects raised. I know a bit already but there's no harm in reading more. I like the way each chapter deals with one of the Stuarts, this is good as each chapter can be read on its own when you need a recap. I've not read it all yet and am currently on Mary Queen of Scots.

A fascinating and informative history of the Stuarts from their origins in the salt marshes of Brittany through their good fortune to be in the right place at the right time when they gained their first foothold on the Crown of Scotland. The account takes one right through to the usurpation of the Crown by William and Mary and on to the two wretched efforts of the dynasty to recover the lost throne.