Book news: Some books due this autumn

With autumn approaching it seems this year’s book harvest will be a rather rich one. Among the most interesting titles expected in the coming months is Dynastiet Glücksburg - En danmarkshistorie (“The Glücksburg Dynasty: A History of Denmark”) by the historian Jes Fabricius Møller, a political history of the current Danish royal house which is due to be published by Gad at the end of September. The history of the Danish monarchy will also be covered in a new work on the tombs of Danish kings, Danske kongegrave, which is also due this autumn.
The King of Sweden is celebrating his fortieth anniversary on the throne in September, which is the occasion for the book Mina 40 år för Sverige (“My Forty Year for Sweden”), which consists of some 300 photos from the past four decades to which the King has added his comments.
Queen Silvia is probably not looking forward to the publication later this month of Erik Åsard’s book Drottningens hemlighet (“The Queen’s Secret”), which again addresses the issue of her father’s membership of the German Nazi party and his actions during the Second World War.
That war will also be at the centre of the sixth volume of Tor Bomann-Larsen’s biography of King Haakon VII of Norway, which will be published in mid-October and which will take the story from June to September 1940. The events of that crucial year will obviously also be addressed in Halvdan Koht - Veien mot framtiden (“Halvdan Koht: The Road to the Future”), the historian Åsmund Svendsen’s biography of the eminent historian Halvdan Koht, who served as foreign minister in Johan Nygaardsvold’s government and consequently had to accept some of the blame for Norway’s being poorly prepared for the German invasion on 9 April 1940.
The upcoming centenary of the outbreak of the First World War has already led to a number of books. One which seems particularly promising is The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War by the historian Margaret MacMillan, who is perhaps best known for her book on the Paris peace conference of 1919. That book will be out at the middle of October. The military historian Max Hastings will give his version of those events in Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, to be published in September.
The First World War was unleashed by the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian thrones, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg. Their story is told by Greg King and Sue Woolmans in The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder that Changed the World, which is due to be published in September.
The lead-up to the Second World War sets the stage for Peter Conradi’s Hot Dogs and Cocktails: When FDR Met King George VI at Hyde Park on Hudson, which relates the story of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain’s visit to the United States and its president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1939. Peter Conradi, a journalist at Sunday Times, is best known as the author of The King’s Speech, the book behind the Academy Award-winning film, but has also written The Great Survivors: How Monarchy Made it into the Twenty-First Century, an interesting book (so far published in English, French, Swedish and Dutch) on the European monarchies of today.
The long-awaited second volume of Philip G. Dwyer’s biography of Emperor Napoléon I of France, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power, 1799-1815, will be published in early November.
This week will see the publication of a new biography of Mary Queen of Scots, Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots, by Linda Porter, who has earlier written acclaimed biographies of Queen Mary I of England and Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII’s six queens.
Also out this week is Axel & Margaretha: A Royal Couple, written by the Danish journalist Randi Buchwaldt and published by Rosvall Royal Books. This richly illustrated book tells the story of Prince Axel and Princess Margaretha of Denmark, who played more significant parts in the lives of the Scandinavian royal families than their fairly remote genealogical positions would suggest.
The life of Queen Christina after her abdication in 1654 is the topic of Drottning utan land - Kristina i Rom by the historian Erik Petersson, which will be published in September. The book, which is the 28-year-old author’s fourth, is the sequel to his earlier book on Queen Christina’s reign, Maktspelerskan (2011).
November will see the publication of a biography of Princess Louise of Britain, Duchess of Argyll, the somewhat unconventional daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain. The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria’s Rebellious Daughter is written by Lucinda Hawksley.

New books: A stunning book on the British crown jewels

When Queen Elizabeth II of Britain recently visited Westminster Abbey she was shown the Coronation Chair, which was being restored, and remarked that she had not actually seen it since sitting in it on 2 June 1953. With Elizabeth II in the second half of her eighties, the Coronation Chair being restored is of course a sign of the fact that the next British coronation is approaching. Perhaps this is also the context in which one should see the publication of a two-volume, scholarly work on the British crown jewels in 2008 and now another book on the same topic aiming at a more general public.
The Crown Jewels by historian Anna Keay, who is curatorial director of English Heritage, was published by Thames & Hudson in cooperation with the Royal Collection and Historic Royal Palaces at the end of last year and is a stunningly beautiful book in its design and choice of high-quality illustrations.
They include many paintings showing the splendours of past state occasions, but also other historical illustrations as well as close-up photographs of the items in the crown jewels collection, whole pieces as well as details. A clever touch has been to bring together several items of regalia to be photographed together for comparison, for instance the crowns of Queens Alexandra, Mary and Elizabeth, or the Imperial State Crown from 1937 alongside the now empty frames of the state crowns from 1838 and 1714.
The well-written text takes the reader on a chronological journey through the history of British crown jewels and regalia, starting with the so-called “Mill Hill warrior”, the body of an Iron Age king dating to 200-150 BC who was found by archaeologists in 1988, wearing on his head the earliest known English crown.
Three chapters are dedicated to early English regalia, but it is a sad fact that the 12th century coronation spoon is the only medieval item in the collection. The other older crown jewels were melted down when the country became a republic following the execution of Charles I in 1649.
New regalia thus had to be made when his son Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 and Keay points out how one was so keen to link these new regalia to their lost medieval predecessors that one recreated even pieces one did not know what were supposed to be used for.
Several pieces have been added also in the centuries following the restoration and they are all covered by this book. Sadly, several grand pieces are no longer in existence or survive simply as empty frames, such as the dazzling all-diamond crown commissioned by George IV for his coronation in 1821, which was set with hired jewels subsequently returned to the jeweller.
Other pieces have fallen into disuse, such as the crown made for James II’s wife, Mary of Modena, which William IV’s Queen Adelaide thought unsuitable for use. Every queen consort since then has had a new crown made for her, although Queen Mary had intended that the exquisite crown she had made in 1911 should be the permanent crown of queens consort. However, when it became clear that she intended to attend the coronation of her son George VI in 1937 and wear that crown (without its arches), a new crown had to be made for her daughter-in-law Elizabeth.
The book also deals with the items which are not strictly speaking regalia, but are kept with them in the Tower and thus counted as crown jewels, such as the splendid tableware used for the coronation banquets, baptismal fonts and other items intended for the royal chapels, processional swords and maces. Thus the book also serves as some sort of splendid catalogue of the items one will see on a visit to the Tower of London.
“While the Crown Jewels are unquestionably impressive in their own right [...] it is their use at great ceremonial occasions that gives them their real power. The objects in the collection were not designed to be viewed in the solitary splendour of a glass case, but to play in the ensemble orchestra of royal ritual”, the author observes on the penultimate page of the book. My only objection to this book is precisely that it does not say much about the actual use of the crown jewels.
For instance, Keay does note that St Edward’s crown, until then used for the actual crowning but replaced with the state crown before the monarch left the Abbey, ceased to be used by the early eighteenth century, a practice which was only revived by George V in 1911. But otherwise we hear little about the regalia’s use for other occasions than coronations.
My first “personal acquaintance” with the British regalia was seeing the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother resting on top of her coffin at her lying-in-state in Westminster Hall. But although Keay tells us that St Edward’s crown was placed on the coffin of Edward VII, Queen Victoria’s small diamond crown on hers and a replica of the state crown on Charles II’s the reader is left to wonder if crowns being placed on royal coffins have been a common practice and if so for how long.
Similarly one may wonder how old the tradition of wearing the crown at state openings of parliament is. The current practice dates only to George V and 1913, but was this the invention of a tradition or had crowns been worn to Parliament by earlier monarchs?
A more thorough treatment of the use of the regalia than just a word here and there would have served to bring the regalia to life, so to speak, and also give a fuller picture of their symbolical and ceremonial meaning.

New books: British royal portraiture

The British Royal Collection is not only the most masterpiece-studded art collection of any reigning monarch (perhaps only Liechtenstein can rival it), but also at the top of its league when it comes to publishing a wide range of books and catalogues dealing with the collection.
Their latest publication, The Royal Portrait: Image and Impact by Jennifer Scott, assistant curator of paintings, came out in September and is a richly illustrated volume of 200 pages which deals with the traditions of royal portraiture in Britain.
This is naturally a vast topic and after a first chapter on early English royal portraits, going back to the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, the author chooses to focus on some periods of time when the art of royal portraiture was of particular significance or interest – those of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Charles I and Charles II, George III, Victoria and Elizabeth II.
This means that all reigns and all epochs are not covered as thoroughly and that the book is thus somewhat incomplete. Yet this selection is understandable considering the book’s format.
It also appears to be a good choice of epochs to focus on – Sir Oliver Millar, a former Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures described the era of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as “the last moderately heroic chapter in the history of royal patronage and taste in this country”, while another former Surveyor, Christopher Lloyd, has pointed out that the Royal Collection contains “nothing of true significance after 1900”. However, Queen Elizabeth II has probably sat for more portrait than any other monarch of our times (Queen Margrethe II being a possible exception) and thus justifies being included in this book.
What I miss are some more thoughts on how the arts have been used to legitimise the position of monarchs and a more comparative perspective relating to international tendencies. As it is, the book is almost entirely dedicated to English and British developments with very few glances at how this related to other contemporary courts.
The book’s somewhat disengaged, “official” character sometimes shines through, such as when the author includes a “paparazzo portrayal of Prince William and Prince Harry off-duty, sitting together at a rugby match” as an example of “methods [...] more opportunistic than artistic” but makes no mention of Kate Middleton’s presence next to Prince William, which probably had a lot to say for the media interest in this particular photo, or when the 2006 film The Queen is described as “loosely based on factual events and at times sensitively done”, yet “in fact imaginary”.
Despite these weaknesses the book, which seems to be aimed mostly at the general public, does provide a good overall survey of the history and development of British royal portraiture.

New books: Charles II and the Restoration

This month sees the 350th anniversary of the Restoration, when the republic came to an end and Charles II returned from France to recover the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. Jenny Uglow’s book A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration is a wonderful account of that momentous year and the following decade.
The author of prize-winning biographies of William Hogarth and Elizabeth Gaskell, Uglow offers a tour de force of Restoration England – the King and the Queen, the mistresses and the ministers, the politics and the wars, the theatre and the church, the palace and the court; in short nearly everything you may want to know about the world of Charles II in the first decade of his reign.
There is not one dull page in this book, which is also beautifully designed. I have only one reservation about it, namely that it is not longer. This may seem an odd thing to say about a book running to 580 pages, but I really cannot see a reason for limiting the book to only the first decade of Charles II’s 25 years on the throne.
Restorations of dynasties or monarchies are always fascinating episodes in history, with their chances of making a fresh start or doing the same things wrong all over again. The Stuart Restoration may be a prime example of this: While Charles II remained on the throne throughout a quarter of a century, his brother and successor James II blew it all in three years. What was it that made Charles II a success and James II a failure?
One can only hope that Jenny Uglow may feel inspired to write another volume on the years after 1670.