Catherine Nall

They sent me the wrong book. I ordered a nice anthology of plays. Somewhere out there is a version of me that got the latest Stephen King, but I got looks, charm, and this pharmaceutical grade soporific.

Well, I’m not one to turn my nose up at a free book so I have given it a go and it’s not as bad as it looks. It’s a political tract from 1475. Basically, the Duke of Normandy (the English king Edward IV) has lost Normandy to the bloody French and Worcester has written this book for him in an attempt to convince him to invade France again. The first half of the book is legalistic, citing precedent (all the way back to the Romans) and there’s a fair bit in here which would be of use to historians as a primary source. I am not a historian. The manuscript was annotated by someone for the use of a later king, but only in this first half so it must have been the information on logistics and money dating back to the English occupation of Normandy that was of interest to the government at the time. As the book progresses it turns into almost a specula principum as Worcester wanders off the point and seems to be applying for a position of government advisor. This was more interesting to me, and all the way through the book there interesting bits. For the interested non-historian there are probably more user friendly books out there that can deliver the information.

As usual with these EETS books the whole thing is really well done. Really full, excellent notes. Much fuller than usual in these editions. There’s enough for you to jump in without drowning as long as you have a vague outline of English history. The introduction also much fuller than usual. The usual technical stuff but the editors also find space to sound human at times. They say that this fullness is because the text needs it, and so it does, but I suspect that they had the space to expand and still come in under budget because the text itself is only eighty pages long.… (mehr)