This is the story of Berengaria of Navarre who was the wife and Queen of Richard the Lionheart, King of England. While I knew quite a lot about Richard and his life I did not know much if anything about his wife and this was a good book to get that info. I really enjoyed learning about Berengaria and her trials and troubles being married to Richard. Even though she was Queen of England she never set foot there. ( )

I enjoyed this book. However it is combination of historic fact and valid conjecture and it is not clear how much of it is fact, or how accurate those facts are. Richard I is a very well known historical figure, unfortunately his wife, Berengaria was not. I am sure that this posed quite a problem for the author. Some of Richard’s biographers don’t mention even her and others state that their marriage was never consummated. Did the author take full advantage of her material? I really don’t know. Are all of the facts accurate, were important facts/events skipped over? I don’t know enough of the time period to know.

The only thing that niggled in the back of my mind as I read this is - where are all of the people? She lived in a castle with a handful of people? She slept in her room alone? A princess and a Queen with so few servants? I can maybe buy this on the trip to meet Richard, and on crusade, but after that? Who did the laundry, washed the floors? We take so much for granted in modern times, in the times before refrigeration and electricity things took a lot longer. Shopping wasn’t a one stop deal, you didn’t take a car, and everything took a great deal of time. In fact even in recent history laundry was an all day affair.

If you are looking for a scholarly book on Berengaria this is not it. If you want to get a feel of what Berengaria’s life may have been like or want to read a good story, then you will enjoy this book.
DS ( )