Charles Spencer, Earl SpencerReseñas

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS DETAILS OF SEVERE CHILD ABUSE AND RESULTING LIFE-LONG TRAUMA. READ BOTH THE BOOK AND MY REVIEW WITH CARE.

I've not thought about Charles Spencer since he gave the eulogy at the funeral of his sister, Princess Diana. Occasionally my Instagram feed shows me pictures of his grand home in Northamptonshire, Althorp, where Diana is buried. He's the 9th Earl Spencer now, on his third wife, and the father of seven children.

Born into immense privilege, I assumed that his life was a relatively happy one. I was so incredibly wrong. Sent to boarding school at age eight, his sufferings at the hands of the staff at Maidwell Hall make for excruicating listening. (I listened to the audiobook.) I did not realize that there were such hells in boarding schools. The almost-daily physical abuse, the persistent sexual abuse, and constant bullying from both teachers and peers made this the most upsetting book I've ever read. Forty years on, Mr. Spencer has scars on his buttocks, so cruel and heavy the punishment, and the deep psychological scars he bears have affected his life in every conceivable way.

I don't know what the upper middle class and the peerage of the UK are thinking when they send small boys away from every comfort, every loving face and embrace, every freedom, into boarding schools. Even schools without institutionalised abuse must seem so cold and bleak and unfriendly to little boys who have never before spent a night away from their families, their pets, their bedrooms. I think it's barbaric.

The book is very detailed as pertains to the abuse. I can't fathom a young woman sexually molesting young boys, having plied them first with kindness and lots of candy. The other staff musst have known about all the forms of abuse going on, and not one person spoke up for the boys. It's criminal, it's haunting.

My apologies if there are typos or spelling mishaps in this review. I keep bursting into tearrs, and it's hard to type through watering eyes.

The book is exceptionally well-written, intelligent, descriptive, and it flowed beautifully. It was also read by Earl Spencer, who has a nice voice and good diction. I'm impressed by the bravery of Mr. Spencer, who reveals so much about his life then and now, and the many other Maidwell Hall survivors, who have spoken to the author and allowed their names to be attached to the book.

Be careful reading it. It was informative and interesting and absolute hell. I grant it a full five stars.

This was a raw, emotional account of Charles Spencer's years at Maidwell Hall, a private boarding school for boys in Northamptonshire. I read this book in a day. It's absolutely riveting. It's shocking that things went on as they did. I understand that, since the publication of Lord Spencer's memoir, the school has turned themselves in to the local council. I will follow that story with interest.

A heartbreaking, gut-wrenching story of a young boy's seeming abandonment at a place of horror and terror. Very well-written.½

Good but a little brief and general in some respects. At other times too, the book's narrative seemed to move entirely too fast which may be a benefit for some readers but wasn't to my taste.

The White Ship by Charles Spencer is a thorough account of the events leading up to the dumping of dozens of nobles into the dark and frigid waters of the English channel. As if England were not in a precarious state before these events, it surely was afterwards. The author does a good job of setting up the events by scaling back the timeline to William the Conqueror. This in turn gives us an idea of how much the actual death of the sole heir to the Crown would create a series of holes and fracture in the Kingdom. Some readers have criticized the author because much of the book has very little to do with the actual sinking of the ship, but that is a cats tail when it comes to history and attempting to explain events and round them out. For fans of English History this book is highly recommended and will make a nice addition to anyone’s library while imparting a sense of empathy for those involved. Was the accident preventable, was it because of tunnel vision and typical royal behavior? Yes and no. All in all the tragedy was a vast oversight due to negligence. Although as several reviewers have mentioned. This book is a ball of tightly wound rubber bands of characters that gets bigger and bigger and bouncier and bouncier as it progesses. The sheer amount of people involved in this is astounding, but then again that is expected with the space the story occupies. Be ready for crossed eyes by the time you are done. But do not allow that to take away from the value of the book. This is by no means a Dan Jones book, but then again it was not meant to be. There is without a doubt something to be learned from not only The White Ship, but the state of mind regarding the time period, people involved and the geography of the situation. The cause and effect literally changed the course of the world and the direction not only of a continent but how the countries involved would move forward (sometimes backwards) through the ages. This is Black Adder meets Game of thrones in a manner that is far from humorous, but deadly apparent.

This is a comprehensive book about the events leading up to the Anarchy, including the wars up to the coronation of Henry II. It's almost a biography of Henry I, and the sinking of the White Ship is covered in that context. The result of losing about 200 people, many royal or noble, was catastrophic in England and northern France, especially the death of Henry I's heir, William.
If you've been watching the tv series, The House of Dragons, this is the material that the show is based on - very roughly. Obviously, there were no dragons in medieval England, but George RR Martin used the people and events liberally in writing his fantasy.
Mr. Spencer has done a good job of covering the history of that era. Occasionally he gets very detailed - probably too much for an average reader - but I enjoy English history, so I can understand most of it. This is a must-read for those who want to know more about the Conquest and era leading up to the Plantagenets.

One review of the book states that it is just as gripping as a thriller. I beg to differ. The writing style is scholarly and while it tells a part of English history most of us are unfamiliar with, it was rather dull. I was expecting the book to be about a ship that sank at sea and wondered whether there would be some mystery concerning the sinking. The ship didn't sink until the halfway point in the story and the book was really about King Henry 1.

Spenser packs a lot into this book. A couple of times I felt overwhelmed by the number of names and relationships* (for example, there are so many Matildas!), but I enjoyed it and will never forget Henry I, his daughter Empress Matilda, or the idiocy that sunk the White Ship 901 years ago on 25 November 1120.

I’d actually like to read more about Empress Matilda. Anyone have reading recommendations?

* Spencer does a good job of reminding the reader who’s who, it just took some extra brain power to keep them all organized in my mind.

Charles Spencer (brother of Diana, Princess of Wales). I'd probably give it higher marks but for a couple reasons. I'm not too familiar with 17th century English history. The first half is background not the 'Great Escape' and I was totally lost in a jungle of names and places and events that are unfamiliar. The escape itself has a few dramatic scenes but nothing super amazing. Finally, I read it via audiobook making it impossible to slow down and look stuff up or backtrack to fill in. So yeah, my fault, probably a great book, not for me right now. I really enjoyed Spencer's White Ship.½

This book provides a brief account of the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649 in the English Civil War, and more specifically the roles and later fates of the 80 or so prominent men involved in some way in the death of Charles I, whether as part of the commission that tried him, being a signatory to the death warrant or being involved in the mechanics of the execution itself. This was well researched, with some interesting individual life stories, but it made for quite depressing reading, with the unslakeable desire for vengeance on the part of the restored Monarchy from 1660 in pursuing this group of people throughout England, across the continent and even to the New World in some cases, bringing them back, in most cases, to face the most hideous execution of being hanged, drawn and quartered, after a perfunctory or even no trial. There were huge political issues at stake here on both sides of course, with the Divine Right of Kings on the one hand, versus the right of Parliament to circumscribe the powers of a monarch and develop some sort of parliamentary democracy and liberty, on the other. Some might assume that the author, being related to the royal family, will instinctively be on the side of the royalists, but in fact he regards the regicides as "extremely brave" people who "deserve...to be remembered with respect for their sacrifices."

This book describes the life and death of Henry I of England’s only legitimate male heir to the throne, William AEthling. William died in the wreck of the White Ship, along with many of the young noble elite. Following this disaster and Henry’s death, England fell into anarchy as rule of the country was fought over by forces supporting either Stephen (Henry’s nephew) or Matilda (Henry’s daughter, to whom Henry’s barons were asked to swear loyalty). The writing was fine, and I appreciated the visible endnoting of direct quotes. However, it took me a while to pick up and I didn’t feel compelled to finish it before the library wanted it back, so it’s a 3-star for me.

Narrative history of events of Henry I and his children, with the sinking of the White Ship occurring nearly exactly half-way through. It is the pivot point on which the fortunes of Henry rise and then fall. Spencer makes the case it had repercussions for the rest of the Middle Ages and even to the present. Henry lost his male heir, was unable to create another, allowing the mixing of a new royal house the Plantagenet ie. the houses of Lancaster and York, leading to the Wars of the Roses, Tudors, and so on. It's a reasonable argument, but also counter-factual "what if", which historians sometimes like to emphasize to demonstrate how important an event was. In the same way certain battles are pivotal to broader history. Hard to imagine another ship sinking more influential to English history. And it was so stupid, like tripping and breaking you neck, or getting hit by a bus, we look for meaning but find only banality and lady fortune for consolation. Spencer has managed to make a decent book with it at the core.

Excellent read, I knew little about Blenheim or the Duke of Marlborough save that he was Winston Churchill's ancestor, but this book is well-written and informative. In 1706, a joint English-Austrian-Dutch army led by John Churchill and Eugene of Savoy decisively defeated a much stronger Franco-Bavarian army near a little village in Bavaria called Blenheim. The defeat ended Louis XVI's dreams of a French-dominated Europe. The book covers the background and lead-up to the battle, looking into the character of the main protagonists, particularly the brilliantly talented Churchill, who was made Duke of Marlborough by a grateful nation, and built Blenheim, the palace where his most notable descendant was born. The author however is careful to also record the experience of the ordinary soldiers by including diary accounts and letters. A wonderfully written book to be relished by all lovers of combat in past eras.

This is an account of a 900 year old shipwreck that had a profound effect on English history, leading to civil war and anarchy on a scale that was unprecedented in British history (or at least as far as we know, given that we know comparatively little, for example, about the chaos that must have took place during the vacuum after the Roman legions left 700 years earlier). The White Ship was an advanced craft for 1120, and it was piloted by an experienced captain, whose father had captained the flagship of King Henry I's father William the Conqueror when he had invaded England 54 years earlier. But disaster ensued on a rock off the coast of Barfleur in Normandy on a freezing cold late November night, sending almost all the 300 or so passengers and crew to the bottom of the Channel, including King Henry's only legitimate son and heir, William, two of his numerous illegitimate children (several of whom who were fairly important figures in their own right) and a significant chunk of the cream of the Anglo-Norman ruling class. The cause was chronic drunkenness among both crew and passengers, ironically given large amounts of wine by Prince William himself; intoxication so obvious that several passengers actually disembarked before launch in fear of the consequences, including the king's nephew and eventual successor Stephen of Blois (though he also apparently had diarrhoea brought on by his excessive drinking). William was initially taken away in the only lifeboat by his bodyguards, but he ordered the boat to turn back to rescue his half sister Mathilda, and the boat was swamped by desperate drowning people. We know all this through the account of the only survivor, probably the lowliest of the ship's complement, a butcher named Berold who had joined the ship to chase debts he was owed and whose life was saved by his rough woolen garments protecting him from the extreme cold, and his managing to cling on to part of the ship's mast. Very few bodies were ever recovered, though one of these was that of Richard of Lincoln, one of the king's illegitimate sons.

Henry had invested all his hopes in his son William. Possibly due to the intense rivalry he had experienced with his own elder brothers, Robert Curthose and king William II Rufus, Henry only had one legitimate son, in a probable attempt to provide clarity and a clear undisputed succession for both the throne of England and the ducal seat of Normandy. (He had around 9 illegitimate sons, out of over 20 children born out of wedlock to a total of over half a dozen different women). His wife Mathilda had died a couple of years before the disaster. He married again, to Adeliza of Louvain, but they had no children. He forced his barons to swear allegiance to his legitimate daughter Mathilda as his successor, but this was disputed by his nephew Stephen who seized the crown and a bitter civil war ensued, in which much of the country was ravaged, plundered by both sides and by bands of mercenaries. The ebb and flow of war shifted but there was no peace until 1153 when finally Stephen acknowledged as his successor his rival Mathilda's son Henry. Almost certainly none of this would have happened had the White Ship not sank. So it is fair to say that, while there have been many better known shipwrecks (Mary Rose, Titanic, Lusitania), none of these were as politically influential as the White Ship disaster; as the author concludes, "The shipwreck impacted spectacularly on the next generation, resulting in the bloodiest anarchy that England has ever suffered.", the "vacuum" of William's death having, following Henry's failure to produce a replacement heir with his second wife, "morphed into a chasm, into which the subjects on both sides of the Channel fell headlong". Great narrative history that explains the contextual historical background very clearly and colourfully.

When the ship carrying the only son of Henry I of England was dashed on the rocks outside Barfleur harbour in 1120 a great swathe of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy was lost. This led to 'The Chaos', a civil war between the descendants of William the Conqueror that was only ended by the ascension of Henry II and the start of the Plantagenet dynasty. This shipwreck was a turning point in English history in the early middle ages.
Whilst the book is called the White Ship, the shipwreck itself only occupies a few chapters. What Spencer does in place the tragedy in the context of the political machinations of western Europe in the early twelfth century. As a book about the Normans it is very good, the story follows William from Normandy to England and then focuses on the rivalry between his sons. This period is not often written about in an accessible form for the lay reader and I really enjoyed it.

I took a class in college in the early 90’s about Britain under the Stuart’s. A time period lasting from 1603 to 1714, interrupted by the English Civil War and Commonwealth from 1649 to 1660. British history was not my concentration of study which was why I found this period so interesting. When I saw this book on Charles ll, written by Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl of Spencer and the younger brother of Princess Diana, I wanted to read it and reacquaint myself with a part of the subject matter I studied in the 90’s. This is Book reads like the great adventure that it was. Charles II, whose father, Charles I, was beheaded by the Parliamentarian Government, leads a Royalist Army which is defeated at the Battle of Worcester, flees for his life from Parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell. He is assisted in hiding from various people loyal to the crown. His fate, if captured would certainly be similar to his fathers. I am surprised this hasn’t been made into a movie. 5/5 Stars

Spencer does an amazing job in explaining both the background of the War of the Spanish succession as well as the events leading up to this battle. After reading this book, I was inspired to visit the museum about the battle located here in Bavaria.

This book follows the fortune of the regicides, after the restoration. It is an interesting story, a real reversal of fortunes, and there are a lot of individual characters to follow.
I would have liked a little more background on the English civil war, and the politics of the time to make more sense of what was going on: I struggled to fully understand why the restoration happened.

The aftermath of the English Civil War is explored in Killers of the King.

Charles I, captured and placed on trial by the anti-Royalists, is found guilty and executed. The men who signed his death warrant, the Regicides, feel they have done the right thing and hope for a new, fairer England under the Parliament.

But it doesn’t end up like expected. Dozens are executed or exiled, Oliver Cromwell takes over as dictator, the Parliament is marginalized and the anti-Royalists feel the tide turning.

The Royalists, exiled in Ireland, make their way back and install Charles’ son the new king , Charles II. The retributions begin.

This book follows the fate of the Regicides, from horrendous executions (hanged, cut down alive, cut open, entrails pulled out and burned in front of the still-alive prisoner, then finally beheading and chopping up into five pieces) to exile in Holland, France and across the sea in New England.

As the Regicides faced their fates bravely, the crowds grew less and less bloodthirsty and the executed began to be regarded as martyrs for a cause they still believed in.

It’s a fascinating and little-told slice of the English Civil War, when the chance at a Republic was destroyed by greed, and the retribution again tainted the Royalty.

You'll get swept up in the brave and foolhardy men who dared to rise up against the king, and in their fates after the tide turned.

I received this book through a GoodReads First Reads giveaway.

Call this an examination of how the wheels of regime change are lubricated with blood, as the hard men of New Model Army, unable to reach a satisfactory settlement with Charles Stuart, solved their problem the direct way, only to find themselves caught up in the recoil of events when their efforts to create a republic failed. As a group portrait this is an interesting enough work, but the more thoughtful reader might want more consideration of how the failings of the commonwealth generated such resentment that the House of Stuart could gain another chance at power.½

This non-fiction work has as its theme the execution of deposed English King Charles I, the subsequent Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, the Restoration of the monarchy and the resulting manhunt for those responsible for the late King’s murder. For those not familiar with this era of English history, it is a good overview of the events leading up to the manhunts. For those well versed in the history, it will appear a bit simplistic and too brief.

Once the Restoration is complete, however, everyone is pretty much on the same ground, as I have never seen an account of the arrests, executions and attempted rounding up of the key figures in the trail and execution of Charles I. The detailed description of those hung, drawn and quartered might be little bit too much for the weak stomached, and the scene is repeated about a dozen times as the arrest, trials and executions of each of the traitors is set out in detail. Likewise, those that fled in the face of arrest are followed and the lengths to which the Royalists sought them, sometimes successfully, are set out as well.

Overall, this is an interesting account, though not exhaustive or even fully presented. While the focus is on those that participated in the trial and execution, some background is helpful and even necessary. This is a relatively short book, at under 300 pages, and Oliver Cromwell is barely even mentioned, either in the events leading to the deposition of the King or the resulting Protectorate. A more fully fleshed out presentation of the history of the era would not have been out of line, even though not the focus of the book, given its brevity.½

Enjoyed reading about the many characters in this ancient noble family; so many of them, both male and female, involved themselves in the politics of their time; many held high public office, almost all acquitting themselves well; only a few rakes and wastrels, and one or two solidly eccentric characters as well as a fair share of meddling elders.

Charles Spencer's style is inviting and accessible. The book is a painless way to get an intimate view of moments in history that are family-centric. My only criticism is that he backed away from examining his father and his family (Diana), deferring to discretion when it came to looking at the contentious divorce of his parents.½

There should have been a lot more genealogy included in the book. I can't imagine any one outside the Spencer family getting much value out of this book.

This is a very special book for me, a marvellous absorbing history and personally signed by Charles Spencer for me!