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The King Concubine A Novel of Alice Perrers Anne O'Brien Books

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The King Concubine A Novel of Alice Perrers Anne O'Brien Books

Author O'Brien hits all the right notes in this fictionalized version of the life of the notorious Alice Perrers, mistress of the aging King Edward III. Alice has been portrayed unsympathetically throughout history, probably due to reports from her contemporaries of her greed and avaricious behavior. What's more realistic is she committed the cardinal sin (at the time) of being smart and business-savvy. In order to protect her future and her children, she began investing in land and manors - in other words, real estate, according to this book long before she even met the king. She became wealthier than many of those around her, and of course on the king's death, she had to be brought down. Fortunately she'd married a man who was her soul mate, strong, practical, and a best friend.

Alice is pictured as a woman ahead of her time - feisty, independent, unsinkable. This book was a delight after I had tried to read an earlier novel of her life by the usually excellent Vanora Bennett, which I found abysmally uninteresting. Ms. O'Brien's book is a pleasure to read....


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The King Concubine A Novel of Alice Perrers Anne O'Brien Books Reviews

I first read of Alice Perrers, mistress to Edward III, in Thomas Costain's history "The Three Edwards." Predictably, Costain treats Perrers with opprobrium and disdain, ending his book with a description of Alice creeping in to steal the rings off the dead royal hand. This is fairly emblematic of the treatment Perrers has received, both from her contemporaries and by later historians. I thereafter read Emma Campion's "The King's Mistress" hoping to find a more balanced depiction of Perrers' character. That work was a disappointment as it essentially paints Perrers as a victim of circumstance and unwilling pawn in the dangerous courtly games. I found this downgrading of her abilities and talents to be equally unflattering, if not as misogynistic. Perrers rose from obscurity to being the unrivaled and expressly recognized consort of Edward III. She would remain at the king's side and be at the center of the courtly world for nearly 10 years. During that time she amassed a fortune which would have qualified her for an earldom, had she been a man. Surely no Miss Mousie could have accomplished the same or reached and maintained such a degree of power and influence. As I have mentioned in reviews of other works featuring strong medieval women, any female who succeeded in life independent of male support and protection in those times was largely viewed with suspicion rather than admiration and, more often than not, is termed a shrew and a slut if not outright accused of fraud and treason. That being the case, O'Brien does a much better job here giving the devil her due, so to speak, as she clearly understands the grit, courage and determination Perrers possessed in order to survive, as she did.

O'Brien's writing style is graceful and literate. No grammatical missteps or flowery flights of purple prose. The story moves along briskly and events are overall historically accurate. Alice holds her own very well under duress from royal ladies and hostile Parliaments and O'Brien does not shrink from the obvious fact of Perrers' own self-interest being front and center in the choices she makes. I appreciated that the author doesn't apologize for Alice who finds no need to apologize for herself. Overall this is very good historical fiction.
It's always interesting to see what an author will do with a notorious figure. Alice Perrers has not been treated well by historians; she has been pretty much cast as a grasping, avaricious she-wolf who took advantage of a failing Edward III, taking control of the government in his name. Or something like that. I always wondered how a king’s mistress could wield so much power in the middle ages. I don’t know much of her story, and it was fun to see how Anne O’Brien would make her into a credible character.

Apparently Alice came from an inauspicious beginning, socked away in a nunnery like an abandoned waif. But she was a spunky thing and got herself noticed by no less than the Queen of England, who came to the nunnery for her health. Surprisingly, Queen Philippa later remembered her and summoned Alice to court, to become one of her maids. Of course, Philippa had something else in mind, and Alice found herself to be the King’s plaything as well, placed under the King’s nose by his doting spouse who was no longer well enough to perform her wifely duties. It seemed Philippa preferred that her husband take up with someone of her choosing—someone she could control—rather than risk losing him altogether. It was sort of Philippa and Alice’s secret, though everyone else was scandalized. And Alice was branded for the rest of her life.

Not that her life was bad; Edward liked his mistress very well and showered her with gifts and land. She knew how to take care of herself and proceeded to sock away valuables and manors against the day the King would leave her. How was she to know that after Philippa’s death the King would start to fail, himself? Formidable at the height of his powers, poor Edward fell prey to dementia in his old age, throwing the country into chaos. For his heir, Edward the Black Prince, was dying at the same time and Richard, the next in line was only a child. Alice found herself in the role of nursemaid, trying to protect the king against intrusions that would invariably make his condition worse. While all this was going on, she allied herself with the somewhat disreputable William de Windsor, diplomat and soldier who never took offense at her rebuffs. Although she did not trust him at the beginning, he proved himself her best friend and protector. She would come to need him beyond her wildest fears.

What wasn’t clear in this book was exactly why everyone hated her so much (except, I suppose, for the influence a mistress would have over a king). What did she do to incur such vicious reprisals? There was some suggestion that she might have acquired a manor or two under questionable circumstances, but I didn’t see a whole lot of arbitrary wielding of power. She seemed to spend all of her time in the background. It’s certainly possible that her “crimes” were not well recorded and the author didn’t have much to work with. That wouldn’t surprise me. It’s apparent that Alice was an opportunist, yet at the end she was an unchampioned woman in a man’s world. She found herself abandoned by the men of power who threw her away when they no longer needed her. Her inevitable downfall was more pathetic than explosive, and I felt nothing of the satisfaction I might have expected from a deserving villain. I have a feeling that Alice would have recognized any modern woman in power, whose talents go unappreciated because she is just too much of a threat to the establishment.
Author O'Brien hits all the right notes in this fictionalized version of the life of the notorious Alice Perrers, mistress of the aging King Edward III. Alice has been portrayed unsympathetically throughout history, probably due to reports from her contemporaries of her greed and avaricious behavior. What's more realistic is she committed the cardinal sin (at the time) of being smart and business-savvy. In order to protect her future and her children, she began investing in land and manors - in other words, real estate, according to this book long before she even met the king. She became wealthier than many of those around her, and of course on the king's death, she had to be brought down. Fortunately she'd married a man who was her soul mate, strong, practical, and a best friend.

Alice is pictured as a woman ahead of her time - feisty, independent, unsinkable. This book was a delight after I had tried to read an earlier novel of her life by the usually excellent Vanora Bennett, which I found abysmally uninteresting. Ms. O'Brien's book is a pleasure to read....