My Lord John: A tale of intrigue, honor and the rise of a king (Historical Romances, 12) in All Things Medieval

Jul 21, 2011 Elysium rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: medieval, historical, read-in-2011

2.5 stars

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about this era so I spent more time on google than reading and thank goodness for character list! But it’s so annoying and confusing when you can’t call someone the same name the whole time. I mean there’s half dozen Henry/Harry, John, Richard, Hugh, Thomas… No need confusing the reader by calling the person sometimes by their given name and other time by their title.

It was also quite slow to read. Heyer has tried writing how people spoke at the f ...more

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Nov 28, 2010 Lori rated it liked it

Shelves: medieval-fict

I somewhat enjoyed this book about John, Duke of Bedford and younger brother of the man who would become Henry V, especially in the beginning, but found the story dragging toward the end. I particularly enjoyed the interactions of the young John with his grandfather, John of Gaunt. This added another dimension to the man who was the hero of the classic Katherine by Anya Seton.

This book was Heyer's last and she died before completing it. In fact, the manuscript leaves off mid-sentence and the es ...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Karen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: georgette-heyer, read-more-than-once, books-i-own, medieval-historical-fiction, covers-i-love

Georgette Heyer sadly died before this novel was completed and what remains is less than half finished. The Lord John of the title was John, later Duke of Bedford, the son of Henry of Bolingbroke, who usurped the throne of his cousin Richard II, and the brother of Henry V, he of Agincourt fame.

Georgette Heyer's novel takes us from John’s childhood through to 1413. This means that effectively the major events of John’s life are not documented. We do not see the death of King Henry IV (1413), or Georgette Heyer sadly died before this novel was completed and what remains is less than half finished. The Lord John of the title was John, later Duke of Bedford, the son of Henry of Bolingbroke, who usurped the throne of his cousin Richard II, and the brother of Henry V, he of Agincourt fame.

Georgette Heyer's novel takes us from John’s childhood through to 1413. This means that effectively the major events of John’s life are not documented. We do not see the death of King Henry IV (1413), or the build up to Agincourt and the attempted conquest of France. Joan of Arc does not make an appearance and we do not meet either of the women whom John married. His future career up until his death in 1435 is briefly detailed in an epilogue. What My Lord John is, however, is an interesting depiction of growing up in a royal environment in the Middle Ages. As a young man he lost his mother, was sent out to board with other nobles rather than staying at home and ultimately took on a position of responsibility for both governance and military affairs in the turbulent Northern Marches of England.

I really enjoyed this book. Georgette Heyer was good at creating male characters although her characteristic humour and delight in the language of the period she writes about does not flow as well as in many of her Regency-era novels. In part this is probably because she wrote substantially less set in the Middle Ages than in the nineteenth century, so they lack the same depth. Also her medieval novels (and I suspect most of the draft of My Lord John also) were written fairly early on in her career. It is also of course harder to use obsolete words from the age of Chaucer in a book than it is to include slang from the nineteenth century where the meaning is generally easier for a non-specialist to grasp. However this does not mean that she did not succeed in creating a world for us to immerse ourselves in for a few hours. Pick up My Lord John and you enter a world of (male) camaraderie and treachery, tricks and sports, battles and executions...and sadly come out of it abruptly as the novel breaks off mid-sentence. It seems futile to point out that I wish it had been completed.
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