Arbella: England's Lost Queen
by Sarah Gristwood
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sarah GristwoodEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2005-05-12
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Book Reviews of Arbella: England's Lost Queen
Book Review: Interesting read on a not-so compelling subject
Summary: 3 Stars
Although Sara Gristwood researched her book carefully and wrote as much of Arbella Stuart's life as feasible given the paucity of material, this bio just failed to spark a genuine interest. The reason is simple; Arbella never felt like a real person - there is a continual opacity to her, not so much because she was a "prisoner" or because her life was lived out many centuries ago, but because she just wasn't a very interesting or likeable character.
In fact, she was a privileged noble in a world of nearly universal want and she not only expected more but complained relentlessly about what she didn't have. Her rambling letters and odd behavior indicate a profoundly disordered mind and she, as is so prevalent even among today's celebrities, seems unnaturally self-obsessed, narcissistic even.
Gristwood believes Arbella's outbursts and uncontrollable behaviour was a result either of hugely frustrated ambition/identity or from porphyria, and thus she never really comes down hard on the girl. Frankly, oppressed and frustrated or ill she may have been, but Arbella Stuart appears more histrionic and just plain obnoxious than pitiful.
Gristwood would have done her readers a service if she'd spent more time discussing the porphyria theory, specifically the medical definition and a thorough symptom catalogue. We all know George III suffered terribly from it, but the lack of medical information meant that this reader had to set aside the book and go on-line to research it. Really, Sarah, that should have been your job.
Maybe she didn't include the medical information because it doesn't provide much causality. Also, the possibility that her "aunt" Queen Mary Stuart had it intermittently is irrelevant because Mary was an aunt by marriage only, not blood (Arbella's father and Darnley were brothers).
Ill or not, unhappy with her life or not, Arbella Stuart is not the best subject for the time-traveling reader. There wasn't much to her and what there is, Gristwood treats a little too sympathetically. This is one "lost queen" who would no doubt have been a disaster for England if she had been found.
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