Review | The King’s Mistress by Emma Campion

Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: July 6th, 2010
Source: I received this ARC from the publisher via TLC Book Tours.

Alice Perrers, a commoner born into a family of merchants, was the notorious mistress of King Edward III of England. She has gone down in history as an oft-reviled woman who didn’t know her place among a court full of her “betters”, most of whom came from families that could claim ancient noble descent. Alice was a new historical character for me and I enjoyed reading this fictionalized account of her side of the story. The author bio listed for Emma Campion on the Random House website states that she is the world’s foremost scholar on Alice Perrers. I like to do some research into new historical characters I read about in fiction that interest me, and Alice Perrers was no exception. In doing so I discovered that the author really strove towards as much historical accuracy as possible, which I always admire. But whereas Alice was portrayed by chroniclers as “a shameless, impudent harlot,” Emma Campion has come to find that Alice was yet another very real woman who has been unjustly vilified in historical accounts, and set to giving Alice a voice of her own.

People were so aghast at a commoner having been so favored by the king over the years that those who envied her were determined to see her brought down, sullying her name in records and portraying her as a grasping, manipulative gold-digger who took advantage of an aging king. Some accounts even go so far as to accuse her of stripping the rings from King Edward’s fingers before his dead body was even cold, scurrying away from the palace with her treasures. After reading some of the terrible suppositions Alice’s contemporaries made about her, I found it really interesting to read fictionalized but possible justifications for actions made by Alice that could clearly have been misconstrued and misjudged by the public. The author gives very plausible explanations for events the public took to be of Alice’s design, often repeating the phrase “When had I the choice to be other than what I was?”

I felt this book was slow going at points. In an effort to stick to an accurate timeline, the author probably sacrificed making this book a more plot-driven novel. The title is somewhat misleading, as for the majority book, Alice is not yet the King’s mistress (and though the title might imply it, this not a bodice-ripper, either – thank goodness!). One of the story lines of the book I found most interesting begins well before Alice has met Edward yet, and involves a bit of a real historical mystery. This was one of the plot points that did hold my interest, and it was probably the most exciting part of the book for me. Campion really thrives in this historical thriller-type of writing, an area in which she’s had some practice since she also writes historical mysteries under the name Candace Robe.

In the opening of each of the four sections of the book, Alice is looking back on her life and inwardly contemplating how she came to be in her current position. These brief interludes as well as a few other areas of the book struck me as trite in expression. And I hate to say it, because I enjoyed the book overall, but the scene where Edward and Alice first consummate their passion is borderline cheesy. There was also overuse of certain words throughout the book (“sanguine”, “escarlette”) that I found distracting. Granted, Alice was the daughter of a cloth merchant, but I felt there were too many references to clothing and fashion mentioned in the book. I’m sure that those of the 14th century who could afford to do so were keen on looking their best, but there was just too much of an emphasis on the way people dressed. It felt a bit forced – almost as if an editor had encouraged the author to include more references to fashion because he/she felt that doing so might make the Medieval story appeal to modern readers (total speculation on my part, but some of the references seemed really overly deliberate to me).

I found it fascinating how similarly Alice’s story mirrors that of Criseyde from “Troilus and Criseyde” by Geoffrey Chaucer. The parallel is no mere coincidence – Chaucer was a dear childhood friend of Alice’s in the book, and it has often been thought that she was his inspiration for “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in The Catebury Tales. His inclusion as a character and confidant to Alice in The King’s Mistress was skillfully done, and I enjoyed reading the excerpts from “Troilus and Criseyde” that marked the opening of each new chapter in the book. Despite some criticisms, I think this is a commendable historical fiction debut and I will be interested to read Emma Campion’s next novel. In her fabulous guest post from yesterday, she mentioned that she’s currently working on an account of Joan of Kent. Joan was one of my favorite characters from The King’s Mistress so I will look forward to reading it. Crown publishers/TLC Book Tours was kind enough to offer readers of this blog a copy of The King’s Mistress for giveaway so be sure to enter before 7/25!