It’s got to be a challenge to make history a tantalizing narrative while staying true enough to setting accurate and sufficient context. But yeah, no excuse to miss basic genealogies of the great European lineages! That’s actually part of the fascination of the stories, how all the webs were interwoven. I’m always impressed when I learn some detail about who knew whom, that you might never suspect.
"18 languages could be heard on the streets." I get to 20 here, without much effort, and ignoring the 'flavours' of Chinese and all the non-Arabic African languages...
Given that 'family trees' for monarchies and other highborns are such a basic tool of history, do you have any thoughts on why Guelzo makes such a poor fist of this?
He's primarily a US Civil War historian. So he wouldn't naturally know this as thoroughly as a European historian might. But if he was straying outside his area of expertise, it would have been useful to check. He seems to be fairly directly quoting (word for word, without citations -- I didn't figure this out until later) from Alan Taylor's American Colonies in several places. Maybe he was also channeling a source on Spanish history that he didn't bother to double-check. Still, it's a bit embarrassing to miss Catherine of Aragon!
It’s got to be a challenge to make history a tantalizing narrative while staying true enough to setting accurate and sufficient context. But yeah, no excuse to miss basic genealogies of the great European lineages! That’s actually part of the fascination of the stories, how all the webs were interwoven. I’m always impressed when I learn some detail about who knew whom, that you might never suspect.
"18 languages could be heard on the streets." I get to 20 here, without much effort, and ignoring the 'flavours' of Chinese and all the non-Arabic African languages...
Given that 'family trees' for monarchies and other highborns are such a basic tool of history, do you have any thoughts on why Guelzo makes such a poor fist of this?
I probably hear about a dozen, around Saint Paul.
He's primarily a US Civil War historian. So he wouldn't naturally know this as thoroughly as a European historian might. But if he was straying outside his area of expertise, it would have been useful to check. He seems to be fairly directly quoting (word for word, without citations -- I didn't figure this out until later) from Alan Taylor's American Colonies in several places. Maybe he was also channeling a source on Spanish history that he didn't bother to double-check. Still, it's a bit embarrassing to miss Catherine of Aragon!
Or any of Henry's wives really... : )))) There were only eight of them.