Month: February 2021

Review of “William the Conqueror” by George Slocombe

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One of the more interesting differences between the biographies of William the Conqueror and those of his predecessors is the greater percentage of them that have been written by non-historians. This is probably due to a combination of factors, namely the greater amount of material available about William and his epochal role in English history. One of the consequences of this is not just a greater number of books about William’s life but a greater diversity of approaches as well in terms of recounting it.

Among the writers who brings a different approach to understanding William’s life is George Slocombe. A journalist rather than an academically-trained historian, Slocome spent several years as a foreign correspondent for the London Daily Herald before leaving to focus on writing books. Though most of what he wrote was nonfiction, he also penned a couple of novels, including one built around a thinly-fictionalized account of Benito Mussolini.

In his introduction, Slocome states that his goal in the book was to recount William’s life in as clear and straightforward a manner as possible. In this respect his book is an unqualified success, as it offers one of the most comprehensible overviews of William’s life that I have yet encountered. It’s a narrative that focuses heavily on the political and military dimensions of William’s life, charting his various campaigns and personal relationships with the key rulers of his era. Slocombe’s chapter titles underscore this approach, as many of them feature the name of an important individual in that point in William’s reign (such as Emma of Normandy or Hereward the Wake) in a way that points to his focus in them.

Yet for all of the clarity of Slocombe’s writing and the soundness of his judgments, his approach hobbled his presentation of William’s life in some important respects. His book is very imbalanced in its coverage of William’s life, with over a third of his book’s 263 pages covering the context of the succession dispute and the events of 1066. Such a focus compresses his coverage of William’s rule as duke and his governance as king. Exacerbating this issue is the minimal coverage of the context behind his activities and decisions: Slocombe’s book lacks any of the details of the institutions of Norman life, and while he does provide some background for the political developments it comes up short when compared to some of the other biographies of William that I’ve read to this point.

I’m sure that none of these criticisms would have bothered Slocombe, as they reflected the choices he made to write the book he wanted. And in terms of his goals he succeeded in producing a fine overview of his subject. Yet while it can still serve today as someone’s introduction to William’s life it should be no means be the only book they read about it, as there is far too much missing to serve as the last word on the king.

Review of “William the Conqueror” by Thomas B. Costain

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The Landmark Books series was a staple of public libraries throughout the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Geared towards elementary and middle-school students, they provided accessible and entertaining accounts of a range of historical topics. While the books initially focused on American subjects, a spinoff series, “World Landmark Books,” took on everything from the pharaohs to the Korean War. For a generation of readers, they served as their introduction to the subject – and quite possibly the only book they might ever read about it.

Among the subjects of the World Landmark series was William the Conqueror. To tell the story of his life the editors turned to Thomas Costain, a Canadian journalist who became a prolific author of books. While the author of over a half-dozen works of English history, he enjoyed his greatest success as a historical novelist, with Black Rose, his tale of an Oxford student in the time of Edward I who falls in love with an escaped harem girl while on his way to China, becoming a runaway success when it was published in 1945.

Given Costain’s background, it’s easy to see why he would be commissioned to write a biography of William for a series geared towards young readers. His literary skills are on full display in its pages, as he turns the story of William’s life into an extended account of derring-do. The dramatic is emphasized throughout the book, from the opening chapter when his father Robert (whom Costain insists on identifying as “Robert the Devil” without explaining the legend associated with it) introduces young William as his successor before his fateful trip to the Holy Lands. From there William survives a series of narrow escapes from death (which are played up in a way that might have given George R. R. Martin pause) as he matures into a strapping young warrior renowned for his strength and wisdom.

While Costain describes the Norman background and William’s fight to control Normandy, his focus is very much on the William’s quest for the English throne. His description of 11th century England leans into facile depictions that were outdated even when he wrote them: Æthelred is dismissed as “a weak and slack ruler,” while medieval hagiographers would have little reason to quibble with his description of Edward the Confessor. Though Harold’s oath-breaking receives a disproportionate amount of attention, he is otherwise portrayed surprisingly sympathetically.

Nevertheless, Costain’s emphasis is on the validity of William’s claim to rule England. This he portrays as a lifelong ambition, with many longing gazes across the English Channel. The story of the Conquest takes up roughly half of the book, with the focus after the battle of Hastings on William’s pacification campaigns and Hereward’s resistance in particular. By contrast Normandy disappears from Costain’s narrative, despite the fact that it remained the focus of his activities for the remainder of his life. Whether this was Costain’s choice or an editorial one made with the book’s audience in mind, it leaves the reader with a distorted sense of William’s life as he lived it.

This is not the only questionable choice in the book, however. Far more problematic is Costain’s indulgence throughout it in artistic license. The book is seeded with dialogue of doubtful validity, as well as descriptions of inner thoughts and feelings that are pure invention on the author’s part. While this contributes to the elements of the narrative that make it an engaging read – undoubtedly a key goal of Costain’s work – they create a “William the Conqueror” in his book that is more the product of his imagination than of the available accounts.

As admirable as Costain’s effort is to create a biography of William that appeals to children, it results in a figure that is in many ways more of a caricature than an accurate portrayal of the man. His reliance on the cringeworthy tale of William’s forceful courtship of Matilda is perhaps the best example of this: a likely apocryphal event that is presented as fact and even as acceptable behavior because of its result. For Costain, it seems, the truth should never get in the way of a good story, no matter how distorting it may prove. While this approach may have made for a book that entertained many young readers, it certainly doesn’t result in one that deserves to be read today.