Book Review
Jan. 28th, 2008 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Marriage of Megotta
by Edith Pargeter
Most people know Edith Pargeter as Ellis Peters, author of the Brother Cadfael mysteries, but she was also a great writer of historical fiction. This book tells the heartbreaking story of the de Burgh family's persecution at the hands of the capricious Henry III. Henry becomes suspicious of Hubert de Burgh and his power, but ultimately it is Hubert's daughter Megotta and his former ward Richard who suffer. They are truly in love but their marriage is tragically thwarted. This could be the makings for a very melodramatic, sentimental, and overblown romance novel, but Pargeter is a far better writer than that. She takes on the full political situation as well as the emotional one, showing in a stark light the way in which the personal and political were often too tightly intertwined in the medieval world. Pargeter also does a nice job of bringing in the story of Henry's sister Eleanor and Simon de Montfort as a parallel to Richard and Megotta.
by Edith Pargeter
Most people know Edith Pargeter as Ellis Peters, author of the Brother Cadfael mysteries, but she was also a great writer of historical fiction. This book tells the heartbreaking story of the de Burgh family's persecution at the hands of the capricious Henry III. Henry becomes suspicious of Hubert de Burgh and his power, but ultimately it is Hubert's daughter Megotta and his former ward Richard who suffer. They are truly in love but their marriage is tragically thwarted. This could be the makings for a very melodramatic, sentimental, and overblown romance novel, but Pargeter is a far better writer than that. She takes on the full political situation as well as the emotional one, showing in a stark light the way in which the personal and political were often too tightly intertwined in the medieval world. Pargeter also does a nice job of bringing in the story of Henry's sister Eleanor and Simon de Montfort as a parallel to Richard and Megotta.
