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The People's Queen
Set in late fourteenth century England, Vanora Bennett's rich, dramatic new novel presents an England uncannily like our own. The country is in turmoil, The King is in debt to the City, and the old order had broken down - a time of opportunity indeed, for those who can seize the moment.
The king's mistress, Alice Perrers, becomes the virtual ruler of the country from his sickbed. Disliked and despised by the Black Prince and his cronies, her strong connections to the merchants make her a natural ally for the king's ambitious second son, John of Gaunt. Together they create a powerful position in the city for one of his henchmen, Geoffrey Chaucer.
In this moment of opportunity, Alice throws herself into her new role and the riches that lay before her, but Chaucer, even though her lover and friend, is uneasy over what he can foresee of the conspiracies around them.
At the centre of these troubled times and political unrest stands the remarkable figure of a woman who, having escaped the plague which killed her whole family, is certain she is untouchable, and a man who learns that cleverness and ambition may for him sit too uneasily with decency and honesty.
The king's mistress, Alice Perrers, becomes the virtual ruler of the country from his sickbed. Disliked and despised by the Black Prince and his cronies, her strong connections to the merchants make her a natural ally for the king's ambitious second son, John of Gaunt. Together they create a powerful position in the city for one of his henchmen, Geoffrey Chaucer.
In this moment of opportunity, Alice throws herself into her new role and the riches that lay before her, but Chaucer, even though her lover and friend, is uneasy over what he can foresee of the conspiracies around them.
At the centre of these troubled times and political unrest stands the remarkable figure of a woman who, having escaped the plague which killed her whole family, is certain she is untouchable, and a man who learns that cleverness and ambition may for him sit too uneasily with decency and honesty.
534 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 2010
28 people are currently reading
1854 people want to read
About the author
Vanora Bennett
12 books215 followersI became a journalist almost by accident. Having learned Russian and been hired after university by Reuters (to my own surprise and the slight dismay of traditionally-minded editors who weren’t sure a Guardian-reading blonde female would be tough enough for the job), I was then catapulted into the adrenaline-charged realm of conflict reporting. While on a trainee assignment in Paris, I fell in with the Cambodian émigré community and ended up reporting in Cambodia myself, a decade after the Khmer Rouge regime ended, as well as covering Cambodian peace talks in places as far apart as Indonesia and Paris. That led to a conflict reporting job in Africa, commuting between Angola and Mozambique and writing about death, destruction, diamonds and disease, and later to a posting in a country that stopped being the Soviet Union three months after I arrived. I spent much of the early 1990s in smoky taxis in the Caucasus mountains, covering a series of small post-Soviet conflicts that built up to the war in Chechnya.
My fascination with the cultural and religious differences between Russians and the many peoples once ruled by Moscow grew into a book on the Chechen war (Crying Wolf: The Return of War to Chechnya). A second, more light-hearted book followed, about post-Soviet Russia’s illegal caviar trade, once I’d got homesick for London and moved back to writer leaders on foreign affairs for The Times. This book was The Taste of Dreams: An Obsession with Russia and Caviar.
I now lead a more sedate life in North London with my husband and two small sons, enjoying the reading, research, writing and metropolitan leisure activities that I grew up expecting adult life to involve. I’ve found that writing books is much of a surprise, a pleasure and an adventure of the mind as it was to become a foreign correspondent.
As a journalist I’ve written for, among others, The Times and its website, TimesOnline, the Los Angeles Times, Prospect, The Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian Saturday magazine, the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, Eve magazine, The Observer Food Monthlyand The Erotic Review.
My fascination with the cultural and religious differences between Russians and the many peoples once ruled by Moscow grew into a book on the Chechen war (Crying Wolf: The Return of War to Chechnya). A second, more light-hearted book followed, about post-Soviet Russia’s illegal caviar trade, once I’d got homesick for London and moved back to writer leaders on foreign affairs for The Times. This book was The Taste of Dreams: An Obsession with Russia and Caviar.
I now lead a more sedate life in North London with my husband and two small sons, enjoying the reading, research, writing and metropolitan leisure activities that I grew up expecting adult life to involve. I’ve found that writing books is much of a surprise, a pleasure and an adventure of the mind as it was to become a foreign correspondent.
As a journalist I’ve written for, among others, The Times and its website, TimesOnline, the Los Angeles Times, Prospect, The Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian Saturday magazine, the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, Eve magazine, The Observer Food Monthlyand The Erotic Review.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
August 22, 2010
Entertaining and different look at Alice Perrers, mistress to Edward III. The novel is also extensively about Geoffrey Chaucer and his life and Alice's intertwine to a strong degree. Indeed, the author wonders in her note if Chaucer's Wife of Bath is based on Alice P. This was a fascinating look into the fourteenth century and the down and dirty dealings of the London Merchant community at the time of the Peasant's Revolt. Alice herself is an interesting three-dimensional Essex girl. A combination of tart with a heart,and fiercely shrewd and ruthless business woman. She is utterly three dimensional. It was interesting to see John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford in a different light. They are secondary characters (and very minor roles in Katherine's case) but rather differently rendered than in the Seton novel.
October 15, 2010
I'm very glad I didn't let the cover put me off reading this book. (I’m with those reviewers who think the model appears to be examining her train for doggy doo). The cover also gives a false impression of the book, suggesting that it is women’s historical fiction in the Philippa Gregory mould, whereas it is actually much closer to the Wolf Hall end of the spectrum.
The ‘Queen’ of the title is Alice Perrers, mistress to the ageing Edward III. It’s established fairly early on that the people hate Alice, but she is their queen in the sense that she is of the people. Whereas the Alice Emma Campion portrayed in The King’s Mistress was the virginal daughter of a respectable merchant family, Bennett’s Alice has risen from the peasantry to the court via a Forever Amber-like series of escapades and marriages. (Although this is anything but a bodice ripper: sex scenes are few and not explicit). There's a vast gap between the Alice of The King’s Mistress (passive victim of events) and this Alice (manipulative social climber) - and while I don’t know enough about Alice and her world to say which is closer to the truth, I did find Bennett’s characterisation far more rounded and convincing.
The People’s Queen covers seven years in Alice’s life: 1374 to 1381, year of the Peasants’ Revolt. The prologue is set during the Black Death, known as the Mortality, which claimed the lives of a third of Europe’s population. The book takes for its theme the Wheel of Fortune, and when it begins Alice is at the top of the wheel, feared and respected in both Court and City. So there’s nowhere to go but down.
Alice’s fight to secure her future by exploiting the broken postwar economy is linked with the power struggle between Edward III’s sons, Geoffrey Chaucer’s marital misfortunes and the career of Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasants’ Revolt. I enjoyed the voice despite the use of my unfavourite present tense and the profuse authorial narration. It’s very Victorian, but it worked for me because Vanora Bennett writes with such confidence and enthusiasm, whether describing the free-for-all that followed the Black Death or the peripatetic medieval court.
The downside: although there is enough action to carry the book along, it could have been faster-paced. Occasionally it gets bogged down in detail, and the Chaucer scenes in particular don’t tend to move the story very far along. Katherine Swynford, mistress of John of Gaunt, appears, but only in a cameo role – I would have liked her point of view to have been added into the mix. I would also have liked dates at the top of each chapter and I would have liked the Author’s Note to have more discussion of the background to the story as well as an explanation of what happened after it ends.
As historical fiction, this is a welcome blend of the literary and the popular. As a royal mistress novel, it’s the ideal answer to anyone who thinks the subject of royal mistresses belongs in a pink, frilly historical ghetto. Bennett’s Alice is the first power mistress, socially mobile, a property tycoon, a symbol of her grasping, ambitious age, who would be broken on the wheel of fortune for her sex and her class as much as for her corruption.
The ‘Queen’ of the title is Alice Perrers, mistress to the ageing Edward III. It’s established fairly early on that the people hate Alice, but she is their queen in the sense that she is of the people. Whereas the Alice Emma Campion portrayed in The King’s Mistress was the virginal daughter of a respectable merchant family, Bennett’s Alice has risen from the peasantry to the court via a Forever Amber-like series of escapades and marriages. (Although this is anything but a bodice ripper: sex scenes are few and not explicit). There's a vast gap between the Alice of The King’s Mistress (passive victim of events) and this Alice (manipulative social climber) - and while I don’t know enough about Alice and her world to say which is closer to the truth, I did find Bennett’s characterisation far more rounded and convincing.
The People’s Queen covers seven years in Alice’s life: 1374 to 1381, year of the Peasants’ Revolt. The prologue is set during the Black Death, known as the Mortality, which claimed the lives of a third of Europe’s population. The book takes for its theme the Wheel of Fortune, and when it begins Alice is at the top of the wheel, feared and respected in both Court and City. So there’s nowhere to go but down.
Alice’s fight to secure her future by exploiting the broken postwar economy is linked with the power struggle between Edward III’s sons, Geoffrey Chaucer’s marital misfortunes and the career of Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasants’ Revolt. I enjoyed the voice despite the use of my unfavourite present tense and the profuse authorial narration. It’s very Victorian, but it worked for me because Vanora Bennett writes with such confidence and enthusiasm, whether describing the free-for-all that followed the Black Death or the peripatetic medieval court.
The downside: although there is enough action to carry the book along, it could have been faster-paced. Occasionally it gets bogged down in detail, and the Chaucer scenes in particular don’t tend to move the story very far along. Katherine Swynford, mistress of John of Gaunt, appears, but only in a cameo role – I would have liked her point of view to have been added into the mix. I would also have liked dates at the top of each chapter and I would have liked the Author’s Note to have more discussion of the background to the story as well as an explanation of what happened after it ends.
As historical fiction, this is a welcome blend of the literary and the popular. As a royal mistress novel, it’s the ideal answer to anyone who thinks the subject of royal mistresses belongs in a pink, frilly historical ghetto. Bennett’s Alice is the first power mistress, socially mobile, a property tycoon, a symbol of her grasping, ambitious age, who would be broken on the wheel of fortune for her sex and her class as much as for her corruption.
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August 10, 2014As much as I tried....I'm yielding at page 90. I really wanted to like and read this. Few book are out there about Chaucer, London Merchant Trade and the Peasant's Revolt. This is my second Bennett "did not finish" her writing style is blah blah.......blah. Such a shame, because this is a fascinating subject.
April 27, 2013
It's hard to explain why I struggled with this book. The historical period is interesting, Alice Perrers is a good base for a story, but this is very hard going. There is so much description of how the characters are feeling, so very little conversation. A lot of dry background and not much to get you emphasising with the characters. I got sick of the phrase, 'It's only then'. It's only then that he/she thinks/feels/realises/understands. If you'd like to read a historical fiction based on Alice Perrers, Emma Campion's 'The King's Mistress' beats this hands down.
March 4, 2013
I tried, I really did...
January 12, 2013
‘She’s never been one for yesterdays.’
Alice Perrers, the ‘Queen’ of this title is mistress to the ageing English King Edward III. In this novel, she is portrayed as being one of the people – a peasant – who has risen to great heights and made many enemies along the way. After a prologue set during the Black Death, the novel proper opens, with Alice at the height of her powers – fully atop the Wheel of Fortune. Where to from here?
Alice is beginning to realise that she needs to secure her future: Edward III has been an indulgent protector and benefactor but he cannot live much longer. And there are signs that both Parliament and the City of London have enough power to insist on a greater role in running England in future. The war with France has been costly and increasingly more difficult to fund. The King’s heir is dying, and his successor is a boy.
As Alice amasses property for her future, she keeps a keen eye on the power struggle between Edward III’s sons: the dying Edward the Black Prince (his heir) and his brother John of Gaunt. She is also a patron of Geoffrey Chaucer, then Comptroller of export tax on wool, sheepskins and leather in the Port of London, and shares aspects of a past with Wat Tyler (who will later be leader of the Peasants’ Revolt).
‘Alice Perrers is not invited to the King’s funeral.’
Without the King to protect her, Alice’s life takes some interesting turns. She moves from the Court to a safe manor house, to a place of safety or so she hopes. But Fortune’s wheel has not yet finished turning: Alice, her family and friends have yet to endure the Peasants’ Revolt.
‘The day and the night that follow are the time of the Beast.’
‘The People’s Queen’ covers seven years of Alice’s life: from 1374 to 1381 (the year of the Peasants’ Revolt) and is mainly told in present tense. It took me a while to become caught up in the story, but once I was I couldn’t put it down. Present tense, with dashes of authorial narration kept this story moving. I am intrigued by Alice Perrers and am in the process of reading three novels about her. Each is very different and while I’m not yet sure which Alice I prefer best, I found this depiction engrossing. I especially enjoyed the depiction of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Alice Perrers, the ‘Queen’ of this title is mistress to the ageing English King Edward III. In this novel, she is portrayed as being one of the people – a peasant – who has risen to great heights and made many enemies along the way. After a prologue set during the Black Death, the novel proper opens, with Alice at the height of her powers – fully atop the Wheel of Fortune. Where to from here?
Alice is beginning to realise that she needs to secure her future: Edward III has been an indulgent protector and benefactor but he cannot live much longer. And there are signs that both Parliament and the City of London have enough power to insist on a greater role in running England in future. The war with France has been costly and increasingly more difficult to fund. The King’s heir is dying, and his successor is a boy.
As Alice amasses property for her future, she keeps a keen eye on the power struggle between Edward III’s sons: the dying Edward the Black Prince (his heir) and his brother John of Gaunt. She is also a patron of Geoffrey Chaucer, then Comptroller of export tax on wool, sheepskins and leather in the Port of London, and shares aspects of a past with Wat Tyler (who will later be leader of the Peasants’ Revolt).
‘Alice Perrers is not invited to the King’s funeral.’
Without the King to protect her, Alice’s life takes some interesting turns. She moves from the Court to a safe manor house, to a place of safety or so she hopes. But Fortune’s wheel has not yet finished turning: Alice, her family and friends have yet to endure the Peasants’ Revolt.
‘The day and the night that follow are the time of the Beast.’
‘The People’s Queen’ covers seven years of Alice’s life: from 1374 to 1381 (the year of the Peasants’ Revolt) and is mainly told in present tense. It took me a while to become caught up in the story, but once I was I couldn’t put it down. Present tense, with dashes of authorial narration kept this story moving. I am intrigued by Alice Perrers and am in the process of reading three novels about her. Each is very different and while I’m not yet sure which Alice I prefer best, I found this depiction engrossing. I especially enjoyed the depiction of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
February 2, 2021
It took me a while to get through this one. A great period in history. Set in the time of Edward III. The story follows the life of Edward’s mistress, Alice Perrers - a feisty, manipulative, greedy and cunning woman. I saw the demise of King Edward III, the rise of King Richard II and the shear hatred for the Duke of Lancaster (John - King Edward’s son). The underdog’s revolt was horrific and nearly toppled London. But above all, my hero of the story was Geoffrey Chaucer, a brilliant gentle soul. 3/5
August 31, 2014
Not engaging. I let the book rest for a while to see if it would grab my attention back, if the lust and need to read and finish it would come. But it didn't.
Cold, unpersonal writing style. I didn't care at all what happened or about the characters. I didn't like all the () with the extra information, but it seemed that she was well knowledgeable at least (?).
Might give it a go another time, we'll see.
Cold, unpersonal writing style. I didn't care at all what happened or about the characters. I didn't like all the () with the extra information, but it seemed that she was well knowledgeable at least (?).
Might give it a go another time, we'll see.
May 30, 2013
It was interesting reading about Alice Perres, not much is written about her in historical fiction. The book however moved at a slow pace and at times I lost interest in the story. Chaucer is another figure that you often hear about but don't know much about the man himself. The story line was good but at times you kept waiting for the author to get to the point.
December 18, 2022
Historical novel set in the fourteenth century after the plague has wiped out a third of the population. Lots of historical detail. Well researched and a great read.
May 5, 2013
Alice Perrers. . . Who was she? Ugly or pretty? Grasping and without conscience or considerate of others? A mistress of royalty who only used her status for se3lf advancement? Or. . . .? There is not so much know about her life, making it difficult to speak in much detail about her. Oddly, in this novel, she works at counterpoint with John of Gaunt's mistress (and later wife), Katherine Swynford--about whom rather little is known. In this novel, Swynford is portrayed as rather nasty (I have read other books where she is portrayed much more positively).
Perrers was born in difficult circumstances and braised by a hard nosed woman who did most anything needed to get ahead. By good fortune, Alice ended yup as Henry III's mistress. From this position, she exerted considerable influence and gained many estates and much money.
This book looks at the jealousies directed against her, how her own behavior fanned opposition to her, how she fell from the heights, and how she began an ascent once more.
During the course of this novel, we meet historical figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer (Was Alice the Wife of Bath in "The Canterbury Tails"? That is a suggestion in this work.), John of Gaunt, Richard II, and so on.
How accurate is this work? I cannot say. There is so little on the historical record. Nonetheless, it is a fine piece of historical fiction.
Perrers was born in difficult circumstances and braised by a hard nosed woman who did most anything needed to get ahead. By good fortune, Alice ended yup as Henry III's mistress. From this position, she exerted considerable influence and gained many estates and much money.
This book looks at the jealousies directed against her, how her own behavior fanned opposition to her, how she fell from the heights, and how she began an ascent once more.
During the course of this novel, we meet historical figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer (Was Alice the Wife of Bath in "The Canterbury Tails"? That is a suggestion in this work.), John of Gaunt, Richard II, and so on.
How accurate is this work? I cannot say. There is so little on the historical record. Nonetheless, it is a fine piece of historical fiction.
February 2, 2019
Set during the 14th century after the plague, this story revolves around Alice Perrers mistress to the ageing King Edward III. How does a girl with no money and no status find herself a place as a lady in the royal court. Other major characters include John of Gaunt and Geoffrey Chaucer and how Alice tries to influence both men to gain status and money. Can she hide her past from those who would use it against her.
A theme of the book looks at how a common symbol of the time, the 'wheel of fortune' is used to dictate the ups and downs of peoples power and success. The book is split into sections of the wheel, rising to the top, to back down to the bottom.
This was a fascinating read, with much detail about the royal court, merchants of London and parliament of the time. The book is 533 pages, I enjoyed the beginning and end but 300 pages in it bored me a smidge one of the reasons I gave the book 3 stars.
A theme of the book looks at how a common symbol of the time, the 'wheel of fortune' is used to dictate the ups and downs of peoples power and success. The book is split into sections of the wheel, rising to the top, to back down to the bottom.
This was a fascinating read, with much detail about the royal court, merchants of London and parliament of the time. The book is 533 pages, I enjoyed the beginning and end but 300 pages in it bored me a smidge one of the reasons I gave the book 3 stars.
February 28, 2017
The People's Queen is far from your average royal mistress story, and Alice Perrers is unlike any royal mistress I've read about before. Business-savy, independent, and power hungry, she rides fortune's wheel for all it's worth.
The novel focuses on Alice's fall from the heights of power, even as her friendship with Chaucer deepens and discontent builds among the common people, eventually boiling over into violence.
At well over 500 pages, The People's Queen is not a particularly fast read. Even so, it's a really interesting look at a strong woman who had--and lost--it all in 14th century England.
2017 Reading Challenge Category: A book with an eccentric character. (I'm counting Alice as eccentric, as far as royal mistresses go, in the sense that she is unusual/unconventional for her undisguised, unambiguous ambition and greed.)
The novel focuses on Alice's fall from the heights of power, even as her friendship with Chaucer deepens and discontent builds among the common people, eventually boiling over into violence.
At well over 500 pages, The People's Queen is not a particularly fast read. Even so, it's a really interesting look at a strong woman who had--and lost--it all in 14th century England.
2017 Reading Challenge Category: A book with an eccentric character. (I'm counting Alice as eccentric, as far as royal mistresses go, in the sense that she is unusual/unconventional for her undisguised, unambiguous ambition and greed.)
August 31, 2010
Well I had a kind of love-hate relationship with this book. The plot was very interesting, the historical background fascinating and the characters well rounded but there was something about the style that bugged me. First of all, I don't like present tense narration much. And the syntax is a bit on the simplistic side, resulting in a kind of "staccato rhythm". And finally the author was too present telling the reader how to judge a certain event rather than letting the characters speak for themselves.
But having said that most of the time I was so engrossed in the story that I ended up forgetting about all those niggles. And I think I have learnt a lot about the period and the characters in question. In spite of its flaws I would recommend this book. (3,5)
But having said that most of the time I was so engrossed in the story that I ended up forgetting about all those niggles. And I think I have learnt a lot about the period and the characters in question. In spite of its flaws I would recommend this book. (3,5)
August 14, 2020
Alice Perrers became infamous as Edward III’s selfish, greedy mistress who stole the rings off his fingers as he laid dying. Three novels about her life were published between 2009 and 2012, Emma Campion’s The King's Mistress, Anne O’Brien’s The King's Concubine and this, Vanora Bennett’s The People’s Queen.
I was initially very cautious about reading this. Having previously read Campion and O’Brien’s novels, I found myself frustrated by the choice of Alice as a protagonist. She’s a fascinating choice for a protagonist, a complex and powerful woman whose rise to power was and is astonishing and her story lends itself well to the type of novels that seek out to redeem the “villains” or “bad women” of history. Yet Campion and O’Brien both depicted her as an innocent, agency-less, faultless, sweet baby angel of a woman who is just endlessly victimised and conspired against. Which I found both implausible and nauseatingly saccharine.
And then there was the author of The People’s Queen. This is the first novel by Vanora Bennett I’ve read but I’ve been aware of her for some time and read the bad reviews for this, Blood Royal and Figures In Silk. And then I reread the description and, hold up, Alice Perrers has an affair with Geoffrey Chaucer? What?
And then, yeah, I’ve been a bit burnt out on the women-centric historical fiction of the early 2010s, late 2000s – the type typified by Philippa Gregory’s novels about the Tudors and the Wars of the Roses or that can be generally described as “historical romance but superficially feminist/deep because the women are scheming for power too”. The People’s Queen also seemed to point towards the way: the beautiful but generic cover and its title. Alice Perrers may have been of “the people” instead of the nobility but she was no champion of the less fortunate or beloved by the people – if someone who was, look no further than Edward IV’s mistress, Elizabeth “Jane” Shore.
But I already bought a copy and I read a more positive review that intrigued me, I dove in. And you know what? I really loved this.
I can see why people could bounce off this. If you pick this up expecting something more light like a Philippa Gregory or Anne O’Brien novel, you’re in for a rude awakening. Bennett’s Alice is flawed. Massively flawed and yet – for me, at least – still fascinating and sympathetic. It isn’t one of those characterisations where you sit there and cringe at the bratty heroine that you’re somehow expected to like. This Alice is clever, greedy, corrupt, not particularly romantic or maternal and definitely in over her head, and yet I loved her. I loved reading about her.
Nor is this the typical story of Alice, traced from her birth to the beginnings of her affair with Edward III and then to its end with Alice’s downfall and focusing mainly on her romantic/sexual life. One of my complaints for O’Brien’s novel was that Alice felt insulated, as if she never did anything but hang around Edward III or her husband but Bennett sprints off in the opposite direction. This is more about the political and financial aspects of Alice’s life – her acquisitiveness, for instance – than the romantic. We begin with Alice’s parade as the Lady of the Sun, firmly ensconced as the rapidly ailing Edward III’s mistress, and focus on her downfall and what she becomes after Edward. Not once does she protest that she had “no choice” and not once does she say she loves Edward. This is much more a novel about the political intrigue at the end of Edward III’s reigns and beginning of Richard II’s than a romance or a redemption.
The writing style, too, might make readers bounce – this is definitely more on the “literary” side of things, with some jarringly modern twangs. One of the reviews I read compared it to Hilary Mantel and I don’t think Bennett is as good as Mantel (certainly, there were no lines of prose that I wanted to frame) but it’s more along that line than readers might expect.
The novel is written in third person limited, present tense and although we mainly see the world through the eyes of Alice and Chaucer, we also get glimpses into the minds of John of Gaunt, the Black Prince and Joan of Kent. So that when Alice sneers at Joan, for instance, we see Joan through her own and others’ eyes and see her so much more sympathetically. I wish some time had been given to the de Roet sisters, Katherine Swynford and Philippa Chaucer, who do get quite the short shift in the novel but I was also happy to let it be – there are suggestions of a sympathetic reading for them too.
Bennett, I think, achieves something that I’ve found rare in historical fiction: these historical figures are rendered as rounded characters, fascinating and intriguing in their own right to the point that even when I’m like, “an affair with Chaucer? That’s really weird and Do Not Want” it makes sense within the narrative and with the characterisations Bennett’s given them. The world she creates is beautiful and rich and while I’m still uncertain about reading her other medieval novels, I’m happy to say that I loved this.
I was initially very cautious about reading this. Having previously read Campion and O’Brien’s novels, I found myself frustrated by the choice of Alice as a protagonist. She’s a fascinating choice for a protagonist, a complex and powerful woman whose rise to power was and is astonishing and her story lends itself well to the type of novels that seek out to redeem the “villains” or “bad women” of history. Yet Campion and O’Brien both depicted her as an innocent, agency-less, faultless, sweet baby angel of a woman who is just endlessly victimised and conspired against. Which I found both implausible and nauseatingly saccharine.
And then there was the author of The People’s Queen. This is the first novel by Vanora Bennett I’ve read but I’ve been aware of her for some time and read the bad reviews for this, Blood Royal and Figures In Silk. And then I reread the description and, hold up, Alice Perrers has an affair with Geoffrey Chaucer? What?
And then, yeah, I’ve been a bit burnt out on the women-centric historical fiction of the early 2010s, late 2000s – the type typified by Philippa Gregory’s novels about the Tudors and the Wars of the Roses or that can be generally described as “historical romance but superficially feminist/deep because the women are scheming for power too”. The People’s Queen also seemed to point towards the way: the beautiful but generic cover and its title. Alice Perrers may have been of “the people” instead of the nobility but she was no champion of the less fortunate or beloved by the people – if someone who was, look no further than Edward IV’s mistress, Elizabeth “Jane” Shore.
But I already bought a copy and I read a more positive review that intrigued me, I dove in. And you know what? I really loved this.
I can see why people could bounce off this. If you pick this up expecting something more light like a Philippa Gregory or Anne O’Brien novel, you’re in for a rude awakening. Bennett’s Alice is flawed. Massively flawed and yet – for me, at least – still fascinating and sympathetic. It isn’t one of those characterisations where you sit there and cringe at the bratty heroine that you’re somehow expected to like. This Alice is clever, greedy, corrupt, not particularly romantic or maternal and definitely in over her head, and yet I loved her. I loved reading about her.
Nor is this the typical story of Alice, traced from her birth to the beginnings of her affair with Edward III and then to its end with Alice’s downfall and focusing mainly on her romantic/sexual life. One of my complaints for O’Brien’s novel was that Alice felt insulated, as if she never did anything but hang around Edward III or her husband but Bennett sprints off in the opposite direction. This is more about the political and financial aspects of Alice’s life – her acquisitiveness, for instance – than the romantic. We begin with Alice’s parade as the Lady of the Sun, firmly ensconced as the rapidly ailing Edward III’s mistress, and focus on her downfall and what she becomes after Edward. Not once does she protest that she had “no choice” and not once does she say she loves Edward. This is much more a novel about the political intrigue at the end of Edward III’s reigns and beginning of Richard II’s than a romance or a redemption.
The writing style, too, might make readers bounce – this is definitely more on the “literary” side of things, with some jarringly modern twangs. One of the reviews I read compared it to Hilary Mantel and I don’t think Bennett is as good as Mantel (certainly, there were no lines of prose that I wanted to frame) but it’s more along that line than readers might expect.
The novel is written in third person limited, present tense and although we mainly see the world through the eyes of Alice and Chaucer, we also get glimpses into the minds of John of Gaunt, the Black Prince and Joan of Kent. So that when Alice sneers at Joan, for instance, we see Joan through her own and others’ eyes and see her so much more sympathetically. I wish some time had been given to the de Roet sisters, Katherine Swynford and Philippa Chaucer, who do get quite the short shift in the novel but I was also happy to let it be – there are suggestions of a sympathetic reading for them too.
Bennett, I think, achieves something that I’ve found rare in historical fiction: these historical figures are rendered as rounded characters, fascinating and intriguing in their own right to the point that even when I’m like, “an affair with Chaucer? That’s really weird and Do Not Want” it makes sense within the narrative and with the characterisations Bennett’s given them. The world she creates is beautiful and rich and while I’m still uncertain about reading her other medieval novels, I’m happy to say that I loved this.
April 12, 2011
I have never liked books that were written in the present tense, and this one is no exception. Combine that with an unlikeable, self-centred and greedy heroine, a nondescript hero (Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the greats of English literture, yet this book makes him seem like a total nonentity), and you don't have a good book.
December 4, 2011
It is supposed to be based in truth but there are a lot of assumptions made that are too wild. One or two I could except but not this many.
And who is the people's queen? It can't be Alice. In her own time she wasn't loved and she would never have gotten this title. Also the style of writing was not something that appealed to me.
And who is the people's queen? It can't be Alice. In her own time she wasn't loved and she would never have gotten this title. Also the style of writing was not something that appealed to me.
August 6, 2013
A fascinating time period, but the main character Alice was completely unlikable and I lost interest in the story rather quickly...
July 16, 2014
Didn't finish it. I wish this had been written by Phillippa Gregory. Wordy, rambling, didn't draw me in at all.
Read
February 13, 2020I loved this book. All the negative reviews were off putting at first but, in fact, the more I listened to it the more I loved it. I had read the Penguin Monarch's Edward III which was pretty incomprehensible to me so this book really gave me the goods. I loved Alice, feisty and self motivated. She had had a hard start in life and she got over it and got busy, improving her circumstances remarkably. I did wonder, of course, how much was based on fact and how much of fiction but always found the story credible. And I'm a hard master on that score. Alice grew as a character and so did Chaucer. A frustrating relationship but you get that. It was realistic. Thoroughly recommend this book for any historical novel tragics.
January 2, 2024
This is the 5th book by Vanora Bennett I've read, and my least favorite. It is about the relationship between Geoffrey Chaucer and Alice Perrers, King Edward III's mistress. It is a fascinating look into this early period of English history and understanding more about Chaucer, although about his government career rather than his writing, which is maybe why it was disappointing. But it took a while to warm up to it. I started reading it at jury duty in the summertime, and just now finished it this week.
January 24, 2018
Really enjoyed this as a follow up to having read Jean Plaidy’s ‘Passage to Pontefract’ and Shakespeare’s Richard ll. Interesting to get the variety of viewpoints about this time in history from different authors focussing on different characters. Loved reading about Chaucer and his involvement in politics and the dramas of the times.
One reason I love historical fiction is that it makes me more philosophical about the dire state of politics today - history shows us that not much changes...
One reason I love historical fiction is that it makes me more philosophical about the dire state of politics today - history shows us that not much changes...
October 25, 2019
3.5. It’s quite a bit denser/slower going l than most historical fiction that I read, but the story is compelling enough. I can’t decide if the portrayal of Chaucer as simultaneously diplomatically intelligent and emotionally unintelligent can be right...but overall this has all the usual courtly intrigue, strong women, different angles on a historical event, etc, that I enjoy in a princess book.
February 6, 2025
First review I’ve written on here but I just could not get passed the 150 pages. I tried and tried but it was just SO boring! I love historical fiction but there was way too much description and not enough actual story! Just when I thought it was getting going with a bit of Alice’s history it then went back to pages of boredom. DNF.
August 20, 2019
An easy, simple, pleasant read.
May 16, 2020
Read all the way to 120 pages and I had to give it up. Just boring- and as a rule, I love historical fiction.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
January 11, 2021
Patiko, kad tai istorija pagal realius faktus. Labai akivaizdus pamokymas kaip kartais pakilus aukštai galima kristi žemai. Nepatiko labai ištremtas autorės aprašymo stilius
October 26, 2025
Interesting read about Alice Perrers and about her financial and political dealings when she was the kings mistress.
October 19, 2019
Extremely slow start 🐌 worth persevering with
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