2008-09-16 Fascinating story stitched together from very little cloth

Although Weir has written historical biographies of women who were intrinsically interesting -- Eleanor of Acquitaine and Isabella (the She Wolf) of France -- I have always found them a little dry. It's surprisingly, then, that her most lively and readable book so far should be about a woman about whom so little is known.

We can conjecture who Katherine de Roet's father was but the identity of her mother remains unknown; we cannot be sure how many children she bore, assuming that some died young, as was almost inevitable; Weir makes silly statements such as 'Katherine may well have been there that day but there is no evidence of it' a little too often.

Even so, the character of Katherine shines through, the first royal mistress ever to achieve the status of wife, ancestor of every English monarch since 1461, loving the larger-than-life John of Gaunt.

Weir mischievously quotes the late Queen Mother as saying that men of status do not marry their mistresses.

I suspect that most British people would say 'Katherine Who?' I'm delighted that Weir has introduced Katherine back into history, where she belongs and whence some of her descendants, a little ashamed of her humble birth, tried to expunge her.