In this splendid volume historian Robert B. Partridge has done a wonderful service for students of the life of King Charles, martyr; particularly for those who continue to lament the impropriety of the dearth of appropriate memorials to Charles's memory. 'O Horrable Murder' serves to refresh the memory of experts, and provides useful background and context for those beginning to study his life and martyrdom.
Partridge begins with an accurate and compressed recounting of King Charles's life, then focuses on his imprisonment, last days, trial, execution, and burial. He is adept at synthesizing familiar material from secondary sources, but goes the extra mile correcting errors that have crept into the record by consulting primary sources. For those efforts alone Partridge is to be commended. But this book's primary strengths are the organization of familiar and new details about Charles's final resting place, and the stunning examples of the neglect he has suffered in death. This book provides valuable information for those who argue today for a more appropriate and larger shrine to his memory.
Partridge throughout keeps his sympathies well in check: his factual work is scrupulously accurate and fair. Not every detail selected or featured will please Royalists, and some of Partridge's historical analysis might be discussed with alternate views, but by and large he is an author that defends the martyr case and the cause of Charles's memory because he doesn't argue: he presents the facts.
Partridge's writing style is brief, clear, and clean, but most commendably he is a master of selecting details that give focus to the argument of the neglect of King Charles. Yet, the argument is not made explicitly, but rather by allusion. Partridge carefully details the initial actions of the interested parties in Charles's day that had neither the resources, nor the power, to provide him with a more suitable burial. He continues to recount the processes and delays for a Restoration memorial through the reigns of Charles II and James II. He then provides the most ironic section of the book, "1649 to 1813," detailing the long period of ignoring Charles. Partridge furthers the unstated argument by providing details of Charles's relics being displayed without piety but as a "curiosity." He then carefully and fully describes the standard treatment dead English Royalty ordinarily would be served. The contrast with Charles's treatment cries out from the vault of Saint George's Chapel at Windsor castle.
Partridge's strengths as a historian are evident throughout, but his work with neglected primary sources is the volume's real contribution. Chapter twelve for example is a transcription and comments on Sir Henry Halford's account of the exhumation of Charles in 1813, unearthed when workmen accidentally broke through the unmarked vault in St George's Chapel. The exhumation revealed how the body of the King had been prepared for burial, which enables a comparison to be made between his and other royal burials of this period and furthers the case for Charles's neglect. Halford discusses medical evidence from the king's body, and strikes a fine balance on including thorough pathological detail without descending to the ghoulish, however, this chapter safely can be skipped by those whose piety or other proclivities would prevent review.
Chapter thirteen contains perhaps the one disappointment of this book: Partridge provides information of how the martyred King's resting place finally came to be marked with a slab of black granite in 1837 by King William IV. The information, but not the story; as Partridge notes "Exactly why William IV decided to have the site marked may never be known." Well, readers want to know the story, and Partridge has done such an excellent job teasing out the telling detail, correcting the misleading error, and synthesizing the available information so far the reader is left curious as to why he stops on this subject.
'O Horrable Murder' includes for the first time in print a transcription of the Tuesday, December 13th, 1888 account "REPLACING OF RELICS in THE GRAVE OF CHARLES I."
In a sadly annoying conclusion he lauds as a fitting epitaph for the Martyr King the Puritan poet Andrew Marvell's well-known lines about Charles, in a poem otherwise glorifying Oliver Cromwell. Well it is not a fitting epitaph, not nearly adequate enough, as Partridge's whole own book makes all too clear.

Partridge includes several excellent additions to his main subject matter that further illuminate his focus and provide useful guides. "Principal Players" for example, is a collection of sketches of the figures involved in Charles's life, imprisonment, trial, execution and burial. "The Banqueting House and the Window Leading to the Scaffold" is the best treatment ever regarding the specific window Charles's used to ascend the scaffold and meet his maker. "Signatories to The Death Warrant of King Charles I" collects all the usual suspects in one quick reference, but sadly does not come as a perforated detachable page for use as a darts target.
"The Death of A Monarch" provides detail on English royal burial customs that preceded and followed the death of King Charles, martyr, and serves to accentuate the level of neglect and impropriety he suffered. Those who wish to avoid technical, medical, and clinical treatments of the dead would be advised to skip the first 23 paragraphs (until the middle of page 162) of this appendix, and then continue on with the fascinating details about coffin ornamentation for royalty, the construction of life-like funeral effigies, and elaborate temporary monuments.
Appendix IV provides an introduction to the activities of The Sealed Knot, of which Partridge is a leading member. "The Society stages a wide variety of seventeenth century historical military reenactments, throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain." Partridge notes that the modern society of The Sealed Knot is "non-political...and includes both Royalists and Parliamentarians within its ranks." Of course the members of the original society of The Sealed Knot were loyal Royalists who eventually succeeded in restoring Charles II to the throne, although not without their own martyrs along the way.
The book includes 58 rare and seldom available illustrations that contribute helpful detail, many the author's own competently executed pen and ink sketches made to amplify historical points in the text. Most startling is the cover, which on first glance appears to be a close up photograph of the face of King Charles. It isn't of course, but rather a "soft-focus" photograph of his wax likeness at the famous Madame Tussaud's of London.

In this splendid volume historian Robert B. Partridge has done a wonderful service for students of the life of King Charles, martyr; particularly for those who continue to lament the impropriety of the dearth of appropriate memorials to Charles's memory. 'O Horrable Murder' serves to refresh the memory of experts, and provides useful background and context for those beginning to study his life and martyrdom.
Partridge begins with an accurate and compressed recounting of King Charles's life, then focuses on his imprisonment, last days, trial, execution, and burial. He is adept at synthesizing familiar material from secondary sources, but goes the extra mile correcting errors that have crept into the record by consulting primary sources. For those efforts alone Partridge is to be commended. But this book's primary strengths are the organization of familiar and new details about Charles's final resting place, and the stunning examples of the neglect he has suffered in death. This book provides valuable information for those who argue today for a more appropriate and larger shrine to his memory.
Partridge throughout keeps his sympathies well in check: his factual work is scrupulously accurate and fair. Not every detail selected or featured will please Royalists, and some of Partridge's historical analysis might be discussed with alternate views, but by and large he is an author that defends the martyr case and the cause of Charles's memory because he doesn't argue: he presents the facts.
Partridge's writing style is brief, clear, and clean, but most commendably he is a master of selecting details that give focus to the argument of the neglect of King Charles. Yet, the argument is not made explicitly, but rather by allusion. Partridge carefully details the initial actions of the interested parties in Charles's day that had neither the resources, nor the power, to provide him with a more suitable burial. He continues to recount the processes and delays for a Restoration memorial through the reigns of Charles II and James II. He then provides the most ironic section of the book, "1649 to 1813," detailing the long period of ignoring Charles. Partridge furthers the unstated argument by providing details of Charles's relics being displayed without piety but as a "curiosity." He then carefully and fully describes the standard treatment dead English Royalty ordinarily would be served. The contrast with Charles's treatment cries out from the vault of Saint George's Chapel at Windsor castle.
Partridge's strengths as a historian are evident throughout, but his work with neglected primary sources is the volume's real contribution. Chapter twelve for example is a transcription and comments on Sir Henry Halford's account of the exhumation of Charles in 1813, unearthed when workmen accidentally broke through the unmarked vault in St George's Chapel. The exhumation revealed how the body of the King had been prepared for burial, which enables a comparison to be made between his and other royal burials of this period and furthers the case for Charles's neglect. Halford discusses medical evidence from the king's body, and strikes a fine balance on including thorough pathological detail without descending to the ghoulish, however, this chapter safely can be skipped by those whose piety or other proclivities would prevent review.
Chapter thirteen contains perhaps the one disappointment of this book: Partridge provides information of how the martyred King's resting place finally came to be marked with a slab of black granite in 1837 by King William IV. The information, but not the story; as Partridge notes "Exactly why William IV decided to have the site marked may never be known." Well, readers want to know the story, and Partridge has done such an excellent job teasing out the telling detail, correcting the misleading error, and synthesizing the available information so far the reader is left curious as to why he stops on this subject.
'O Horrable Murder' includes for the first time in print a transcription of the Tuesday, December 13th, 1888 account "REPLACING OF RELICS in THE GRAVE OF CHARLES I."
In a sadly annoying conclusion he lauds as a fitting epitaph for the Martyr King the Puritan poet Andrew Marvell's well-known lines about Charles, in a poem otherwise glorifying Oliver Cromwell. Well it is not a fitting epitaph, not nearly adequate enough, as Partridge's whole own book makes all too clear.
Partridge includes several excellent additions to his main subject matter that further illuminate his focus and provide useful guides. "Principal Players" for example, is a collection of sketches of the figures involved in Charles's life, imprisonment, trial, execution and burial. "The Banqueting House and the Window Leading to the Scaffold" is the best treatment ever regarding the specific window Charles's used to ascend the scaffold and meet his maker. "Signatories to The Death Warrant of King Charles I" collects all the usual suspects in one quick reference, but sadly does not come as a perforated detachable page for use as a darts target.
"The Death of A Monarch" provides detail on English royal burial customs that preceded and followed the death of King Charles, martyr, and serves to accentuate the level of neglect and impropriety he suffered. Those who wish to avoid technical, medical, and clinical treatments of the dead would be advised to skip the first 23 paragraphs (until the middle of page 162) of this appendix, and then continue on with the fascinating details about coffin ornamentation for royalty, the construction of life-like funeral effigies, and elaborate temporary monuments.
Appendix IV provides an introduction to the activities of The Sealed Knot, of which Partridge is a leading member. "The Society stages a wide variety of seventeenth century historical military reenactments, throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain." Partridge notes that the modern society of The Sealed Knot is "non-political...and includes both Royalists and Parliamentarians within its ranks." Of course the members of the original society of The Sealed Knot were loyal Royalists who eventually succeeded in restoring Charles II to the throne, although not without their own martyrs along the way.
The book includes 58 rare and seldom available illustrations that contribute helpful detail, many the author's own competently executed pen and ink sketches made to amplify historical points in the text. Most startling is the cover, which on first glance appears to be a close up photograph of the face of King Charles. It isn't of course, but rather a "soft-focus" photograph of his wax likeness at the famous Madame Tussaud's of London.
The Bibliography contains the usual secondary sources familiar to students of the English Civil Wars, however he also includes primary source surprises such as King Charles I, his Death, his Funeral, his Relics, by Edmund H. Fellows (Windsor Castle, 1950), and Essays and Orations, including An account of the opening of the Tomb of King Charles I, by Sir Henry Halford (John Murray, 1831). The index is quite good, but not exhaustive, and further editions would need improvement as it covers proper names only and excludes topics and subjects.
'O Horrable Murder' is printed by a very small London-based press, which no doubt accounts for its rather dear price. However, the material Partridge has sifted through, the detail he provides, and his particular focus makes it worthwhile to acquire.

This book-- the first edition of which was printed in 1904-- provides the student of Mesopotamian antiquity with an astounding examination of the famous Code of Hammurabi, a king of Babylon who provided his subjects with what was probably the most comprehensive set of laws in existence at the time in which they were written. It is interesting to note that the laws themselves are said by Hammurabi to have been rendered unto him directly by Marduk, an ancient Sumerian sun-god.

The book is amazing in many ways, not the least of which being the fact that the actual codes themselves were found, engraved on a large block of black diorite, in 1901 CE and yet were fully transliterated by a diverse group of scholars and in print as early as 1904 CE. This feat of having rendered a complete transliteration of the codes-- along with several extremely difficult passages that appeared in the epilogue-- is a truly impressive scholastic effort, the incredible work of several eminent Assyriologists of the early 20th Century CE.

A great deal of information concerning the social structure of Babylon may be gleaned by reading through these codes, revealed both directly and also by inference. We are able to see quite well what their system of social prioritization was like, and by being so acquainted with their mores, proscriptions and so forth, a very clear picture of the Babylonians as a collective group emerges.

This book would be most valuable to those who are interested in the history of ancient Semitic people, but also to those who are interested in the history of torts and criminal codes in general. As it is, the Codes of Hammurabi can be seen to have influenced subsequent legal codiciles, allegedly to include even the Ten Commandments as transferred by Moses. As these latter codes were to become a cornerstone of the subsequent ethical apperception of Europe-- thus having a further impact on the rest of the world, even unto this very day-- one might say that by reading the Codes of Hammurabi we are able to see how the laws of most Western people evolved over the past four millenia.

While this book does not present us with a very difficult read, it might not be entirely interesting to the casual perusal of the average person. Even so, it is possible that virtually anyone who picked up this book and read some of it would learn a great deal about a famous society that became extinct around 1100 BCE, that is, the society of the ancient city-state known as Babylon. Perhaps by so knowing, we may also be facing an examination of ourselves.

So, you want to buy bandages? How about inventions only DaVinci could come up with? How about all those odds&ends that thieves need to escape? How about simple laborers tools. This is the book for you. This book adds MANY items that the D&D game lacked. A vial that restores hit points can be bought. Various clothing that improves AC that even a wizard & sorceror could wear is also here (Boom's Garden section).

Pick it up.

Usually your stuck trying to make some good equipment but with this book you got it all.

I do believe that this is the greatest thing you can have when playing AD&D. This book has everything you could imagine and USE in AD&D. Everything but the kitchen sink... and thats proabably in here too I just havent found it!

This is a sparkling book which reveals much about the life and times of a man about which too little is known in our age. Frederick the Great (King of Prussian 1740-1786) militarily united much of the Protestant northern Germany under one crown--the Prussian crown. He did so while supporting the enlightenment idea of toleration of religious differences, at least in theory, and with the goal of making Prussia a major power in central Europe.

Frederick anticipated Napoleon by re-introducing the strategy of the attack to military theory. He laid much of the groundwork for the diplomacy of Bismarck which a hundred years later sould see Frederick's great grand-nephew, William I (reigned 1861-1888) crowned German Emperor in 1871.

Frederick was certainly an genius in some areas of his life. However, as this book points out, he inherited a lot of the tools that he would need for success during his reign from his father, King Frederick William I (reigned 1713-1740). For instance, the army that Frederck the Great used so devastatingly in the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years War (1756-1763), had been painstakingly built by his father.

Additionally, he inherited a close diplomatic reationship with the British crown from his mother, Sophie Dorothea of Hanover. Sophia Dorothea was the daughter of George I and brother of George II of England. Assured of English neutrality Frederick could have a free hand to deal with Austria during the Seven Years War of 1756-1763.

Asprey writes in a way that is entertaining and still relates a good deal on information to the reader. Because of this, his work on Frederick the Great is a welcome addition to anyone's library.

Robert Asprey's life of Frederick The Great was a fascinating read. The author's understanding of his subject makes Frederick come to life. One can understand the forces that created the man, his strengths and weaknesses.

Asprey also provides a clear view of Europe in Frederick's times. The constant conflicts between its nations is difficult to understand from the perspective of the modern reader. In our times Europe has been at peace for more than 50 years (despite the conflagration in the Balkans) yet in Frederick's time the great nations could not stop warring with each other.

Most fascinating in this book, however, is the suspense filled descriptions of Frederick's major battles and the masterful way the king manuevered through the 7 year war. This was very exciting reading. It also provided insights as to how an inferior force can prevail against what appeared to be overwhelming odds.

This is generally not considered one of the better plays of Aeschylus; yet, I did enjoy it, even though there is very little action. Perhaps it is because it dealt with a subject of contemporary interest to its original audience. In fact, it is the oldest surviving play based on an event of recent history. The play was first produced in 472 B. C., only eight years after the Battle of Salamis. The speech by the Messenger in the play is the earliest known historical account of that battle. The play takes place in the Persian court and simply presents the arrival of a messenger carrying the news of Persia's defeat and is followed by the entry of a disgraced Xerxes. This play also contains the earliest known appearance by a ghost in a drama.

"The Persians" is a minor work in the extant plays of Aeschylus, but has considerable historical if not dramatic significance. The play is the second and only remaining tragedy from a lost tetralogy that is based on the historical events of the Persians Wars. The play was performed in 472 B.C., eight years after the defeat of the invaders at the Battle of Salamis. The speech by the Messenger is assumed to be a fairly accurate description of the battle, but the focus of the play is on the downfall of the Persian Empire because of the folly of Xerxes. After the ghost of Darius, father of Xerxes and the leader of the first Persian invasion that was defeated at the Battle of Marathon laments the ruin of the great empire he had ruled, Xerxes offers similar histrionics concerning the destruction of his fleet.

The play is interesting because Aeschylus presents Xerxes, a foreign invader, as exhibiting the same sort of hubris that afflicts the greatest of mythological heroes in these Greek tragedies. Laud and honor is given the Athenians for defeating the Persians in battle, but Aeschylus surprisingly provides a look at the Persian king's culpability in the downfall of his empire. There is a reference in the play to the tradition that Xerxes was descended from Perseus (for whom the Persian race was therefore named), but even so it seems quite odd to turn him into a traditional Greek tragic hero. Aeschylus had fought the Persians at the Battles of Marathon and Salamis, which certainly lends authenticity to his description of events.

Aeschylus won the festival of Dionysus in 472 B.C. with the tetralogy of "Phineus," "The Persians," "Glaucus of Potniae," and the satyr play "Prometheus the Fire-Kindler." Phineas was the king who became the victim of the Harpies, while this particular Glaucus was the son of Sisyphus and the father of Bellerophon who was torn to pieces by his own mares. Consequently, this particular tetralogy clearly has the theme of kings brought down by their own folly. But even within that context, the fact that Aeschylus would write of a historical rather than legendary figure, not to mention a Persian rather than a Greek, remains more than a minor historical curiosity.

"Persians" deals with a people trying to exceed mortal limits. The king of persia blinds his people into believing they can accomplish deeds that exceed the laws of the divine and it's natural order. The king invades Greece despite bad omens. The people in Persia are told they are defeated by a messenger and mourn in mad disbelief. Searching for answers they summon the spirit of a once great king who cannot undo what has now been done. Persia's once proud army, security, and young sons are perished. This translation is excellent. The ending of the play through subject matter is sad enough, but the helpless lines delivered by King Xerxes and the chorus through dialogue toward each other at the end of the play is devastating.

This book is not overly analytic, but I thought it was good reading. His account of Frederick the Great's 14 great battles (Mollutz, Chotusity, Hohenfriedberg, Soor, Lobositz, Prague, Kolin, Rossbach, Leuthen, Zorndorf, hochkirch, Kunersdorf, Liegnitz, and Torgau)are very well done. This is a fun book to read.

For nearly six years, from the assassination of King Abdullah in July 1951 to King Husayn's declaration of martial law in April 1957, Jordan went through a hair-raising process of monarchical and political transition. Those years witnessed "the short, unhappy reign of King Talal," his succession by the seventeen-year old Husayn, the near-drowning of Jordan in the swirling currents of Pan-Arab nationalism, and the eventual "Hashemite restoration" which has lasted to the present. By combing the archives, reading the published sources, and interviewing many participants (including King Husayn), Satloff has with outstanding skill pieced together the first reliable history of that turbulent period. As his title implies, the story is mostly about personalities; by bringing them to life, the author infuses his analysis with verve and interest. Satloff holds that by the time Abdullah died, his kingdom had been transformed from the simplicity of "old Transjordan" into a rather more complex polity, one in which the king relied on a small, select cadre of politicians and doers. Husayn first asserted his independence from those "dinosaurs" (most notably, by firing Glubb Pasha) and chose to steer the shoals of ideology (which at one point endowed him with a foreign minister whose overriding passion was to eliminate an independent Jordan as a step toward Arab unity). But, in the end, Husayn returned to his grandfather's ways, looking to the "king's men" to help him sustain a Hashemite monarchy in a most inhospitable environment.

Middle East Quarterly, September 1994

This short book gives a quick biography of one of history's "villains", Herod the Great, Kind of Judea. Beginning with his father, Antipater, an Idumaean Arab, the book examines Herod's rise to power and his machinations to stay in power. This book is very interesting, even for adult readers, and I especially liked the many pictures. Overall, I found this to be a very good introduction to the life of Herod the Great.

Robert Frost has the ability to capture the deepness of simple things. We tend to overlook the profoundness of life's little nuggets. The combination of King's simple photos of country life in New England adds visual images to the mental ones painted by Frost. A beautiful book!

I found this book to have little redeeming value. The dialog is particularly crude and the "detective" work is simplistic.

Well, boys and girls, here we are at the fourteenth Spenser novel and it is probably too early to tell if our hero is in decline or if Robert B. Parker is just idling at this point. Our hero is hired by a newspaper to investigate the murder of one of its reporters who was checking out the cocaine trade in the central Massachusetts town of Wheaton. Spenser shows up, starts asking questions of practically everybody in town, but the responses are all the same: nobody knows anything except that maybe he should stop asking questions. But since the police are tailing him and the local Columbian cocaine kingpin threatens him, Spenser figures he must be on the right track and that if he just keeps making a nuisance of himself sooner or later something will slip through the cracks.

In the wake of the epic storyline in which Susan Silverman leaves Spenser and eventually has to be rescued by our hero and Hawk, it is not surprising we are getting a series of more intimate adventures. The sense that Parker is going through the motions at this point comes from the little things: Spenser and Susan are happy and content without any mention to the personal traumas that compelled her to head to California in the first place, and their happiness consists of lots of sex, even more looking at one another, and virtually no cooking. On top of that I do not think he hits anybody in the entire book. No, this does not sound like the real Spenser to me either. For the first time I get the feeling Parker is starting to repeat himself a bit, since he continues his streak of getting people killed by just asking the wrong questions and Hawk always need to show up to help save the day. However, Susan does provide necessary psychological analysis at a key moment, so that degree from Harvard is getting good use. My main complaint would be that the resolution is rather abrupt and smacks a bit too much of just being over and done with, which knocks it down one star. I admit looking forward to the next book with some trepidation (But I have started reading "Crimson Joy" since I wrote my first draft of this review and its off to a VERY good start). As always, these books are easy reads well suited to the computer lifestyle: I have been polishing off at least one of these a day and that is without really trying to sneak in chapters here and there all day long at work.

Spenser is hired to find out who killed reporter Eric Valdez. Valdez's assignment was to get to the bottom of the cocaine trade in Wheaton, Massachusetts, but the town is owned by the Columbians, including the police force. So Spenser does what he does best. He parks himself in town and asks questions until he annoys enough people and something shakes loose.

I read this book years ago and just re-read it. I think it stands up well. I've always liked the Spenser series because of it's dialog between Spenser and Hawk. Actually the dialog between Spenser and whoever he's talking to always crackles. I also like the fact that the story makes sense. Many mystery/crime novels today depend on the serial killer schtick but to me Parker's mysteries are always grounded on something believable. Cocaine trade in Wheaton, Massachusetts? Might seem ridiculous at first but after it's explained it makes perfect sense. It could happen that way and the story that follows also could have happened that way.

Anyway, like all of the Spenser series I enjoyed it and recommend it. It's not deep literature but it is a fast enjoyable read.