”When Admiral Herbert found himself closeted with William of Orange, he had some eagerness in observing that Prince whose name was so much in the mouths of men, and who had grown to be a kind of lodestar to Protestant England. . . . Added to his present fame was the glamour of past heroism, the history of his splendid house, the great deeds of his ancestors, his own breaking from unhappy childhood and desolate youth to power in one day of chaos and ruin, blood and despair, his almost miraculous deliverance of his country, constant devotion to it, and his firm adherence to the persecuted religion were unique in the history of princes, and lived in the minds of men.”

This is the third book in Bowen’s Prince of Orange trilogy. [God and the King] covers the period 1688-1702. After Protestant King Charles II of England died, his brother, Catholic James II became king. After many heavy-handed anti-protestant rulings, and being suspected of being in league with France, some of his influential subjects approached the Prince of Orange, asking him to overthrow James, which he did in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. William and his wife, Mary, then became King and Queen of England. This book discusses the difficulty he found in governing England, with so many factions, backbiting, corruption, extravagance, and intrigue, and his longing to be back in Holland with its more staid, prudent, serious life and politics. With the death of Mary from smallpox in 1694, and his subsequent breakdown, then resumption of his duties, until his death in 1702.

I find Bowen’s books a little uneven, with this one, too much emphasis on Mary’s tears, and not enough on what William and Mary actually did in their reign. Nonetheless, I’m glad to have found and read these five books by Marjorie Bowen, the first two about William the Silent, and the last three about his great-grandson. They were good enough to make me want to read them again, after I’ve read other sources about these great men. ( )