She was married as a child to John de la Pole, who - while also still a child - inherited the title Duke of Suffolk from his father. At one point, Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor's mother, is described as "Suffolk's only child." Actually, her father was John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset. In a tangential reference to later royalty, Breverton mentions "Queen Victoria's grandsons George V, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Tsar Nicholas." Nicholas was not a grandson of Queen Victoria - in fact, he was not related to her at all - although his wife Alexandra was one of Victoria's granddaughters, and Nicholas himself was a first cousin of George V (their mothers, princesses of Denmark, were sisters) and a more distant cousin twice over of Kaiser Wilhelm through common Russian and Prussian ancestors. Upon Warwick's death it went to his son-in-law George, Duke of Clarence, and then to George's son, Edward, but they were both Plantagenets, not Nevilles. The only Neville to hold the title Earl of Warwick was Richard Neville, known as the Kingmaker, who gained the title through his wife, Anne Beauchamp. While discussing other members of the Mortimer family, Breverton says the Mortimers "married into the Neville family, earls of Warwick." Actually, the title Earl of Warwick was not traditionally a Neville title, though the family held other earldoms, including those of Westmorland and Salisbury. When Breverton discusses Owen Tudor's illegitimate son, Sir David Owen, he calls Edmund Tudor his uncle, but since Edmund (brother of Jasper) was also the son of Owen Tudor, he was actually David's (half) brother. She herself did take a lover, but his name was Roger Mortimer. When discussing the reign of Edward II, Breverton mentions "the queen's lover, Hugh Despenser." In fact, Queen Isabella detested Despenser, who may have been her husband's lover but was certainly not hers. Breverton mentions "the first king of all England, the Dane Athelstan." This is enough to make the king in question turn over in his grave, given that Athelstan was actually an Anglo-Saxon king (the grandson of Alfred the Great) who spent much of his reign fighting the Danes (Vikings). A typo, perhaps, but the number of subsequent errors in the book suggests otherwise. These problems begin only a few pages into the book, when Breverton says Richard II was 22 at the time of his death (he was 33). With good editing and the elimination of extraneous information and unnecessary quotations, this book could have been half the length and a hundred times more effective.īeyond the flaws in the writing, however, are issues of accuracy. There are also numerous typos, incorrect or extraneous words, inconsistent spellings, confusing phrasing, and other sloppy errors throughout. Modernizing spelling in quoted sections would have greatly improved readability as well. There is an excessive use of very long quotations that add very little in most such cases it would have been much more effective to simply summarize the information, especially since Breverton generally repeats the most important points in his own words anyway. The same details appear multiple times, often almost word-for-word and only pages apart. Breverton jumps around chronologically, mentioning people and events in passing and only introducing or explaining them properly later on. The book's flaws are so numerous that it doesn't appear to have been edited at all. Much of this information is of little relevance to Jasper's life or even to the history as a whole.
As another reviewer wrote, it seems as if he just cut and pasted a bunch of information in the hopes that someone might find it interesting. Of course it makes sense to discuss events in which Jasper did not take direct part if they affected his life or are necessary for an understanding of the overall history, but Breverton goes into far too much detail about people and events that are tangential at best. In fact, it hardly seemed to focus on Jasper at all most of the time, and there were long sections where he wasn't even mentioned, or was mentioned only very superficially in passing. Despite its title, it revealed nothing new about Jasper. Unfortunately, this book did not deliver. I've come across Jasper repeatedly in other books, but always as a secondary figure, so I was interested to learn more about him beyond the basic details of his life. I bought the book because it seemed to offer a different perspective on the Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudors, by focusing on Jasper Tudor, the uncle of Henry VII. Having spent the money, I was determined to finish it, but it was a slog. I regret buying it, but I was in a hurry in the bookstore and didn't have time to do my usual thorough sampling before purchasing. This is one of the most poorly written books I have ever read.
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