The Armor of Light by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Armor of Light by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett

Comments

[flemmings]

I did have problems with the 'isn't Sidney kewl!' fangirlishness, but Marlowe and his demon make up for much.

[autopope]

(I can see why Elizabeth might be cool on the idea of executing monarchs but it happens that I am also not as keen on the Tudors as historical authors seem to be.)

In any case, James VI was only on the throne because Elizabeth gave his mum an extra-short cut. (Mary Queen of Scots.) So she definitely didn't have anything against executing monarchs in principle.

[(Anonymous)]

No doubt the "of Scots" part was important there.

[phantom_wolfboy]

I had the same thought.

[jreynolds197]

I read this one years ago and so can't remember whether they succeeded in their quest.

What would be funny (FSVOF) is that they "succeeded", Charles I got to keep his head, and the Three Kingdoms went down the road of royal absolutism à la France - a much worse outcome (unless you're a royal).

[jsburbidge]

There's an argument that's been made regarding the later contretemps in 1688 that Louis-style absolutism (which James II was in favour of) was as much of an innovation as the parliamentary alternative. Charles' views were rather more conservative. An England with no Commonwealth would certainly have had a more powerful monarchy than it ended up having, but it's likely that it would have had a rather different pattern than France. (Filmer is strong on the divine right of kings, but also on their responsibilities to balance between competing interests in the body politic.)

I have no idea what such an England would have been like, but I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have mirrored France.

[graydon]

There's a least a strong line of thought that France and England started out the same; post-Roman Germanic traditions, where the right to rule as king gets created by some combination of heredity, divine favour, and the approval of the ~tribal assembly.

The decisive point of departure in this model is seen as the Angevins; no one could ascribe piety to Devil Henry (Henry II Plantagenet) with a straight face, even if he paid them. Plus the whole turbulent priest, barefoot in the snow thing.

So by the time of Henry Tudor, it was down not to heredity or divine favour, but Parliament. (Which at that time is nobles and prelates far more than it's the Commons; the English Civil War can be seen as the argument between Lords and Commons over control of Parliament (and thus the power to tax, lodged in a less clearly defined Parliament in the reign of Edward III), with the monarchy as a rhetorical football.) Pretty much entirely settled by the time of the Stuarts since they'd had Great Harry and didn't like it.

So by the time of Elizabeth isn't not at all likely you could get to the kind of divine right thing the French monarchy had going; that had built over a long time and with tangible evidence of divine favour in the form of continuous primogeniture, despite everything. You could maybe get something absolutist -- Great Harry again -- but you then run into the problem of the pirate kingdom and where the money really comes from. It would take a new economy as well as a new construction of government.

[gatunian]

At least until they had their own 1789, and now I'm wondering what impact that would have had on the rest of the world and if an absolutist British monarchy would have been a net benefit for humanity by making things that much worse for the locals.

[autopope]

I *might* just have handed in the ninth (and final) book in a parallel universes/alt-hist time travel series that explores that question, among others ...

[bunsen_h]

I can see why Elizabeth might be cool on the idea of executing monarchs

It took me a mental lurch and a moment of thought to parse that as "cool on" rather than "cool with".

[ba_munronoe]

I'm also a little squicked by the notion that James's known enthusiasm for burning witches would have been perfectly justified in this world.

[(Anonymous)]

James Stuart that is...... and in England it was hanging.

But the setting seems to be that not all people with magic are enemy agents... or...??

[ba_munronoe]

I didn't think I needed to clarify which James! (Has our host been combating witches and nobody told me?) I meant witches in the contemporary sense of "servants of satan", even in our world rich white men (see, John Dee) were able to muck around in mystical matters without much risk of being hung or burned: I'd imagine in a world with working magic, there would be more fine-grained distinctions on which magic users to employ and which to throw away.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember this being the first Melissa Scott novel I gave up on. Oddly enough what bothered me was the clothing- the authors took great pains to describe in careful detail exactly what undergarments, middle garments, and outer garments the viewpoint characters were packing, putting on, and taking off. It felt like being trapped in a small room with an overenthusiastic SCAdian. "Yes, yes, you certainly did the research. But could we please get on with the story?"

--
Nathan H.