Weir's book is fascinating not only for the life of Katherine Swynford but also the people and the period. Her delivery is fascinating and clearly she dug deep into the history and records of the period which rarely showed women, even those of the noble class, as individuals seperate of their husband's or lovers. For anyone who has read Seton's KATHERINE, this is a must read by a biographer with an well established track record for providing readers with histories of "not well behaved women" in history. For anyone who is interested in this period of English history this book is a must. That Katherine and John of Gaunt's children's descendants influenced both the English (Tudor) and Scottish (Stewart) thrones makes her influence all the more important.

In 1376, a powerful noblewoman named Katherine Swynford was publicly criticized for not doing her part to clear a section of the silted-up Fossdyke Canal that ran through her property in Lincoln. The 12-mile canal had been built by the Romans in 120 A.D., but the poor and unimaginative English of the dark ages and medieval times had let it slide into disrepair. In 1384, John of Gaunt (who had been Katherine's illicit lover and would later marry her), headed a commission that also directed Katherine to do her part in fixing the canal. Nothing happened. In 1518, another commission made the same demands of property owners alone the canal. Finally, in 1670, Parliament decreed repairs must take place, and it allocated funds for the job.

This minor anecdote illustrated for me the life-and-times of Katherine Swynford and other nobles that are covered in "Mistress of the Monarchy." On the one hand, there are letters that testify to sophisticated efforts to facilitate commerce, and the political negotiations that took place among the rich and powerful. On the other hand, nothing happened for 300 years! Yet, England was stable enough that three centuries later, the needs of commerce still justified the repairs. It's hard to imagine anything that exists today being commercially relevant (not an historical artifact) in 300 years.

I love that anecdote. Unfortunately, too little of "Mistress" is as memorable. The book is a good attempt at uncovering the life of Katherine Swynford and the times in which she lived. But the actual historical record is so paltry, and some of the sources are so biased, that author and historian Alison Weir has little material with which to work. The historical record is little besides laundry lists of payments to her, gifts she gave and received, and homes she rented. The author is left to making guesses and surmises, and then repeating the same information to pad the text.

The padding and repetition are excessive. At least 37 times, I counted a reference to Katherine as "good with children," reflecting on her work as an attendant to various nobles and their children. Similarly, I read over and over again about how a gift was an indication of the high regard with which Katherine was held by John of Gaunt or someone else. I got the point -- the nobility gave gifts to each other, and those gifts had monetary and symbolic value. These repetitions made the book rather dull reading at times.

The book also suffers in that the author is trying to please two audiences: truly knowledgeable people and people with superficial knowledge of the history of England and France in 1350-1400 (me). There were times when the dynastic histories, for example, were merely lists to me. I have no idea whom those people were, nor why they were important. Just as critically, the book uses numerous religious and historical terms that were not familiar to me. A glossary of 30-40 terms would have been immensely helpful. Could I have picked up those words on the Internet? Sure. But I was reading the book during my daily train commute, so I didn't have online access.

Given those objections, I'm satisfied that I read the book. Its evocation of a crucial period in English (and French) history is interesting. The book's descriptions of major historical figures rings true, and the author is scrupulous about indicating when she has good information, and when she either has no information or is working with sources of questionable accuracy and objectivity. Weir does a good job of giving a sense of the wealth of the highest circles of the court in those days, as well as where glimpses of that period can be seen in contemporary England (and, alas, they are few). And it explains why the public love that Katherine and John of Gaunt shared was so remarkable for its time, and how that strong bond forged the Lancastrian and Tudor empires.

One final note. I'm stunned by the amount of traveling that John of Gaunt did during his lifetime. According to this book, it seemed that every two weeks, he was on the move from one of his castles to another, or going to and from attendance in court. He sailed to France seemingly a dozen times, and he journeyed repeatedly to Scotland for battle or negotiations. I doubt that a US president is busier today than John of Gaunt was. Obviously, John's journeys were orders of magnitude more difficult than what political leaders face today. So this book did something that I always value when I engage a new topic: It spurred me to look more deeply, as I will soon look for a strong biography of John of Gaunt.