Mowatt has a lot of praise for Holmes' biography. In his opinion, this is not just a thorough work of history, it is also well written like a novel. As a result, Holmes allows the broad public to access Marlborough and with him the history of the Spanish War of Succession. The only thing that escapes Historyzine's host is why Holmes had to label the duke as fragile. There are various vulnarabilities that Marlborough bore with him, but none of them seem to be a major point in the biography. So what about Marlborough, after Mowatt has studied both Holmes and Winston Churchill's major work on the same, I wonder what he has to say about Marlborough, both as a leader as well as a person. The remains implicit and I hope we will get to see a little bit more of this in episodes to come.
Praise also befalls the reenactment in Oudenaarde and the town, for the way it hosted the event. Mowatt has had an utterly good time and his enthusiasm is contagious. The listener would have wanted to be there.
More Historyzine:
The year 1703,
On admirals and more,
18th Century Warfare,
Spanish Succession and History Podcasts.
3 comments:
It was a lot of fun and I hope they do it all again for the anniversary of Malplaquet next year. I've moved on from Belgium and am staying in Maastricht at the moment. I've done another little special including some more stuff I recorded at Oudenaarde.
I am downloading that special - looking forward to it.
As for what you say about Marlborough.
His character is more than a little elusive. One of the problems will be that he was always aware that his letters could be captured by his enemies (the French or his political enemies at home) so his words were often guarded. Sometimes I wonder if his own character wasn't very interesting. I read a few words from Sarah and I'm instantly captivated. I read a letter from Marlborough and occasionally my eyes will slide off the page.
I wonder whether his long years of trying to please everyone all of the time meant he permanently adopted quite a bland persona.
If there's a book out there which covers this subject then I'd probably like to see it.
Post a Comment