The Founding: The Morland Dynasty, Book 1

This is the first of over thirty novels in the series which moves through British history from the last kings of the War of the Roses and eventually to the present based on one family, the Morlands. To be honest, I started this series because I have been reading novels dealing with the Kings of England from Norman the Conquerer to the Tudors. I have pieced together the time line from various authors, some good (Sharon Kay Penman, Elizabeth Cahdwick), bad (Jean Plaidy), and whatever (Phillipa Gregory). I mention this because these authors have tended toward being Yorkists or Lancasterian, giving quite varied views of the same history. Since the Morland family tree becomes as tangled as the Houses of York and Lancaster a good working knowledge of history helps. Harrod-Eagles starts the first novel as Edward IV life is coming to a close. The Queen Elizabeth Woodville is a trumped up schemer while Richard III is a good kind man who has his brother's, the King, interests at heart as well as that of the nation--not quite Shakespeare. Richard is the patron to Morland family and has know Elizabeth Courtney Morland since she was a young girl with a crush on him. The plot of the novel is entwined with known events so there are few surprises there. What is interesting is the the role the Morland's play in these events and how their role effects their lives and fortunes. Having read the first three volumes, I would say the impact of royal dynasty shifts and the impact of poor health conditions play the role of fate, often taking without much quarter given. In this novel the third force is the key founder of the dynasty, Elizabeth, who marries Edward Morland and turns a semi prosperous sheep farm into a major economic force in Yorkshire through her innovative thinking and her sheer drive and determination. Although she has several children, she does not die in child birth as do many of her peers but she does suffer from the loss of grown sons in the War of the Roses and the loss of children to sickness. She outlives her husband and becomes the role model for her grandchildren. This novel is exciting because of Elizabeth. She is such a strong person. One can't help but root for her success as an economic innovator. Other characters come and go as death overtakes just about everyone eventually as it does in life. In this novel other characters are not nearly as fully developed. People and relationships get presented and then fade into the background and are heard of only in a conversation or reappear years later with a whole family. At times you get a sense of "well time has to move on you know and I can't tarry with this person any longer." The novels are of average length. The author could have easily developed these subplots more fully without making the novels excessively long. There are times when I wished she had spent more time/effort in creating conversations that moved the plot forward rather than telling us what happened. Her description of a garden or room or artifact tend to set the scene well. There needs to be the same fullness in the characters and interaction. Finally, the little princes in the tower are not killed by Richard III in this novel but Henry VII, the first Tudor king. Will I read all of the volumes in this series? Most likely. The first novel is quite successful as a stand alone novel. Subsequent novels not so much.

THE FOUNDING is the first book in a series of thirty-four, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, that deals with the Morland family, who come from York, England. This novel starts with a marriage, when the Morland heir, Robert, is betrothed to a dower-less young girl, Eleanor Courtenay. Why would a rich family want to ally themselves to this penniless young girl? Because her dearest friend is Eleanor Beauchamp (1408-1467), a daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and recently married to Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset (1406-1455).Throughout this novel, Ms. Harrod-Eagles uses the technique of omniscient narration, which allows her to switch points of view effectively and efficiently without disturbing the reader:Robert cleared his throat, but he could not speak. Eleanor grew more impatient, in her misery, to have done with it.Eleanor starts off the novel at the age of eighteen as a terrified (but brave) bride, and at the end of it is a seventy-year-old monarch, who rules with a rod of iron (mixed in with some love.) THE FOUNDING encompasses the years 1434-1486, which anyone with a historical bent will realize includes all of the Wars of the Roses. The Morlands starts out on the side of the Lancastrians, because they have pledged their allegiance to the Duke of Somerset, who later becomes a great champion for the Lancastrian Queen Marguerite d'Anjou. However, Eleanor has secretly been in love with Richard, Duke of York, and thus manages to see to it that the family slips over into the Yorkist camp. This works out wonderfully well for the family when the Yorks are in the ascendant during the years 1461-1485. But the novel ends with the death of the last Yorkist king Richard III, and we are left with the cold winds of change beckoning in a new, unpleasant, un-English monarch in the shape of Henry Tudor, who becomes King Henry VII of England. What will become of the Morlands now? We will have to read the next novel to find out. Five stars.

This book lays the foundation for Harrod-Eagles 20+ series of the Morland dynasty. I won't go into the plot details as it's already been said by many other reviewers; I'll just list what I found to be the good and the bad of this book.What I disliked was how the author only mentions one facet of each character's personality. Eleanor, the main character, is repeatedly characterized as being a strong, imposing, dutiful woman. She is described as such over and over again. And the other characters are treated the same. By about the tenth time it's mentioned how strong-willed Eleanor is, you want to scream. The only real exception to this is the daughter, Isabella. She goes through circumstances which force a dramatic personality change in her and so she gets to be a slightly rounder character. But everyone else is more or less flat and one-dimensional.The other negative comment I have is the history involved in these stories. Having accurate history is less important than having good character development but some of Harrod-Eagles claims leave you wondering just where she got her information. She has the princes in the tower being killed after Richard III in this first book, and then states in the second book that the Princes were shipped out of England and probably died in obscurity in a cottage in France! And, in her foreword to the second book, she says that Henry VIII had only two mistresses in his lifetime! Such inaccuracies tend to irritate me as a history buff but if you can overlook that, then this book isn't so bad (aside from the lack of good characterization).The good thing about this series is that they are light, easy reads for when you're in the mood to go back in time but don't want to be bogged down in something deep and dark. The story is entertaining enough, even with those flaws, that you can quickly go through it.

If you like Philippa Gregory, you'll love this. I read another writer's blog (Random Jottings - The End of a Dynasty?) recently lamenting that Cynthia Harrod Eagles' publishers had 'dropped' her because sales of her cult historical novels weren't as high as they would have liked. The blogger raved about the Morland Dynasty and the Kirov Saga (the latter set in Russia) and I was intrigued. Here was a writer with a long track record of rave-reviewed historical fiction and I'd never stumbled on her before. Why? Under-promotion, the blogger suggested - all the publisher's fault. So I hopped over to Amazon and downloaded the first of the Morland Dynasty saga - The Founding - set in the 15th century world of Richard III, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret of Anjou and the Wars of the Roses - Lancaster and York.I was immediately gripped by the central character - Eleanor Courtenay, impoverished ward of Lord Edmund Beaufort (grandson of John of Gaunt) - who is sold off in marriage to a wealthy Yorkshire sheep farmer and wool merchant who wants to trade his money for a bit of spit-and-polish and some aristocratic influence. The gently born and educated Eleanor is transported to a filthy northern farmhouse and bears four children in three years. Eleanor's courage and sheer bloody-mindedness win in the end, but the influential connection she brings with her also carries obligations that are not always comfortable. She and her husband find themselves caught up in the civil war and torn between allegiance to the Lancastrian Beauforts or to Richard of York. Eleanor's private loyalties prove costly.It's been a very good read with accurate historical detail - a wonderful insight into the way women had to live - enduring superstition and prejudice and almost continual child-bearing. I also liked the way that Eleanor's character developed through the book as she aged and was changed by circumstance. I'm off now to down-load the next book, The Dark Rose, to follow the fortunes of Eleanor's grandchildren. There are 35 books altogether, bringing the family's fortunes up to the present day, so I expect to have to pick and choose a bit, but there are some readers who have read every one and are totally addicted!I might also follow Random Jottings' suggestion and write to the the publishers to protest about their actions - it's time Readers started to make publishers aware of what they want.

I liked the first book in this epic saga but I think I would have liked it better if I had read it years ago, before Philippa Gregory, Alison Weir, and their ilk. I learned some things that are glossed over in the more 'romantic' approach of some writers, such as the fact that married couples had virtually no privacy in their sleeping arrangements after their wedding night - and still produced babies more or less conveyor-belt style! Also, I don't think I have read elsewhere the fate of the Princes in the Tower attributed to Henry VII rather than Richard III - very interesting, perhaps I just haven't read the relevant source and although the author lists some of her sources of reference, I would have appreciated some historical notes appended to the book, just for these contentious issues.My problem is that I couldn't warm to Eleanor, despite recognising her matriarchal role in the founding of the Morland dynasty, and that tended to colour my overview of the book - I'm not sure how the author herself viewed Eleanor, but for me, although she was an amazingly strong character and drove the family fortunes forward, she seemed unsympathetic and self-centred. Her abiding, life-long love for Richard, Duke of York, based on one meeting when she was a very young girl, seemed to me unhealthy, to say the least! I would have liked to know if Richard, Duke of York was renowned for extra-marital intrigues? She was loved unreservedly by both her husband and her lifelong servant, but her attitude towards both of them seemed to be whatever worked for her at a particular moment in time. With her children, she was either besotted or indifferent - maybe that is the result of producing such a vast number of children! Her treatment of her older, unmarried daughter, however, seemed unforgiveable, especially since it seemed that everyone else in the household had reservations [and voiced them] about the man Eleanor decided to marry her off to - again, I would have liked to know if this was common behaviour at that time, to the extent that Eleanor took her actions despite arranged marriages being the norm.Overall, a good read; there is certainly a wealth of information about living, loving, reproducing and dying during that era, much of which I have not encountered before. I will read the next one, about Henry VIII's time about which I have read a great deal and that will probably give a better idea if this series is for me.

Like other reviewers, I didn't like the main character. I also found it difficult to remember who was who in the extended family. This is not something I generally have a problem with so I think it was due to the fact that some of them weren't interesting enough. Also, though I am all for rehabilitating Richard 3rd, I can't believe he or his wife were the saintly figures portrayed here! I don't think he would have poured his heart out to the main character either nor was I convinced by the portrayal of his father. The book did have some good passages: the description of the festivities in York was very successful and brought the period vividly to life. Not all historical detail was accurate however. I won't be continuing with this saga particularly as I read in one review that Henry viii is portrayed in far too sympathetic a light in the next book.

I read this book after a recommendation from a friend who has read the full Dynasty series. This story centres around Eleanor, born a noblewoman but with no money, she is married off to a farmer, a man with land and wealth but no title. Although she feels she has been dealt and unfair hand (for she dreams of being with Richard of Yorke), she doesn't let that stop her and soon she becomes a matriarch of a large wealth-driven family. Although the story is superbly written and a really enjoyable read, the fact that the novel goes into so many children, grand-children and great-grandchildrens stories within the novel was a bit hard to follow at times, but this is truly a minor criticism for a fantastic novel. The historical aspects of the story are another strong point for this author, as while I was reading the story I found myself comparing notes with both York and Middleham (being a local) and this gave it an additional element for me. With a lot of media attention around Richard III this is probably the best time to read this novel and immerse yourself in this era. I look forward to more in this promising series.

This is a good historical novel. The Wars of the Roses period is notoriously difficult to write about.Not only are the political and social developments very complicated, but there is also the language barrier.Like C.J. Sansom, Cynthia Harrod Eagles manages to avoid the 'pish tushery' trap but does not modernise the speech so much that you lose all sense of very different people with very different attitudes.