The Rise and Fall of Medieval Family is a useful study of one of the most controversial families of late Medieval England. It follows the fortunes and key figures in the family from Hugh Despenser Senior or "the Elder” (d. 1306) the father of Edward II's notorious favourite to the “last” Despenser, Isabelle, the only surviving daughter and heir of Thomas Despenser and Constance of York (d. 1439).

Their political and military careers, marriages and any contributions to history are examined. As a great family, The Despensers were companions of Kings and couriers, and many of them married into the royal family, and a branch of the family did survive although Despenser became their title instead of their family name.

Kathryn Warner has given us another interesting biography of a Medieval Family to place alongside her book on Hugh Despenser the Younger and Sharon Bennett Connolly’s book on the Du Warrene family.

Pen and Sword approved my request for this title on Netgalley, I received no incentive and all opinions expressed herein are my own and freely given.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. This was well written and full of interesting facts.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. I absolutely enjoyed this book a lot! I highly recommend it for people who are into this period of history.

This has been a very enjoyable read. It's not only a great reference work for anyone studying the noble families of late medieval England. To anyone genuinely interested in this era, looking for an immersion into the nitty gritty details and the genealogy of one of the important noble families, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
However, if you prefer a popular history narrative (Dan Jones, Ian Mortimer, etc.) and are not really willing to get into a slightly drier read and dive much deeper you should probably look elsewhere.

I love the way Kathryn Warner always handles the subjects in her books. The seemingly compulsive attention to detail, the thoroughness, the need to leave absolutely nothing out that may be of interest to the reader...this speaks of her great love for her craft. I really appreciate that.
It also helps to structure my thoughts in a way, as I'm both a bit of a control freak and a scatterbrain. Somehow reading a Kathryn Warner book feels like a match made in heaven for me. I really enjoyed it and learned so much.

If this book had included a family tree/genealogy table and a bit more analysis en commentary I would have rated it 5 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

This for me is a hard review to write and I have literally left it unwritten for sometime after reading this book.

On the one hand, writing about one of England's most despised medieval families, in a favourable light, but still warts and all, is no simple task. Documenting the families' politically activities over a mere 200 years again is no walk in the park.

This is obviously a very well researched and documented book - Warner is noted for her focus on the reign of Edward II and all that which is associated with it. And she is at ease her with her subject matter. Which brings up my next point.

For me, this felt like a genealogical dump. So much was focused on who married who, who inherited what, who took what from whom, that the narrative of the "rise and fall" was somewhat lost - its thin threads are in there but they are quite fragile. In fact, after looking at some of the reviews, I was worried I was the only one who felt the story was lost amid the overwhelming amount of genealogical data.


read full review here @ Melisende's Library

This book intrigued me as I had heard about Hugh Despenser the Elder and Hugh Despenser the Younger from watching a TV series and through some books where they were mentioned. I was aware of their reputation but wished to learn more.

The Despensers rose and fell in favour over many generations and Warner tells their story of how they found royal favour on more than one occasion but also faced disgrace and execution. I had no idea the family was so influential through so many years.

This book is meticulously researched and if you genuinely want to learn more about this family I would definitely recommend it but would note that it is not light reading. There are so many people with the same name it can become a little confusing, this is of course no fault of Warner, who has done a fantastic job of detailing the dramatis personnae at the beginning of each chapter so you are aware who is who in each chapter. I found this extremely helpful as someone so new to learning about the family.

It was extremely interesting to read about the marriages the Despensers made, some for advancement and some for love.

Initially I wanted to know more about the Despensers I had heard of but found myself becoming fascinated with the family and all the generations.

I think this is a book I will read again in future or refer back to when reading more about this fascinating family who successfully rose from the ashes after complete disgrace.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pen and Sword for the advanced copy.

In the times of medieval kings, the power of the crown was dependent on the support that they maintained with noble families. One of the most notorious noble families in England was the baronial family known as the Despensers. Between the 13th and the 15th centuries, the Despensers were at the heart of royal politics and some of the biggest power plays during the reign of the Plantagenets. We know about the few members who truly made waves during this time, especially Hugh Despenser the Elder and Hugh Despenser the Younger, but this family’s story is much more than a few members. In Kathryn Warner’s latest book, “The Rise and Fall of a Medieval Family: The Despensers”, she takes on the challenge of explaining the entire family story of this infamous baron clan.

I would like to thank Pen and Sword Books and Net Galley for sending me a copy of this book. I have enjoyed Kathryn Warner’s writing style in the past and when I heard about this book, I was intrigued. I will be honest and say that I only knew about Hugh the Elder and Hugh the Younger when they were mentioned in other history books that I had read in the past. I was excited to learn more about this family.

To understand this book, it should be noted that this is unlike any other modern medieval history book. It is a bit different than what Kathryn Warner has written in the past. In truth, this book feels like a modern-day chronicle of the Despenser family. Warner begins with the reign of King Henry III in 1265 with the execution of the Despenser’s patriarch, Hugh the justiciar, and concludes with Isabella Despenser, who was the grandmother of Anne Neville, the wife of King Richard III. Warner includes the more scandalous tales of love and betrayal that encapsulate the fascination that historians have had with this family for centuries.

What was compelling to me about this book is the stories of those who were in the background of the more sensationalized figures. The tales of triumph and sorrow that the family had to endure are remarkable. For the family to survive, they needed to make waves in the medieval marriage market, which they did spectacularly. It is these marriages and their impacts that Warner focuses heavily on to show that even in disgrace, the Despensers continued to rise from the ashes.

If I did have a problem with this book, there were points where it was a tad dry to read. This book is very academic and is directed towards those who know the history of the Despensers. Warner takes her readers on a deeper dive into this infamous family. You can tell from Warner’s dedication to this task that she truly enjoyed studying about the Despensers. As someone who was not familiar with this family and its numerous family members named “Hugh”, I found myself going back to try and figure out who was who.

If you want to tackle this book, my advice would be to take your time to truly understand this complex family. This book is exceptionally well researched and a true chronological treat for those who love to dive into the intricacies of medieval families. If this sounds like you, check out, “The Rise and Fall of a Medieval Family: The Despensers” by Kathryn Warner.

This is a truly horrendous piece book of work. It is basically a chapter upon boring chapter of who married who with no discernible themes behind it. By page 60 I never wanted to read the name Hugh the younger ever again!
Why did the Despensers rose and fell, their relationship to the King and their fellow lords are not really discussed (although these themes maybe hidden in the thicket of marriages, births and deaths).

Very disappointing, read Ian Mortimer instead

The family that everyone loved to hate...

The Despenser family was one that wielded quite a bit of power during medieval times, but the fortunes wheel does forever turn. What goes up, must come down. The Despenser family learned that with their rise, they could also fall. Hugh the Elder and Hugh the Younger were both in high positions of power, and through their greed came their fall. It was only after their fall that it was realized how much they actually held - and some of that took many years to discover.

The Despenser family did not end with Hugh the Younger - in fact, many did survive - albeit with some initial punishments, and then the family just continued to blend into the fabric of England.

I really enjoyed reading through this book and finding many things that I was not aware of. I knew of the overreach of Hugh the Elder, but I was not aware of the extent, nor was I aware of the different members of the family who managed to rise from the ashes, to bring honor back to the Despenser name. A great read - with lots of information!

Covering a period of almost 200 years from the birth of Hugh Despenser the Younger in 1287 to the marriage of Isabelle Despenser’s granddaughter Anne Neville to Richard III in 1472, the rise and fall of this notorious patriarchal, warring family is no easy chronology to summarise. Kathryn Warner does a good job of charting their ups and downs with clarity and providing a very resourceful tree of feudal relationships and many respective feuds.

The books reads like a chronicle of the Despensers. It gives equal footing to the wives and daughters as well as to the husbands and sons, and can therefore be seen as a welcome 21st century addition to medieval scholarship. Though it is primarily divided into six parts, each focusing on a tragic figure, indeed, three Despenser Lords were beheaded and two razed to dust in battle … each part contains a number of chapters that attempt to capture the full picture surrounding the Despenser figure.

The ‘grace and execution’ of Thomas Despenser (1375-1400) is quite illuminating. In royal wardship he belonged to a party of young nobles whose support enabled Richard II to carry out his successful coup d’état in July 1397. But the inexperienced, grief-stricken and perhaps mad young king of Bordeaux was deposed by Henry IV a few years later. In January 1400 Thomas joined the earls of Kent, Huntingdon, and Salisbury in a bid to restore Richard II to the throne. However it was a fiasco and Thomas was seized by the mob and executed in Bristol, aged 25, his head later paraded down Cheapside in London.

His wife, Constance, and their three children fought for the right to Despenser lands and were marginally successful. Constance went on to live another sixteen years, favouring her castle in Cardiff as a point of refuge. Her youngest daughter, Isabelle, only heir after the death of her two brothers, would marry into the Beauchamp family and later the Nevilles. And so the heraldry of the Despensers comes to a close. “Make reason the sovereign over thine flesh,” said Constance’s stoical Uncle in-law attempting to console her grief … “To grieve, sigh, languish, weep and groan over an irrecoverable thing is often the greatest folly that can be.” Indeed, the book is at its most interesting when offering the occasional glimpse into aspects of historical deed and character.

Warner’s research is organised and authoritative on the period, therefore this no doubt makes an excellent source of reference for anybody in need of digesting a large amount of information in a pleasant, readable style of narration. However, it is just that; a chronology of the facts without any particular insight or point of view on the events. Therefore, for readers who prefer medieval historians that bring the past to life in more intriguing and descriptive ways, e.g. Ian Mortimer, then disappointment will follow. Rather, this books is aimed at readers with a specific interest in hunting down details of the period as they relate to the Despenser family. All of which, by the way, are well referenced from the Charter Rolls, Chancery Warrants, Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, the Monasticon, Peerage, and so on. Indeed, the primary sources make this work a chronological feast.