In a triumphant romp through history, David Mitchell explores the history of (mostly) kings from Arthur (made up!) to Elizabeth 1st, and tries to answer the befuddling question of why they existed, how they existed and why even today we have a monarchy “ruling” the country. Funny, snappy, sometimes quite sweary this is hilariously good. The chapters are concise and well written if you are inclined you can lean in to particularly monarchs without losing the beat but I do recommend reading the whole thing.In fact I would venture to say that if this was taught in schools we would have far more people interested in history! Loved it!

This book reads like a heart to heart with a grumpy uncle who has strong historical opinions he MUST share, but in the best of ways. Mitchell's tone, humour and pace rendered this complex topic down into engaging, manageable chunks. This historical tale unfolds in what I can only describe as a soap opera fashion; drama, intrigue, rage and tragedy abound. Mitchell relates the stories of these 'unruly' figures in much the same fashion as one recounts a drunk friends' escapades. As someone who is new to the topic, I can confirm that it is beginner friendly and deeply interesting to boot.

I really enjoyed this book. As others have said, you almost imagine Mitchell reading this to you, which worked well for me. It’s an irreverent look at the history of royalty in Britain until the end of Elizabeth Tudors reign. At times it is genuinely laugh out loud funny. I’ve always enjoyed reading about various periods of history but quite often find that books are very superficial or at a greater depth than I really would like. This book hit the spot and because of Mithchell’s writing style, I found I wanted longer chapters on some characters. I learnt a lot more about our long relationship with the French than I ever knew before. Turns out the British and French have been like squabbling siblings for far longer than I realised from school or even University. The book goes a long way to help understand the British psyche and that of its constituent countries. I do hope Mitchell continues to write and follows through with a book covering the next batch of unruly royals. Perhaps he could then start on unruly Prime Ministers. Plenty of material for another few books and I’d certainly read them!

This book is not the type of book I would usually choose but I actually really enjoyed it. Very easy to read and funny at the same time.

A well researched book by an experienced historical scholar. David Mitchell wants to tell the truth of uk royal history as he sees it without the formal scholarly constraints that would normally apply to all and sundry. He starts effectively with the Romans waving bye bye and finishes rather down beat with QEI hanging up her crown. I thought we were going to get all the English history so I was a little disappointed that it stopped with Shakespeare. We do however get a good introduction to the British dark ages and our Nordic roots which was fascinating. Especially for someone like me with scant to zero knowledge of the British isles during this time period. I was disappointed with his urge to show school boy anagrams of Cnut and to unnecessarily use so many four letter words in the text. When used in context for a bit of a slap in the face about a formal topic fine. Used for the sake of trying to shock people that you can use four letter words like a typical lowbrow twitter user is disappointing and doesn’t do Mitchell any favours in my view. It also detracts from a good history and socio-economic analysis of our heritage. He wants to try to share his understanding what they might have been experiencing and how little we can ever know about these historical characters which is excellent. I learnt a lot about these historical figures and how they interacted with their peers in Europe. So here’s hoping he will finish his narrative of the kings and queens of England with attention to the politics up to QEII.