Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee: An Epically Short History of Our Kings and Queens
By Charlie Higson and Jim Moir
Mudlark, £22 hardback
 

CHARLIE HIGSON, of Fast Show fame, and Jim Moir, best known for being Vic Reeves with Bob Mortimer, have come together to create this entertaining historical book, with Higson providing the 412 pages of text and Moir the amusing illustrations.

A sort of Horrible Histories for adults, it’s written in colloquial fashion. But that doesn’t mean the content is shallow or superficial; it’s just highly accessible, and fun with it.

Higson knows his royal onions, and he’s clearly done a huge amount of research to give us this humorously boiled-down account, which offers all the key facts about each of the monarchs since William the Conqueror, along with a fair amount of gory bonus material.

We find out, for example, why a trumpet was involved in delivering the fatal red hot poker into Edward II’s backside in 1327, how a special contraption was invented to wrench a broken arrow from Henry V’s face, and how the severed head of Simon De Montfort, for a time de facto ruler of England after defeating Henry III at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, was delivered to the wife of Roger de Mortimer in a box, with his testicles hung on either side of his nose.

Moir provides idiosyncratic drawings to illustrate such situations, alongside caricatures and cartoons that occasionally contain deliberately incongruent elements – such as the portrayal of Henry II on pilgrimage to Canterbury with modern-day polyester trousers and Cuban-heeled boots. Others, including a deadpan portrait of “Edward and Mrs Simpson and Herr Hitler” say a lot without attempting to portray too much.

The only regret is that they’re a little thin on the ground, with none at all in the 100-plus page section between Henry V and Charles II. It would have been nice to have more.

Given the combination of Moir’s irreverent sketches and Higson’s scathing pen pictures, this is no book for fans of the institution of royalty, which the author describes as “a bloody parade of ruthless people, fighting, killing, betraying, marrying, usurping and generally doing anything they could to get on the throne.”

Although the odd king or queen wins some merit points, essentially we are treated to a run-through of one car-crash reign after another, punctuated by ineptitude, stupidity, vanity and incessant warmongering.  

Higson rarely spares the horses, and is critical even of Elizabeth I, often held up as one of our better monarchs – pointing out that the great Elizabethan Age was in fact “the Shit Age” for anyone who wasn’t at the top of society, with a prolonged period of bad harvests, high taxation, rampant inflation and real wages that were the lowest they’d been for centuries.

It’s difficult from this account not to conclude that regal rule in Britain — at least until constitutional monarchy set in — has been one huge, bloody mess – for everyone concerned, members of the royal family as much as the rest of us peasants. But at least Higson and Moir have been able to get some laughs out of it all.

Jim Moir’s illustrations can be viewed at redhouseoriginals.com https://www.redhouseoriginals.com/exhibitions/jim-moir-what-a-load-of-monarchs