The King S Captain

New York Times Bestseller: Sweeping from the 1850s through the early 1920s, this towering family saga examines the price of ambition and power. Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh is twelve years old when he gets his first glimpse of the promised land of America through a dirty porthole in steerage on an Irish immigrant ship. His long voyage, dogged by tragedy, ends not in the great city of New York but in the bigoted, small town of Winfield, Pennsylvania, where his younger brother, Sean, and his infant sister, Regina, are sent to an orphanage. Joseph toils at whatever work will pay a living wage and plans for the day he can take his siblings away from St. Agnes’s Orphanage and make a home for them all. Joseph’s journey will catapult him to the highest echelons of power and grant him entry into the most elite political circles. Even as misfortune continues to follow the Armagh family like an ancient curse, Joseph takes his revenge against the uncaring world that once took everything from him. He orchestrates his eldest son Rory’s political ascent from the offspring of an Irish immigrant to US senator. And Joseph will settle for nothing less than the pinnacle of glory: seeing his boy crowned the first Catholic president of the United States. Spanning seventy years, Captains and the Kings, which was adapted into an eight-part television miniseries, is Taylor Caldwell’s masterpiece about nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, and the grit, ambition, fortitude, and sheer hubris it takes for an immigrant to survive and thrive in a dynamic new land.

Charles Moorman reexamines several major works of the western heroic tradition: The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Nibelungenlied, the Norse sagas, and the Arthurian cycle. Disregarding the usual limited definitions which have controlled the study of heroic literature, he draws together these disparate works by proposing a theme common to them all: the opposition of two major figures whom he names king and captain. The figure of the king arises from the community with its need for responsible government, while the captain, derived from myth, is a highly individualistic, irresponsible heroic figure. The tension which Moorman sees between them is used as a means of reinterpreting the works under study. Though widely separated in time and cultural milieu, The Illiad, and The Song of Roland, for example, can be compared by interpreting both the Agamemnon-Achilles and the Oliver-Roland relationships as conflicts between king and captain. These essays will prove illuminating for layman and scholar alike.

Many who have a passing interest in English history know of the kings: the Lancastrian usurper, Henry IV; the great warrior-king, Henry V; and the monkish monarch, Henry VI. Some also know of the fair Yorkist king, Edward IV, and his fated son, Edward V - the Prince in the Tower. Many more know of the Yorkist usurper, Richard III, and his Tudor nemesis, the last Lancastrian claimant, Henry VII. But what about the other key individuals of fifteenth century England? Most have heard of the "Kingmaker", even if they forget that he was Sir Richard de Neville, Earl of Warwick. But who was Little Fauconberg? Who was Hotspur, and how did he get his nickname? Who were the Beauforts, illegitimate descendents of Edward III (through his son, John of Gaunt), and how did they impact the history of England so significantly? Who was the "Butcher of England" and how did such an erudite and sophisticated man earn such an inglorious title? Why was Sir Richard de Beauchamp, also an Earl of Warwick, called the "Father of Courtesy" and the "Son of Chivalry"? What brought the educated and wealthy Owain Glyn Dwr, the last Welsh Prince of Wales, to the point of rebellion? Was Queen Margaret the "she-wolf of Anjou", or just a fiercely devoted wife and mother? Was Sir Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, the guardian of good government, or a self-serving, aristocratic snob bent on snatching the throne of England? Who was the "English Achilles", how did he earn such a sobriquet, and how did his end mark the ending of the Hundred Years War? Who were the Nevilles and the Percys, and how did a minor family feud start the Wars of the Roses? Who were the other squires, knights, barons, earls, and dukes that contributed so much to the history of fifteenth century England, but who seem mostly forgotten today? Come, plumb the depths of the people of that far gone time. For the answers all lie within these pages. Within is a brief biography of many of the more important personages, regardless of aristocratic rank. Included are parents, spouses, children, and other familial relationships, plus titles and offices, family coats-of-arms, and where readily available, family badges, livery, and battle standards. To further enrich the background, some supplemental sections have been added. These include a glossary of titles and offices, definition of selected heraldic terms, and a brief timeline of fifteenth century England.