The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement

"So that all may, indeed, acquaint themselves with the world of the Lisles, here is a one-volume abridgement of the acclaimed six volumes. For that monumental work, Muriel St. Clare Byrne transcribed 1,900 letters, weaving them together with her own brilliant commentary to produce a magnificent portrait of family life lived against the background of intrigue, terror, and politics that was the course of Henry VIII. Now playwright Bridget Boland has selected, condensed, and rearranged material from the letters and Miss Bryne's commentary for the pleasure of the general reader. The Lisle letters were assembled originally in s each of evidence to be used in the trail for treason of Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle. We can, as Miss Boland writes, watch for the makings of that situation in each new character introduced and in each new development in the story that culminated in Lord Lisle's being sent to the Tower of London. But apart form this superb, slow-building drama the letters brings us an unparalleled glimpse of day-to-day Tudor family concerns. They were written from 1533-1540, when Lord Lisle was Deputy of Calais and all the family's many affairs in England, France, and Calais had to be conducted by correspondence. Thus we learn about the education of the children, the management of estates, the legal battles that dogged the Lisles, the sports they indulged in, even the pets they kept. Miss Byrne writes of the Lisle letters: "SUch is the vigor and vitality of these men and women that we are swept into the their happening because it is life itself caught on the wing." It was she who, through more than forty years of devoted scholarship, restored to life such characters as Lord Lisle's passionate, ambitious wife, Honor, and the devoted, indefatigable London agent of the Lisles, John Husee. Bridget Boland has done full justice to the sense and flavor of Miss Byrne's achievement.