The Queen’s Apprenticeship by Tracy Ryan — Book Review скачать в хорошем качестве

The Queen’s Apprenticeship by Tracy Ryan — Book Review

This book takes us into sixteenth-century France, where faith, politics, and ideas were colliding with the beginning of the reformation. It follows Marguerite de Navarre, sister to King Francis I, as she tries to protect reform-minded thinkers while staying loyal to her family and her faith. Tracy Ryan mixes well researched history (the early French Reformation, the papal persecution, the printing of forbidden books) with a fictional story that I found entertaining. Marguerite is a fascinating figures in early Reformation history. As the sister of King Francis I, she moved at the highest levels of the French court, yet her sympathies leaned toward the reformers who were being silenced and burned. She used her position to protect writers and thinkers like Lefèvre d’Étaples, Clément Marot, and even the young John Calvin during his time in France. Her writings, especially The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, reveal a deeply personal grasp of grace and a hunger for spiritual renewal that challenged both the corruption of the Church and the rigidity of her own court. For Reformation studies, Marguerite matters because she embodies the bridge between the humanist revival of learning and the evangelical awakening of faith. She was a woman of great intellect and conviction who kept the flame alive (the metaphorical flame, not the one the Papists were using) in France when open reform was nearly impossible.