The fact that the author of this work has an almost Dutch-sounding surname is one of the personal reasons that I am interested in it. At the same time, this is also a recognition of the scholarly value of this work and what merit it may have for the cause of monarchy. After all, the British monarchy which is undoubtedly one of the main themes of de Hoveden's work is one of the eldest (if not the eldest depending on how you count) monarchy in existence on the European continent. I suspect that what helped the British monarchy endure for such a long time is that the United Kingdom is insular and cut off from mainland Europe by the ocean. This geographical reality means that there is great potential for conservatism in Britain, and history shows that the British are indeed a quite conservative people, despite the fact that their language has adopted many more foreignisms than most continental Germanic languages.
So it can be said that the British are quite conservative in customs and beliefs, although their language in general is an exception to this general tendency towards conservatism that one would commonly expect to find among an insular or geographically isolated people such as the British, Icelandic, or Faroese people. Nevertheless, the spelling of English is quite conservative and it has as a language not changed considerably since the time of Shakespeare, although Shakespearean English is obviously different from Modern English in quite some ways. It is really the gap between Old English and its descendant - the latter of which has adopted many words of non-Germanic origin - that makes the Modern English language quite non-conservative. If we were to consider the relationship of Modern English with its previous historical stages after Old English, then we will, however, see a reasonable degree of conservatism. Perhaps another testimony to British conservatism is that it has been demonstrated in recent genetic research that the original tribal divisions - all these tribes originally had their own separate kingdoms and cultures - are still visibly extant in the native population of the United Kingdom.
de Hoveden originally wrote his work in Latin which Henry T. Riley took the trouble to translate into English in the middle of the 19th century. His translation was published in 2 volumes (the second volume is available here). There was only one version or publication of the Latin text available in the 19th century according to Mr. Riley, as he states in his preface, and it was evidently in bad condition because it contained many errors. For this reason the task was transferred upon him to correct these errors in his translation. Mr. Riley thus relied for his translation entirely upon the Scriptores post Bedam of Sir Henry Saville, London, 1598, which was later reprinted at Frankfort in 1601. It was only an accident that I came across de Hoveden's work which deals with European, though chiefly British, royal history from 732 AD to 1201 AD, since I was looking for annals that would give me more insight into history from a more contemporary and more monarchy-friendly perspective. It is unfortunate that the history books written in modern times often adopt a modern liberal or leftist perspective on history, since many of today's scholars are liberals or leftists, and this taints our understanding of historical monarchism and creates its own misunderstandings as we project contemporary liberal or leftists ideas into the past.
I think that de Hoveden's work is exactly the kind of work that will give you in many ways a more nuanced view on monarchism in Europe, particularly in the British Isles. The historical accuracy of his work as a contemporary historian, as with the works of other historians, may be disputed here and there, but what ultimately matters is that he provided a contemporary perspective that is valuable in and of itself. We would be really poor if we could only rely on the leftist-inclined perspective of modern-day scholars. It is certain that many modern-day intellectual writers have a quite antagonistic view of monarchism, despite the fact that they neither seem to really grasp its essence nor its timeless and universal principles. Monarchy has meant so many things in so many different times and places, but there is an essence to it and it does have specific principles that make it monarchy wherever and whenever it exists among any people on Earth.
I think that if we read de Hoveden's work, we get to feel this essence of monarchy; we get to feel its timeless and universal principles as the author narrates his account of European or British history. I think that it is quite difficult to capture monarchy in a few words, because it is a complex system, but once you can feel it through history, in this case de Hoveden's annals, you can come to a better understanding of it and achieve monarchism-realisation, as it were, because you may never be able to fully "comprehend" monarchy if you do not allow yourself to feel its profound culture and spirituality. Again, monarchy is a complex system and it would be absurdly and painfully naive to think that it can be completely summarised in just a few words.
