Category Archives: Queens and Kings
By Susan Higginbotham
“Edward? Good Lord, you did dress him as a girl!”
“Aye . . . He bore his womanhood like a man, you might say.”
Edward Stafford, the third Duke of Buckingham (1478-1521), is mainly known today for finding out the hard way that offending Henry VIII could cost someone his head. Less well known is the episode when the five-year-old Edward—dressed as a girl—was hidden from Richard III’s agents.
Edward’s adventures in cross-dressing began in October 1483 when Edward’s father, Henry Stafford, the second Duke of Buckingham, joined the ill-fated uprising against Richard III known as Buckingham’s rebellion. The enterprise proved fatal to Henry, who died on the scaffold at Salisbury. Before he was captured and executed, however, he had entrusted Edward to Richard Delabeare, who had close ties to the Stafford family. Richard Delabeare later married his servant Elizabeth Mors, whose recollection of this episode was found in the Stafford family papers.
With Henry dead, Richard III began searching for Edward, who proved to be elusive, thanks to Elizabeth. She shaved the lad’s forehead and dressed him in a “maiden’s raiment.” At one point when a search party arrived, Elizabeth fled to a park with Edward, sitting with her no doubt squirming charge for four hours until the danger was past. After that, Elizabeth took Edward to Hereford. Edward made the journey as would a young lady of quality: “rydinge behynde Willm ap Symon asyde upon a Pillowe like a gentelwoman ridde in gentelwomans apperell.” Rather sweetly, Elizabeth concluded her story, “And I wisse he was the fearest gentelwoman and the best that ever she hadd in her Daies.”
Nothing more is heard of Edward’s whereabouts during Richard III’s reign, but in Henry VIII’s reign, Edward was noted for his sartorial splendor, such as in 1513, when he appeared in an outfit “full of Spangles, and little Belles of golde, marueylous costly and pleasant to behold.” One wonders if on such occasions, the duke ever thought back to his long-ago disguise in 1483.
Susan Higginbotham’s new novel, The Stolen Crown
, set during the Wars of the Roses, tells the story of Edward’s parents, Henry, Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Woodville. Susan is working on a novel about Margaret of Anjou.
IMAGE:How Edward might have looked in disguise: a well dressed little girl (far right) in Hans Memling’s Donne triptych. (Image courtesy of Hans Memling’s website.)
By Karen Harper
When I was in London in 2003 for the 400th anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth I, I visited a display of her possessions. What caught my eye was a ring with a hidden lock which sprang open to reveal two tiny portraits, that of the queen herself and of her mother, Anne Boleyn. After Anne’s downfall and beheading in 1536 when Elizabeth was only three, she was forbidden by her father, Henry VIII, to speak of her mother. Yet here was proof Elizabeth had cherished the shamed and dispossessed woman. It was said that, whatever other opulent rings she wore, the Virgin Queen never removed this ring and it was only taken from her finger upon her death.
There is, of course, other proof that Elizabeth did not believe her mother had committed adultery or even, in the wildest of accusations which helped Henry rid himself of her, witchcraft. Elizabeth took for her own crest her mother’s white falcon and elevated many of her mother’s kin when she finally became queen in 1558.
That little ring gave me a great plot device for my latest historical novel, The Queen’s Governess
. In the book, Anne summons Elizabeth’s governess, Katherine Ashley to the Tower, where she is under arrest for treason and gives her the ring to keep for Elizabeth until she is of age. King Henry’s discovering the ring years later on the Princess Elizabeth’s person causes him to banish her from court—an actual happening. From such small wonders and marvels as a little ring are epic stories made.
A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Karen Harper is a former college English instructor (The Ohio State University) and high school literature and writing teacher. To learn more about her book, The Queen’s Governess, click here.
IMAGE: The Ring
By Patricia Elliott
My novel, The Pale Assassin
, is set during the French Revolution. As a writer, what fascinated me during my research was the discovery of how many contradictions this extraordinarily dramatic period contained.
The complex character of the king, Louis XVI: compassionate, but blind to the suffering of his people. His queen, Marie-Antoinette: vain and extravagant, yet one who endured her imprisonment with great fortitude. Then the aristocrats, privileged and wealthy, yes, but many of whom actively supported the introduction of a constitution that would bring equality and the end of the corrupt ancien regime.
Foremost among them was the Marquis de Condorcet, who drafted the first constitution, basing it on the Declaration of Independence – it is said with the help of George Washington. And Robespierre, the most powerful man in the new Republic, who lived a life of moral purity, yet was the cold-blooded architect of the Terror, when thousands were guillotined in order to preserve a “republic of virtue.” The Terror itself was sanctioned by a government paranoid about the enemy within, for, as Jefferson is believed to have said, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” But the majority of the Terror’s victims were not the hated aristocracy but the ordinary, innocent people of France.
Lastly, the most tragic and ironic paradox of all was that in order to uphold the ideals of “liberty, equality and fraternity,” the revolutionaries resorted to a ruthless denial of human rights that was to have its echo down the ages.
Patricia Elliott’s novels for young adults have received critical acclaim. Her newest novel is The Pale Assassin.
Visit her website at patriciaelliott.co.uk.
By Katharine Beutner
My novel narrates the life of a Mycenaean queen named Alcestis, who is famed for choosing to die in her husband’s place. Most versions of her story say nothing about her time in the underworld. When I began my novel, I knew that Alcestis needed something to drive her exploration of the underworld—something, or someone, to search for. Callous as it sounds, I had to kill someone she loved.
As a young princess of Iolcus, Alcestis spends nearly all of her time in the women’s quarters with her two older sisters. The middle sister, Hippothoe, cares for Alcestis after their mother dies giving birth to her. I needed to find an illness to inflict upon poor gentle Hippothoe, and I wanted that illness to be familiar enough to modern readers that they would instantly recognize its dangers.
The first usage of the word “asthma” (άσδμά) occurs in the Iliad, where it refers to a short inhalation—the word derives from the Greek infinitive “aazein.” Classical-era Greek physicians describe the symptoms we now know as asthma, and there’s some evidence that the Egyptians also recognized it as a distinct disease.
I researched contemporary homeopathic remedies for asthma to find methods that might have been available to the Mycenaeans and settled on two liquid remedies: diluted honey and garlic tea. As an adult, Alcestis remembers Hippothoe’s garlic-and-honey smell and recalls going to the kitchens in the middle of the night to prop her sister up over a steaming kettle. Modern readers who have suffered from asthma or watched a family member or friend struggle to breathe will understand the helpless frustration Alcestis feels as she watches her sister endure an asthmatic attack. Even now, with our remarkable advances in medical treatment, the human experience of illness connects us to the Bronze Age.
Katharine Beutner’s debut novel, Alcestis
, has just been published by Soho Press. She holds an MA in fiction from the University of Texas at Austin, where she is now a doctoral candidate in English literature.
IMAGE: Hercules Fighting Death to Save Alcestis, By Frederic Lord Leighton, c 1869-71
By Randi Hutter Epstein
Last year, I visited a sperm bank (was awash in a winter wonderland of frozen samples), watched a woman have her egg frozen, and sorted through websites of available egg donors. Would anyone really want an egg from a woman who put cheerleading under academic information in her donor-web entry? That was Donor 850991 in the Donor Egg Bank. This was all, of course, for book research. But even before I started my journey, I knew that for many couples, today, getting pregnant means marching through a whirlwind of conflicting advice and sorting through all sorts of low-tech and high-tech remedies.
What I didn’t know was that our great-great-great grandmothers, who may have been literally scared to death when pregnant, were bombarded with often contradictory words of wisdom. And they, too, had to pick and choose between an array of how-to-get-pregnant treatments.
Take Catherine de Medici, France’s sixteenth century Queen, for one. For years, the teenage queen (she married at 14) could not get pregnant. First, like so many women today, she tried folk remedies. But in her case, the Queen drank the urine of a mare and then soaked her “source of life” (vagina?) in a sack of cow manure mixed with ground stag’s antlers. The king was never attracted to his wife, preferring his mistress Diane de Poitiers. I can’t imagine the dung diaper helped get her back her man.
The teenage Queen then tried her own tactic. She had her servants drill a hole in the floor so she could watch her husband have sex with his mistress and learn a thing or two. Talk about an emotionally painful remedy. Finally, the two youngsters went to see a doctor who diagnosed the couple with physically deformed reproductive organs. We don’t know what he saw, what he did, or what he recommended, but shortly thereafter, they went on to have nine children.
By Stuart Carroll
Who were the Guise? Why write a book about them? The answer to the first question is simple. Everyone who has heard of Mary Queen of Scots knows them. Mary’s star certainly burned brightly for a brief while: she was queen of France for eighteen months, and claimed the thrones of England and Ireland, before setting sail for Scotland in 1561. But her star was not the sun around which her kinsfolk orbited. In the annals of the Guise family her existence values a few brief pages.
Today, Mary’s uncles and cousins are remembered, if at all, as bit players in the dramatic events of her life. I wanted to set the record straight and bring their remarkable story to wider public attention. But there was another reason for writing the book. In their day the Guise were held in awe throughout Europe. Admiring or appalled, none could ignore them. The story of their enmity with the great dynasties of Tudor, Habsburg, Valois and Bourbon is the story sixteenth-century Europe. The Guise shaped the course of European history: rising to prominence around mid century as one of Europe’s most powerful families before plunging France into bloody chaos, they refashioned the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent; plotted to invade England and remove Elizabeth I; and made and unmade the kings of France before ending the century as martyrs for the Catholic cause.
There was a further reason for writing the book. To understand the Guise is to understand the profound transformations that shook sixteenth-century Europe. Today’s religious fundamentalism and the conflict it entails make it imperative that we revisit the roots of Europe’s own religious violence. The word ‘massacre’ was first used in its modern context in sixteenth-century France and, as readers will discover, Europe’s Wars of Religion continue to reverberate across the centuries.
Stuart Carroll, author of Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe
, has taught at the Universities of London and York, where he is currently Professor of History. He is twice-winner of the Nancy Roelker prize for the best essay written on early modern French History.
IMAGE: The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which the Guise Family is widely believed to be partly responsible for, by Francios Dubois, c 1572-84
By Stuart Carroll
As he left the Louvre at 11 am on Friday 22 August 1572, Gaspard de Coligny, paid little attention to his surroundings. He had just attended a royal council meeting, and as he walked along was absorbed in reading an important piece of business. He did not return the hostile looks of the locals.
At 55 he was the kingdom’s most experienced politician and soldier and used to the gazes of Catholics. The curious were kept at a distance by a dozen bodyguards. Even his enemies respected his courage and piety. He was often compared to his contemporary, François duke of Guise—France’s ‘two shining diamonds’.
Like Guise, Coligny spread fear among his enemies. There was an uncompromising element in his character which suited him well to Protestant discipline. In war he knew the value of cruelty and terror as a weapon. To the Protestants this made him a hero, and the leadership was in awe of him.
That morning he was making the short walk to his lodgings in the rue de Béthisy. Soon after he turned into the rue des Poulies a single shot rang out from a hundred feet away. Protestants placed their trust in providence for good reason: at the very same moment the shot was fired Coligny stopped and turned suddenly, and the shot missed his vitals, fracturing his left forearm and taking off an index finger.
Coligny was not killed by the bullet; he would have lived. And yet within forty-eight hours he was murdered. Several days of anarchy followed in which between at least 2,000, and perhaps as many as 6,000, Protestants were butchered. Upwards of 600 houses were pillaged. The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is the greatest imponderable of sixteenth-century history. Martyrs and Murderers solves the mystery and lifts the lid of the role of the Guise family in it.
Stuart Carroll, author of Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe, has taught at the Universities of London and York, where he is currently Professor of History. He is twice-winner of the Nancy Roelker prize for the best essay written on early modern French History.
IMAGE: Portrait of Gaspard de Coligny (1519 – 1572)
By Dan Edelstein
The Capetian dynasty, which had ruled France since 987, was overthrown on the night of 9-10 August, 1792. The deposed king, Louis XVI, had escaped with his family to safety; with the monarchy gone, the French still had a monarch on their hands. There was little question that he should be tried for treason. The question was how. Under the 1791 Constitution, the king had been granted inviolability. How do you try a chief executive when that executive, by definition, cannot be tried?
The answer, it turned out, was straightforward. There was a higher law, respected by all peoples at all times, that allowed the Convention to prosecute the king: this was the law of nature. The “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” had served earlier revolutionaries well. But there was more to natural right (as this body of law was known) than political freedom. Indeed, it also provided the definition of an exceptional criminal—the enemy of the human race, or hostis humani generis—who, having violated the laws of nature, must be destroyed. The French deputies jumped through this loophole to try, and ultimately convict, the king.
At the time, the most radical deputies in the Convention (the “Montagnards”) were in favor of abolishing the death penalty. The execution of the king was a “cruel exception” to this rule, Robespierre opined. In a matter of months, however, these same deputies extended this exception to any counter-revolutionary, invoking the same arguments as they had against the king. This book shows how natural right provided the legal and moral authorization for the Terror, but also points to the strange republican ideal cherished by the Montagnard leaders: the dream of founding a state based entirely on nature.
Dan Edelstein, author of The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution
, is an assistant professor of French at Stanford University. He was raised in Geneva, Switzerland, where he attended university before returning to the United States for graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He works primarily on eighteenth-century French literature, politics, and philosophy, and more generally on questions of political mythology. His book on the genealogy of the Enlightenment will be published by the University of Chicago Press in fall 2010.
IMAGE: Depiction of the storming of the Tuileries Palace on August, 10, 1792, Jean Duplessis-Bertaux, c 1793
By Susan Higginbotham
“I gather the news is good. My lord is coming home?”
Bess shook her head. “No—he is staying in Calais. But the news is good. We—I and the queen and her daughters and many others—are going there!”
As this snippet shows, Bess, the heroine of my novel Hugh and Bess
, is bound in November 1346 for Calais, then under siege by troops led by King Edward III. Thanks to Edward III’s careful planning, she would find many of the comforts of home there.
Having won a stunning victory over the French at Crécy in August 1346, Edward III’s army moved to Calais in September. As the town’s strong fortifications and marshy environs made taking it by battle unfeasible, Edward decided to starve its citizens into submission. Knowing that he was in the siege for the long haul, the king ordered the construction of what amounted to the equivalent of a modern military base, complete with barracks, officers’ quarters, and shopping. As the chronicler Jean Froissart reports:
On the king’s arrival before Calais, he laid siege to it, and built, between it and the river and bridge, houses of wood : they were laid out in streets, and thatched with straw or broom ; and in this town of the king’s, there was everything necessary for an army, besides a market-place, where there were markets, every Wednesday and Saturday, for butcher’s meat, and all other sorts of merchandise : cloth, bread, and everything else, which came from England, and Flanders, might be had there, as well as all comforts, for money. [p. 169]
By Nancy Goldstone
One aspect of the 14th century that I find absolutely irresistible is the aristocracy’s devotion to the ideals of chivalry, so at odds with the blatant opportunism which otherwise characterized the period. Joanna I spent her life besieged by unscrupulous enemies, weathering war, plague, treason and domestic violence. But as queen she also inspired the sort of gallantry ordinarily found in the pages of a story book, as illustrated by the following delightful anecdote.
According to Paris of Puteo, a fifteenth century Neapolitan doctor of law, Joanna once held a particularly magnificent feast in the city of Gaeta to which were invited the highest order of nobility throughout Italy. There was music and dancing as was customary on these occasions, and Joanna chose a distinguished knight, Galeazzo of Mantua, to be her partner for one of the dances. Galeazzo was so thrilled to have been singled out in this way that, as soon as the dance was over, he knelt before her and “thanked her very humbly for the honor she had rendered him with so much courtesy and graciousness; and declaring he knew not how to recompense it by any service worthy of it, made there at her feet a vow to wander through the world in search of deeds of arms at every hazard, risk, and peril, until he should have vanquished and captured two valiant knights to bestow as a gift on her, to dispose of as she thought best.”
A sampling of her articles are available at www.randihutterepstein.com
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