Another period I know little about was made fascinating by what I deem an excellent work of historical fiction - The Traitor's Wife by Susan Higginbotham. In focusing on a figure who was well connected (well for much of her life) but not well known, she tells the story of a woman buffeted by the currents around her. She is Eleanor de Clare, niece to Edward II, wife of Hugh le Despenser the Younger (his execution pictured here). Like the novel previously mentioned presenting Constance of York, artistic license is manifest, but the whole work holds together very well focusing on this beautiful heiress.
What does this have to do with H6? Stephen King wrote that to write you must read a lot and write a lot, baldly put. I absorb, I hope, this example of well written historical fiction, and start to connect up what I can attempt. I know the period is not the same, but this novel depicts ancestors of the people I intend to write about. One should know as much background and ancestry of their historical protagonist as one can.
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