Where I Have Been...

...not in the 15th century, that is sadly for sure. It took me two months to read "The Uncrowned Kings of England" by Derek Wilson, a bargain from Amazon, which followed the history of the Dudley family, one so intwined with Tudor history. I was amazed at how one Dudley would go to the block and then his offspring became so close to Elizabeth's power. I found Robert Dudley's life to be quite remarkable as he walked a difficult path between his public and private personas (pictured here as a young man).

I spent two months taken up by American politics, often going to sleep in dread that we would regress into an even less responsive government than we have. I viewed far too much political television and was able to read little. Now that that situation is resolved for the bestest reasons, I am looking into Richard II, and the event that started the Lancastrian dynasty. Time to start at the beginning, with the regicide. The progeny of John of Gaunt by his wife and then his mistress who was then his wife figured greatly in the 15th century, and I think it is to these people that I will turn next.

Someone told me that Henry VI was probably autistic, but I have yet to find a reference that supports that. I feel that he never fully recovered from his longest spell of madness, and this may be something of an explanation. If anyone knows about the autistic angle, please let me know what you know.

But I Diverge

I seem to be hitting the 14th or 16th century in England lately in my reading and the latest book in front of me is "Jane Boleyn" (by Julia Fox), an account of a lady-in-waiting who was in waiting all the way to the block.  This biography posits that Jane, Viscountess Rochford, sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn, has been given a tough deal by the writers of history.  Perhaps she was a scapegoat, but I see her as being in the wrong place, etc., especially the final place, where she followed Queen Catherine (pictured) after she was unable to save her.

The most human thing she did was lose her wits after being imprisoned, and as the former time had let to the deaths of her husband George and his sister Anne Boleyn, she must have been in intolerable suspense.  Her wits were restored under the care of those who needed a sane and calm Jane for the next steps in the process of bloodletting for the treason of the moment.  And Jane met her death nobly, in so doing with the best of them.

I didn't necessarily plan to read into the parenthetical centuries around the 15th that interests me the most, but that may be the path of reading.  I must get back to Henry VI, but my next book in line regards the Tudors as well.  Which epoch is the most violent? 

Darkness Yet Green

My total absorption with Anya Seton's "Katherine" led me to read "Green Darkness". I would like to put some disordered thoughts about this absorbing novel here. Though a century after the Battle of St. Albans, and Henry VI's capture, this novel is largely set in a time period equally as turbulent - 16th Century England.

It was a violent time - when practice of one's religion was by royal fiat which changed from ruler to ruler in England - one either practiced the faith in favor, or secretly practiced the faith out of favor. Abruptly, with the accession of a new ruler, the faith in favor would change and some could profess openly what they had hidden and others suddenly had to hide what they had previously professed openly - a situation that affected viscerally every person in the realm.

In this narrative, the royals (Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth with a cameo by Lady Jane Grey) are offstage for the most part, although there are appearances. Their impact, however, on the kingdom they rule is all too present and center stage.

Two characters in this novel that opens in 1968 and telescopes back to the troubled 1550's come to the point of rejecting the strictures of religion altogether. A logical outcome for them, and I won't say how it played out here in case anyone reading this wants to read this work. The presentation of reincarnation comes through as a vehicle for redemption. In reaching from 1968 back to 1559 and back again, the story elicits hope that tragic situations can be resolved in better times. In darkness is the green seed for the future.

I almost liked this one as much as "Katherine", bold praise.

Katherine

And then I read "Katherine".  Since then, I am on a kick to see how the whole Lancaster thing started, reading John Gardner's 1977 work on Chaucer, and taking shots at what before now was an inaccessible Shakespeare play - "Richard II".   It is a sort of a rush - before the last few weeks, I have never read Chaucer, previously knew little about the Peasant's Revolt, or even thought about that complex king, Richard II (pictured here addressing the rebels in Froissart).

Anya Seton, through what must have been a sustained period of thoroughly hard, painstaking work, created a masterpiece in "Katherine".  Never have I seen a great man's mistress so nobly and sympathetically described.  One roots for her from page one.  And so much happens in her 53 years, events in a life made to fit into a span replete with thematic and dramatic content, a love affair of four decades with its own epic conclusions.  Historical fiction at its classic best.

Old John of Gaunt, what a lady killer.  Katherine, lithe and pleasing.  I think it was good to read Weir's biography of Katherine before the novel because it gave me background in a period I knew naught of, and underscored that this novel, though of a real historical remarkable lady, had its wellspring in recorded fact.  The encounters described, one thinks, may very well have happened that way, and did so as all literature exists to me from some kernel of truth embossed in beautiful soul moving language.

Remarkable Lady

I would like to gather a few thoughts on Katherine Swynford after reading Alison Weir's biography of her relationship with John of Gaunt (pictured).  I plan to read the Anya Seton novel at some point, but now I am so into Plaidy's historical fictive style it may be awhile.

Hers is a very impressive story - upwardly mobile - to come from such humble ancestry to the attention of a maternally sympathetic Queen Philippa (to Edward III) to a hardscrabble first marriage to a knight to a lush affair with several children to that most prominent Duke.   Next came calumny and furtive living as a byproduct of the Peasant's Revolt.  The cap on her life was marriage to that prominent Duke and legitimization of her children.  It is a story that spans decades of faithfulness to a scandalous relationship, turning mores upside down.  

She is the ancestress of Margaret Beaufort, and thus the Tudor kings.  She is also ancestress of the House of Stuart through her granddaughter Joan.  So the Tudors are descended from two misalliances involving initially illegitimate children (better check my facts here).

Margaret Tudor, Divorce, and Dismay

I zipped through Jean Plaidy's "The Thistle and the Rose" yesterday. Though she only had half the number of husbands as her brother Henry VIII had wives, there are some similarities between these lusty siblings. According to Plaidy, Margaret had a real weakness for a pretty face, and her judgement was corrupted thereby. All of her husbands had mistresses (surprise!), and children they wanted to bring up as if legitimate. Sadly, she could not accept infidelity, past, present or future.

James IV (pictured), a connoisseur of women, was her first king, infatuation and then disappointment. Plaidy's characterization of him was, I thought, very sympathetic. It would be interesting to meet such a man- a charmer without modern morals, sort of a male Madonna (the singer).  James and Margaret appear to have worked things out pretty well.  Unfortunately the Warfare Sickness claimed a royal soldier and left his son a crown on a child.  The others were earls I think, pretty and not too bright.

Hester Chapman stressed Margaret's plainness, here Plaidy pronounces her beautiful. (Or maybe it was the clothes that were beautiful.) (Or maybe in royal circles it is close to the same thing.)

Elizabeth Woodville (My Heroine)

The breadth and depth of suffering in the daily lives of those of the nobility who lived in times of high infant mortality, civil war, and delicate political situations is palpable.  Elizabeth Woodville lost all five of her brothers, six of her seven sisters, four of her five sons, two daughters,  and both husbands.  When her time came she had little to spend on her soul.  Her poverty at the end of her life may mirror that of Margaret of Anjou, although she left key progeny and Margaret was to be at the end the Lancastrian line.

Elizabeth was grandmother to two queens, Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France, as well as that monster Henry VIII.  Edward IV couldn't have been the easiest husband, but they must have seen eye to eye as her many pregnancies suggest.  Was she a witch - no - she inspired jealousy perhaps, and perhaps the charge of witchcraft explained a marriage so "imprudent".

My heroine?  She is very person-al, genuine, gifted and beautiful.