#edith pargeter

[thewomanwhowasthursday]

reading The Green Branch by Edith Pargeter right now, and I simultaneously adore and am infinitely frustrated with the main character

[grandturtleperson]

With the first cry it seemed to him that something which had always contained and generally confined him was broken, that he was loosed from it for ever; but whether he came forth into freedom or exile was something he could not determine. Whichever it might be, it was a desolation more extreme than any cold or darkness he had ever known. And in it everything familiar had become his enemy. He thought he would have liked to destroy all that he could see and touch here, everything which had first turned traitor to him and then expelled him.

—The Heaven Tree, Edith Pargeter

[theenglishnook]

Edith Pargeter, born September 28, 1913, enriched English with the Brother Cadfael mysteries, blending medieval history and humanism. She revived the past in modern prose and pioneered historical mystery fiction.

Birth of Edith Pargeter (1913–1995) – The Storyteller Who Bridged Past and Present

[greencheekconure27]

I need more people to read Brother Cadfael I'm desperate for more content here. (or at least watch the series?)

[fiction-quotes]

“A man abstemious, rigidly upright, inflexibly honest, ferociously chaste,” said Radulfus in private to Prior Robert. “A man with every virtue, except humility and human kindness. This is what I have brought upon the Foregate, Robert. And now what are we to do about him?”

  —  The Raven in the Foregate (Ellis Peters)

[petergwaelod]

Siwan

Local legend says that the tomb of Siwan, now in the porch of the parish church in Beaumaris, was once used as a horse trough.

Siwan was born in 1188, the illegitimate daughter of King John. She spent her childhood in France and was brought back in December 1203 for her marriage to Llywelyn ab lorwerth, Prince of Gwynedd. She was 15 and her husband was 30. Their home was at Garth Celyn on the north coast of Gwynedd, on the opposite side of the Menai Straits.

Llywelyn (also known as Llywelyn Fawr - the Great) was a powerful figure and the marriage brought a respite in the hostilities between the English and the Welsh. But when John was succeeded by Henry III in 1218, a period of hostilities began and Llywelyn was frequently away on military campaigns.

Perhaps Siwan felt neglected? Because William de Breos, 10th Baron of Abergavenny came into her life. He had been taken prisoner and decided it was probably better to ally himself to Llewelyn, his captor. But there are perhaps better ways of doing this, because at Easter 1230 he was found together with Siwan in her husband's bedchamber. Llywelyn wrote to William's wife to explain what happened, saying that he had no option but to hang him. Oh and by the way, he went on, is the marriage between your daughter Isabella and my son Dafydd still on? She said yes. And so William was hanged in a place forever known as Gwern y Grog, or the Hanging Marsh.

Siwan was placed under house arrest and she gave birth to a daughter, Elen, early in 1231. The child was sent to live with other members of the family in Scotland. Once the baby had gone, Siwan was forgiven and restored as wife and princess.

She died at Garth Celyn in 1237 and Llywelyn's grief was recorded by contemporary writers. Llywelyn had some sort of stroke after her death and was never the same man again. He died in 1240. But not before he made sure Siwan was buried according to the usual tradition for all royal persons at that time. She was buried at Llanfaes Friary, which was destroyed later during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. At this point her grave was lost.

It is the story of Siwan and de Breos which has captured the literary imagination: it forms the centre of Saunders Lewis’s play Siwan, Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters)’s novel The Green Branch and Sharon Kay Penman’s novel Here Be Dragons.

But is the carving at Beaumaris really Siwan? Some have suggested that the style of the head-dress, with the wimple drawn under the chin to give a pointed shape to the face, was one that only became fashionable in the late thirteenth century and that there are no datable examples of this before the 1270s. So it seems that the tradition that the coffin was Princess Siwan’s can’t be traced with any certainty beyond 1810. Possibly someone else’s coffin was being used as a horse trough before it was moved to Beaumaris.

[fiction-quotes]

The young can be wildly generous, giving away their years and their youth for love, without thought of any gain.

  —  An Excellent Mystery (Ellis Peters)

[fiction-quotes]

In the streets of Winchester the stinking, blackened debris of fire was beginning to give place to the timid sparks of new hope, as those who had fled returned to pick over the remnants of their shops and households, and those who had stayed set to work briskly clearing the wreckage and carrying timber to rebuild. The merchant classes of England were a tough and resilient breed, after every reverse them came back with fresh vigour, grimly determined upon restoration and willing to retrench until a profit was again possible. Warehouses were swept clear of what was spoiled, and made ready within to receive new merchandise. Shops collected what was still saleable, cleaned out ravaged rooms and set up temporary stalls. Life resumed, with astonishing speed and energy, its accustomed rhythms, with an additional beat in defiance of misfortune. As often as you fell us, said the tradesmen of the town, we will get up again and take up where we left off, and you will tire of it first.

  —  An Excellent Mystery (Ellis Peters)