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realised i can convince myself to watch the royal autopsy episode on henry iv by pointing out that we're going to see a graphically simulated autopsy of henry and get to see henry's (fake) internal organs

unfortunately, watching royal autopsy means having to watch ian mortimer pontificate about henry so.

heartofstanding

gore!! gore of no one's favourite usurper! proved motivational enough despite my internet crapping out on me consistently every time I tried to stream it, I did watch the Henry IV episode of Royal Autopsy and, sad to say, we did not get to see Henry's dick (maybe a bit of the actor's upper thigh) but we did get to see his gnarly looking kidney, heart and lungs...

The conclusion of the episode is that Henry died from acute pulmonary haemorrhage (his lungs filled with blood) that was caused ultimately by the rare autoimmune disease granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) that could explain his skin complaint and apparent seizures, and would have also given him kidney problems (uraemia) and caused blood vessels to rupture in his lungs and suffocate/drown him. GPA seems to fit well enough but I'm not a medical professional and the whole documentary is obviously leading hand-in-hand to that conclusion. I'm not sure about the lung haemorrhage - I feel like if Henry had died coughing up his own blood, I think that would have been mentioned by chroniclers rather a lot?

For those who don't know, the premise is that a pathologist and Alice Roberts perform an "autopsy" on a fake body standing in for the dead royal and make observations based on what the special effects team have done to the body. "Henry might have had psoriasis but you don't tend to see lesions around the nose with that so probably it's not psoriasis" when it's just make-up that a tech put there because the show decided granulomatosis with polyangiitis was what Henry had. Henry's lungs were full of blood - because that's how they decided Henry died. They show off Henry's "battle scars" which... we don't know Henry was ever wounded in battle? The very first time they showed Henry's "body" and the pathologist was like "the first thing we notice is the hairloss" and I cackled so hard. Diagnosed with: bald!

Also, the mannequin is way too thin. Have they even seen Henry's funeral effigy? I get they might have wanted to match the actor used in the re-enactments but the simplest way around that is to hire a fat actor or put him in a fat suit once they're out of the jock!Henry characterisation. Like, Henry was fat!

The whole thing is pretty naff and corny (and fairly graphic in terms of organs and bodies), which is not helped by one of the talking heads being Ian Mortimer. The reenactments have Henry praying Richard II recognise him as rightful king, reducing Richard's rations to help him recognise his new station - and then apparently accidentally starving him to death as a result? The battle of Shrewsbury was hilarious with Henry's first line being him screaming "defend my son". They also did dagger incident! Which despite not being good, did have a neat detail that Hal has Henry hold the dagger with the point against Hal's chest and when Henry jerks it back in preparation to throw it aside, Hal falls forward into Henry's lap.

.. we also get a live-action re-enactment of Henry finding out about his prolapsed anus which made me laugh like a maniac. Like. Henry screaming "Good god man what's wrong with me" (actual line), then reaching behind him and feeling his arse and then being like "My insides!!" (another actual line - they did follow it up with him being like "they're hanging out of me")

Oh, we get Henry pissing into a urine flask and the voiceover of "Henry takes a keen interest in his urine" and then some talk about Henry's pee, including an urologist talking about medieval pee chart but not one of the historians (Mortimer, Helen Carr and Onyeka Nubia) actually say anything about it or quote from the chronicles is made and I remember nothing about Henry being obsessed with his own piss so I assume they pulled that from nowhere or misinterpreted doctors checking his piss regularly as a sign there was something wrong with it? Ian Mortimer did not mention tracking Henry by his droppings or his toilet paper purchases or the prolapsed anus. This is what happens when you don't get Chris Given-Wilson on board.

The other named historical figures shown are Archbishop Arundel and Prince Henry (Hal). Hal seems to be characterised in the Shakespeare vein of "wild troublemaking prince" but just modified to be slightly more historically accurate. For instance, he brashly accuses Arundel of holding the purse strings too tight and I'm like "um, Hal was the one reigning in spending when he was on the council? that's part of the reason people complained to Henry about him?" And then he asks Henry to abdicate in 1409 which is about 2 years too early. Henry responds by shouting at him for his impatience and bad behaviour and it's also like. dude you're the one who killed a king and an archbishop. They give Hal a scar but Hal's scar looks like he just applied too much blusher in his first scene. Also I think the actor had ginger hair which is weird.

Battle of Shrewsbury is presented as Northumberland's rebellion, Henry is described as "fearlessly leading his troops" when the guy had four decoys and retreated when Hotspur got too close so... press x to doubt. Henry claims he did the penance the pope set him for killing Richard and Scrope and I'm pretty sure that he left at least some of that penance for Hal to do (namely, the establishing priories thing). They also didn't mention Henry's missing tooth despite doing a "medical history" or look at his brain given the suggestions of epilepsy caused by brain damage received during jousting.

Ian Mortimer whines that the idea Henry felt guilty for killing Richard and Scrope is "very attractive but superficial" and says it's just part and parcel of Henry's faith which... maybe but also like. He killed two guys his culture screamed shouldn't be killed and going "he was so awesome he didn't care about killing people"... not actually that good of a look for Henry? Also I think Catholic guilt is also an "attractive but [deeply] superficial" characterisation when you're very much going "he didn't actually feel guilty for anything he did, he was just a Catholic".

At the end of this, I feel like Henry's character is more... a sporty, athletic guy who was gassed up all his life until he believed in his own greatness only to usurp the throne and realise actually he was not cut out for this but he's so great and wonderful this is even though he wracked with guilt but he's clinging to power with both hands and not letting go.

#henry iv #blog #media: royal autopsy

Eleanor Cobham also faced malicious allegations initiated to combat her power (and potential power) at court. Cobham emerged from a gentry background, rising up to become one of the greatest ladies of the realm through her marriage to [Joan of] Navarre's youngest stepson, the duke of Gloucester. Eleanor caught his eye as lady-in-waiting to the first duchess, Jacqueline, countess of Holland, Hainault, and Zeeland, who had sought refuge in England. Cobham's rise from servant to mistress to spouse parallels the experiences of several other attendants who capitalized on their sexuality at court. Like Alice Perrers, Agnes Launcecrona, and the later Anne Boleyn, Cobham's reputation suffered from her sexual misconduct, so that in the late I420s, several "respectably dressed" women came to Parliament and criticized the duke for his reproachable divorce of his first wife and his adultery committed with Cobham." Others, such as poet John Lydgate, took up the forsaken duchess's cause. Another poem argued that Cobham had successfully bewitched the duke through sorcery. Ignoring these criticisms, the pair married by I431. Ten years later, in 144I, Henry VI had not yet married, and his uncle Gloucester was his heir, a fact that stoked concerns about the power couple's influence and about the upstart Eleanor's potential power. Eleanor and Humphrey also sought an heir, and, unfortunately for Cobham, she had associated herself with some practitioners of magic and astrology, practices fashionable among some court elites since the late fourteenth century. Sorcery was not yet gendered, nor always a crime, since university-trained occult practitioners were brought to court to guide monarchs, and in the case of trend-setting France, in an attempt to cure the mentally ill Charles VI. Cobham admitted to consulting some occult practitioners to help her conceive (including Margery Jourdemayne, who also confessed to having helped Eleanor concoct love potions a decade earlier). The allegations went much further, implicating Cobham in a treasonous plot against the king so that she and her husband might inherit the throne. The charges were presumably embellished to portray Cobham as nefariously as possible, and, with the church's assistance, she was tried and convicted. With twelve unnamed attendants, Eleanor was dispatched to Kenilworth, and later the Isle of Man; her captivity was punishment for the alleged sorcery. As in Joan's case, unstated motives lay behind Cobham's accusation. Anti-Gloucester factions and Cobham's rising influence threatened the status quo. Although Griffiths discusses how Cobham's case helped to define the precise legal status of peeresses, he also ignores the gendered susceptibility of female bodies to witchcraft accusations and resulting imprisonments. Women's access to power, especially if they were outsiders like foreign queens or women from lower status backgrounds, was suspect. Moreover, if Cobham had successfully conceived, that child would secure the line of succession for Gloucester (if Henry VI remained childless); therefore, clear political motivations for an attack against her existed. It was easier for Gloucester's enemies to attack his lower status wife; as Adams notes when considering sorcery allegations across the channel, "attacking a powerful lord through his wife was a time-honored practice." The intertwining of issues of sex, gender, national politics, and witchcraft resumed in the later generation of women accused of using sorcery to tempt Edward IV into marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, but Woodville and her mother Jacquetta of Luxembourg were protected by powerful husbands and sons-in-law and never faced trial or imprisonment despite their enemies' political aspersions.

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#eleanor cobham #humphrey duke of gloucester #henry vi #elizabeth woodville #joan of navarre #jacquetta of luxembourg #witchcraft accusations #historian: caroline dunn

Elizabeth Sackville, former servant of Katherine de Valois, received from that queen a pair of silver-gilt dishes (which had originally been given to the queen by London citizens). For some unspecified reason, the dishes were sold to "the cardinal of England" (likely Henry Beaufort, the queen's uncle by marriage), and the queen's son Henry VI then reimbursed Sackville with a £5 yearly annuity from Queenhithe in London.

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#this is so interesting if frustrating we know so little about it #catherine of valois #elizabeth sackville #cardinal henry beaufort #henry vi #historian: caroline dunn

Following Joan of Navarre, Katherine de Valois, like her elder sister Isabella, was queen for a very brief time and brought few - if any - foreign female attendants with her when she wed Henry V. Although Shakespeare created the delightful character of nurse Alice who attempts to teach English to Henry's French bride before the impending nuptials, Katherine's entourage remains one of the most poorly documented in surviving administrative records, with almost all of the information stemming from the appointment of nine ladies and damsels to fetch Henry V's bride from Rouen and accompany her to England. These appointees appear in other records that indicate that they were English. Questions may be asked about the national origins of Joan Courcy, whose surname could tie her to the Courcy lords of Kinsale, but, since Katherine's elder sister, the earlier queen Isabella, had been served by the French Lady de Coucy, it is not impossible that a French family tie is revealed here. Also uncertain are the national identities of two damsels identified without surname, Agneys and Guilmote, who escorted Queen Katherine to England. [...] As mentioned previously, fewer attendants have been found for Katherine de Valois than for any other monarch covered in this study. We do find at least one waiting woman who moved from her service into that of her successor's household, since Rose Chetwynde, who served both Katherine and her young infant Henry VI, later helped escort Henry VI's bride, Margaret of Anjou, across the channel. In subsequent years of service to Margaret, Rose, now married to the king's treasurer John Merston, earned a salary for serving as Queen Margaret's damsel and was given jewels by the queen upon the Feast of Circumcision.

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#catherine of valois #joan courcy #rose chetwynde #henry vi #margaret of anjou #john merston #historian: caroline dunn

Successful royal marriages were pulled off for the daughters of Henry IV, with Blanche marrying Louis III of Germany in 1402 and Philippa espousing Eric of Pomerania, King of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, in 1406. On both occasions, the royal daughters travelled with female attendants. Mary Scales earned £5 for travelling to Germany with Blanche and Katherine Puncherdon, who had served Bolingbroke's daughter before his accession. Four years later, two of these same women travelled with at least eight other female attendants to participate in Philippa's marriage in Norway.

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#blanche of england #philippa of england #henry iv #mary scales #katherine puncherdon #historian: caroline dunn

Medieval thinkers and commentators often viewed women's bodies and women's sexuality with suspicion. Indeed, the origins of ladies-in-waiting as an official occupation can be attributed to their role in safeguarding the chastity of the queen. Yet such concerns particularly arose when they served male political needs. Chroniclers and fictional romance authors expressed fears that queens, like Jezebel, would use their "feminine wiles" to gain favor with the king." As Given-Wilson points out, chroniclers were most interested in "universal truths" rather than historical accuracy, and thus their descriptions of historical queens underscored "general stereotypes of womanly behavior." Yet modern scholars should speculate about the degree to which Alice Perrers consented to the illicit relationship with Edward III. As we become more aware of coercive tactics used by powerful men to gain sexual favors from lesser-status women, we should wonder if Perrers was pushed into the union by the king and perhaps an opportunist husband. In such a scenario, Perrers plays the role of victim regaining some agency by wielding power and achieving financial gains that became available to her only afterward. Mistresses, like foreign favorites, ruffled feathers, but generally only when commentators had other issues at hand. When they did, female sexuality and susceptibility to avarice anchored the complaints, since the gendered tropes were familiar to the audience. Alice Perrers, an independent woman with business acumen, an outsider to courtly circles, and a woman of strong personality, fell victim to this line of attack. Her inability to navigate the political landscape at court, where she made enemies of some favored couriers and members of Parliament, contributed to her downfall.

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#alice perrers #edward iii #rape culture #historian: caroline dunn

Most female attendants who became mistresses in the Middle Ages never achieved such great heights (or suffered such dramatic falls). Katherine Swynford, servant to Blanche of Lancaster, was also criticized (especially by Walsingham) for tempting Blanche's husband, the royal son John of Gaunt, during his marriage both to Blanche and his second wife Constance of Castile. Swynford lingered on the outside of the great nobility even after Gaunt married her as his third wife, and, as Tompkins asserts, she remained a more "passive figure" in regard to the political sphere. Like the foreign courtiers targeted in the household of Richard II, Swynford was excoriated more as an oblique way of criticizing John of Gaunt, Richard II's uncle. (Likewise, the potential alien standing of Alice Perrers's husband could be seen as a charge against Alice herself. Swynford was foreign too, of course, but had arrived in England during happier times under Edward III and Philippa. Similarly, neither Gaunt's earlier mistress, the Fleming Marie de Sancto Hillario, nor the Black Prince's mistress who bore his son Roger de Clarendon received much comment.

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#katherine swynford #alice perrers #john of gaunt #marie de sancto hillario #historian: caroline dunn

Just as we should be careful to discern anti-foreign prejudice, we should read hostile reports about Alice Perrers with contemporary assumptions about gender in mind. Ormrod highlighted how the mistress served as a useful target of antipathy rather than a successful (and greedy) power player because "her sex and status simply did not allow her the regular and acknowledged access to power enjoyed by politically ambitious male favorites." Although her personality may have played a role - Perrers's actions demonstrate strong will and a desire to assert herself independent of natal family and husbands - we should acknowledge the misogyny that lay behind her targeting. Indeed, the preamble to the 1376 ordinance which first complained of her actions contained a diatribe against women in general who engaged in corrupt practices in the king's courts, enjoining that "the king should forbid any woman to do it, and especially Alice Perrers." But Perrers's sexuality was particularly suspect, not merely to the monkish commentator Walsingham (who calls her a harlot) and the presumed cleric William Langland (whose Lady Mede in Piers Plowman was revised, perhaps to echo Alice's life, to name her a "queynte-common hore"). Her perceived sexual wiles influenced the parliamentary political community of England that sought to single her out and punish her for unseemly influence and gains.

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#alice perrers #edward iii #william langland #thomas walsingham #piers plowman #historian: caroline dunne

Was Catherine of Valois not politically excluded during the reign of Henry VI as a minor?

No. There is no evidence that she was ever excluded from power. The idea that Catherine was blocked from wielding political power during Henry VI's minority tends to rely specifically on the idea that she was not made regent for Henry VI and that she should have been. This is an anachronistic idea.

The fact is that there was no regent for Henry VI - nor had there been a regent during the minorities of Edward III or Richard II, or any implication that a regent would've ruled for Edward V had he succeeded to the throne. John, Duke of Bedford and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester both asserted their claim to be regent for Henry VI only to be rebuffed by parliament, who preferred to have a council governing during the minority. Similar councils were in place during the minorities Edward III and Richard II. Catherine held no formal position on Henry's council, but neither had Isabella of France or Joan of Kent (the mothers of Edward III and Richard II respectively). Both Isabella and Joan are recognised to have wielded significant political power during their sons' minorities - Isabella especially so - but they held no formalised role outside of their status as the king's mother or queen dowager or dowager Princess of Wales.

All queens and noblewomen were inherently powerful and politically active figures, not just the lone, exceptional badasses like Isabella of France or Margaret of Anjou. This includes Catherine of Valois.

I have a much longer post on Catherine as a political figure here from 2020. I intend one day to completely rewrite it with more information/insight but I haven't done that yet.

#catherine of valois #ask #anon #queenship

Edward II's political shortcomings and military defeats weakened his authority within England at the same time that pressures were rising within his marriage, leading ultimately to the coup against him led by Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer in I326-7. Playing a significant role assisting the king was Isabella's lady, Eleanor Despenser, wife of Hugh the younger and Edward's niece. Some claim an improper relationship between Edward II and Eleanor. If true, it means that Edward Il was committing adultery not only with his niece, but with one of his wife's chief attendants. Underhill argues that since this rumor stems only from a French chronicle, one might be skeptical. However, she also claims that Isabella was hostile to Eleanor by 1321 and that Eleanor served not as a faithful servant but as a spy in Isabella's household on behalf of the king and his favorites. On the other hand, Warner casts serious doubts on the rumor, believing that the relationship between Edward II and his niece was never inappropriate. But it appears that the queen sought revenge against Eleanor, not merely against her husband Hugh Despenser (the younger), at least by the time of the coup, perhaps because Edward had placed the royal children in Eleanor's custody during the period of hostility. After the deaths of both of their husbands, Isabella sent Eleanor to the Tower of London for two years, after which she approved her release and return of lands, but only in exchange for an excessive payment of £50,000 (remitted by Edward III to £5,000). The queen's resentment toward her former lady-in-waiting need not be attributed to sexual impropriety, however, since, as wife of Edward I's favorite (niece of the king), Eleanor would have much to lose it the invasion of Isabella and Mortimer gained traction. Eleanor actively worked against the coup (she was deputized to command the Tower of London, nominally in the hands of the ten-year-old royal son John of Eltham, after Edward II fled the city) She had certainly assisted the king, perhaps even spied for him. Although her attendant Eleanor Despenser resisted the queen's inva-sion, some of Isabella's courtiers actively supported Edward II's overthrow. Both Joan of Bar and Marie de St. Pol resided in France with Isabella prior to the coup and Joan herself returned from Flanders to England with Isabella for the invasion. Upon achieving victory against her husband, Queen Isabella rewarded Joan with various lands in southwest England "in recompense of her expenses, and the labors which she endured in attendance on queen Isabella in England and in parts beyond seas, to have for life."

Caroline Dunn, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press 2024)

#remember when warner used to be normal about the incest allegation? [heavy sigh] those were those days #anyway this is an incredibly logical read of the eleanor de clare-isabella relationship #edward ii #isabella of france #eleanor de clare #hugh despenser the elder #historian: caroline dunn

wonder-worker

Friendly reminder:

MARGARET OF ANJOU WAS NOT PRESENT AT LUDLOW OR WAKEFIELD

#friendly reminder once more #margaret of anjou

emthehistorygirl

Margaret of Anjou

#margaret of anjou #emthehistorygirl #art #non contemporary

Reading Olga Van Marion, Rick Honings and Lotte Jensen's "Fact or Fiction: Literary Representations of Jacqueline of Bavaria 1600-1850"*, which is focused on depictions of her in Dutch literature and plays. There's a lot of "wow look at that misogyny go!"

For example, a seventeenth century poet Hugo Grotius imagines himself John the Pitliess (her uncle who fought to have her claims to Hainault, Zeeland and Holland nullified so he could inherit, abandoning his career as a bishop to do so) who scolds her:

Will not the next generations abhor this? A woman who took up arms to avoid her guardian! Take up your wool and your spindle. Do you not know what becomes a woman and will you not return to your bobbins and balls? That care you must take upon yourself, without troubling yourself about borders, state affairs or the needs of the county.

Women are only fit for spinning wool and so ungrateful when their uncle benevolently disinherits them, I guess. John the Pitiless was apparently murdered through having the pages of his prayer book coated with poison and it's been long believed that Jacqueline was behind it. If he was anything like Grotius imagines, I hope she did it.

There are more "romantic" interpretations of her life, most of which focus on her fourth marriage to Francis van Borssele and the idea that she gives up politics for love~. These are more sympathetic but the authors describe one scene from a play by Theodor Rodenburgh where Jacqueline "deigns to accept Francis's invitation to sit on his knee" and I'm just. Full body cringing. It's not as virulently misogynist as Grotius telling her to go spin some wool and let the men take care of things - but it still has the same vibe of "the woman needs to be humbled and tamed, which means she will accept her subservience to men and become a dutiful wife".

There's also a tendency to slut-shame Jacqueline. Grotius labels her "loose", Rodenburgh's play has a third act in which Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy claims she is "wantonly on heat" - her lust is the source of all her troubles - but at least Rodenburgh has Jacqueline respond to these allegations by going, "no, you're the one wantonly on heat" (which - fair!).

By far the worst example in this paper is Willem Bilderdijk's nineteenth century work on Jacqueline. It's clear that his own biases are in play: Jacqueline was a Hook, Bilderdijk was "very anti-Hook", he had an intense, xenophobic dislike of the French, he was a virulent misogynist.

Bilderdijk complains constantly about Jacqueline's sexual behaviour, depicting her as a nymphomaniac or a succubus. He writes that John of Brabant's "physique was not such that he could satisfy her, and whose weakness of mind made him, moreover, despicable in the eyes of such a clever and cunning vixen". He claims that Jacqueline's sexual appetite was so strong that "no-one but a Frenchman could endure it". I'll quote this bit directly from the paper:

When in 1420 John of Brabant gave the counties of Holland and Zeeland into the custody of John the Pitiless against his wife’s wishes, the ‘frivolous woman’, with her ‘excessively hot temperament’ no longer kept herself in check but ‘gave full rein to the urges with which she was pervaded’. Then, her eye fell on the English Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who, she hoped, could ‘satisfy’ her. Jacqueline was, said Bilderdijk, a woman ‘who lassari, but not satiari poterat’ (could be tired out, but not satisfied) by her husbands. The duke was hardly keen on tying the knot but the ‘strumpet from Hainaut’ managed to ‘trap and force’ him so that he eventually, in 1422, married her.

To divert from the "look at the horrific misogyny" but look, Humphrey was a slut wantonly on heat.

Not content with imagining her as a succubus, Bilderdijk also claims that Jacqueline had Brabant murdered (there is no evidence of his death was anything but natural), mingled with the townspeople and farmers at popular feasts and became an object of ridicule (which seems to suggest she was just going around fucking peasants and attending orgies but I'm surprised he didn't just come out and say it), and that she had an severe problem with alcoholism.

He picked this and other themes up in a poem, where he wrote about the Jacqueline-kannetjen (or Jacoba jugs). These are jugs found in the moat of Teylingen, the place where Jacqueline spent her final years. The legend is that she made them herself, turning to pottery to fight her boredom, or Bilderdijk's preferred explanation (which seems to me singularly illogical): that she drank to excess from these jugs and once inebriated, threw the empty jugs in the moat rather than having them reused. AFAIK, there's no real link between Jacqueline and these jugs other from the fact they were roughly contemporary to her and were found in the moat of a location where she once resided.

Anyway, the poem goes:

You little jug, some three four centuries ago Sucked dry by the mouth so keen to kiss, And then with a truly graceful flourish Flung out of the Teylingensch window, Do you remind us of the sweet creature, So beautifully accomplished at winking with her eyes? Come, tell us of her courtship, When the widow of her three husbands, In the grip of awkward guardianship Banned to the lonely castle dwelling, Coaxed a fourth to her side, Once more to yoke up with her! Tell us, what that little lip spoke, Whose border you once pressed so sweetly? What honey was there in that kiss That so delighted good Borslen, And how that blinking eyelet broke When he picked the wilted rose?

Reader, I had to stop and draw a vomiting face next to the poem and write "YUCK!" like i was five years old. It feels as thought he is both sexualising Jacqueline while also treating her as an object of disgust and abjection.

Other writers have given more positive spins on Jacqueline's life but focus more on the love story between her and Francis van Borssele. In what the paper's author call "a typically nineteenth-century, middle-class moral", one play concludes with Jacqueline celebrating "the most beautiful earthly reward ... DOMESTIC BLISS!"

Spare me.

The paper doesn't discuss more recent works on Jacqueline except briefly, talking of the attempts to draw a picture of "a strong, independent and liberated woman". I can only hope that these twentieth and twenty-first century offerings are better than Hilda Lewis's I, Jacqueline, where she should've just listened to her father and married Borssele to begin with.

* Olga Van Marion, Rick Honings and Lotte Jensen's "Fact or Fiction: Literary Representations of Jacqueline of Bavaria 1600-1850", Publications du Centre Européen d Etudes Bourguignonnes, vol. 54 (2014)

#jacqueline of hainault #reputation and representation #historiography #literary criticism #critic: olga van marion #critic: rick honings #critic: lotte jensen #misogyny

A guide to books about John, Duke of Bedford

A list of books about John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford that include biographies, books about the manuscripts he owned, books about the Hundred Years War he features prominently in and historical fiction novels. If there's any I missed, let me know and I'll add it to the list.

#john duke of bedford #blog #historical fiction #masterlist

The tradition that Suffolk destroyed Gloucester because he remained implacably opposed to peace with France is of long standing. So too is the fiction that Gloucester stood up in Parliament in 1445 and denounced the Truce of Tours and the promise to cede Maine. Gloucester was no fool; he had long since taken the measure of his nephew and he knew that the glory days of Henry V would never come again. He had raised no objection when Suffolk was sent to treat for peace and a marriage with a French princess, and he had congratulated Suffolk in Parliament on achieving a truce with France. Gloucester's downfall had nothing to do with ceding Maine or peace with France, and everything to do with Suffolk's ambitions. Suffolk had no need to destroy Gloucester politically - Duchess Eleanor had accomplished that - but King Henry's dislike of his uncle played into Suffolk's hands and when Suffolk chose to attack him, Gloucester was as vulnerable as his wife had been. Gloucester had made more enemies than friends during his tempestuous life.

B. M. Cron, Margaret of Anjou and the Men Around Her (History and Heritage Publishing 2021)

#HMM.#i don't know if i entirely believe this but interesting perspective #william de la pole duke of suffolk #humphrey duke of gloucester #historian: b. m. cron #the death of humphrey duke of gloucester

As opposed to this evidence, one important account of Humphrey’s death must weigh in the scales in favour of the theory of murder. This is the testimony of a meagre chronicle called the Brief Notes, made in the abbey of Ely. The Notes are the comment of a writer who was very close in both time and space to the events; his words have been described as ‘a first impression, produced when the news was fresh, in a monastery not thirty miles distant from the scene of its occurrence’. His brief account is quite remarkable in its implications. Certain lords, the writer said, were sent secretly from the king’s side. People suspect and say different things as to what happened. But it is without doubt that after the departure of the lords, Humphrey was so ill that he could in no way live more than three days, though no wound was apparent on the outside. It is hard to read this document, written under the shadow of Humphrey’s enemies, without a strong suspicion that the writer was hinting at an unnatural, and not a natural, death. Finally, we cannot ignore the strength of the contemporary popular belief that Humphrey was murdered. This may simply have been the result of propaganda; but clearly the view was widely held, and advanced with confidence. The Great Chronicle of London said under the year 1448, though probably written later: ‘In England, many murmurs and grievances began this year to spring up against the Marquis of Suffolk for the murder of the Duke of Gloucester and other things.’ Gregory's Chronicle reported that Suffolk was impeached for the death of the noble duke. A political poem of about this date declared that “This Fox at Bury slowe oure grete gandere’. The rebels of 1450 proclaimed to the whole world that Gloucester had been murdered. The Commons in 1451 attributed his destruction to Suffolk. The kind of rumour that went around before 1461 is illustrated, perhaps, by The Brut..., showing the belief, encouraged by Humphrey’s exposure after death, that he had shared the fate of Edward II. Writers after 1461 may well have merely reflected Yorkist views; but there is also a possibility that some of them now felt free, for the first time, to say openly what they believed.

B. Wilkinson, Constitutional History of England in the Fifteenth Century (1399-1485) (Barnes & Noble Inc. 1964)

#humphrey duke of gloucester #the death of humphrey duke of gloucester #historian: b. wilkinson #posting this mainly for the alternate view of humphrey's death not because i believe he was murdered #(i do think we need to consider the possibility he was murdered and not just dismiss it out of hand)

The testimony of contemporaries as to how Humphrey of Gloucester died is obscure and conflicting. The two most compelling witnesses against the theory of murder are Richard Fox and the Abbot Whetehamstede. Richard Fox, who gives the most detailed account of the tragedy of Bury, never for a moment suggests foul play, whilst Whetehamstede, the friend and follower of the dead man, clearly states that he died of sickness brought on by grief at his arrest. These are amongst those closest to the event. To them, we may add Hardyng, who asserted that Humphrey died of palsy, and who wrote in the Yorkist interest. This is strong testimony, but hardly conclusive. Richard Fox does not say that Humphrey died a natural death. The duke, he says, died at three o’clock in the afternoon. That is all. His body was exposed, which recalls the exposure of the murdered Edward II, and at least suggests that there was some thought that questions might arise. On the whole, in view of the circumstances, Richard Fox shows a singular reticence in recounting the manner of Humphrey’s death. The assertion of Abbot Whetehamstede that Humphrey died of sorrow is at first sight more conclusive. Whetehamstede was Yorkist in sympathy, and after the first battle of St Albans might be expected to have been strongly encouraged to proclaim Gloucester’s murder, if he had either known about it or even thought it to be likely. Unfortunately, we do not have his reactions under the year 1447, which is not covered by his Register; and his assertion in 1455 that Humphrey had died of sorrow occurs only as part of a public Declaration, made in parliament during a rehabilitation of the duke’s memory. This must have been agreed to by both Yorkists and Lancastrians: it clearly represented a most inauspicious occasion to proclaim a suspicion that Humphrey had been murdered by his enemies when he, heir to the throne, had been arrested without charge by officials of the court. It seems most improbable that those who referred to the events of eight years earlier found it expedient to raise the question at all. Thus, the testimony of the abbot turns out to be no more decisive than that of Richard Fox. After this, Hardyng’s simple diagnosis of palsy or paralysis carries no great weight: it was repeated by nobody, and his own reputation is questionable. No official claim was ever made that Humphrey had in fact died of such a comparatively well-known disease.

B. Wilkinson, Constitutional History of England in the Fifteenth Century (1399-1485) (Barnes & Noble Inc. 1964)

#humphrey duke of gloucester #john whethamstede #john hardying #richard fox #the death of humphrey duke of gloucester #historian: b. wilkinson #posting this mainly for the alternate view of humphrey's death not because i believe he was murdered #(i do think we need to consider the possibility he was murdered and not just dismiss it out of hand)

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