The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
In her essay on Jacquetta, Philippa Gregory uses original documents, archaeology, and histories of myth and witchcraft to create the first-ever biography of the young duchess who survived two reigns and two wars to become the first lady at two rival courts. David Baldwin, established authority on the Wars of the Roses, tells the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the first commoner to marry a king of England for love. And Michael Jones, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, writes of Margaret Beaufort, the almost-unknown matriarch of the House of Tudor.
Beautifully illustrated throughout with rare portraits and source materials, The Women of the Cousins’ War offers fascinating insights into the inspirations behind Philippa Gregory’s fiction and will appeal to all with an interest in this epic period.
Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical novels. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. The Other Boleyn Girl is now a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.
Read more from Philippa Gregory
The Last Tudor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Queen: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Sisters, Three Queens Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lady of the Rivers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Princess Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Boleyn Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Fool: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Women Writers Handbook 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boleyn Inheritance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wise Woman: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Virgin's Lover Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Women of the Cousins' War
Related ebooks
Wideacre: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bloody Mary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Elizabeth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Mistress: The Life and Legend of Jane Shore Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mistress Anne Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Harry: A Biography of Henry VIII Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boleyn Inheritance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Queen: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Queen's Fool: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Constant Princess Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kingmaker's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King's Curse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Virgin's Lover Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Taming of the Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Queen: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fallen Skies: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Boleyn Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wise Woman: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Virgin Earth: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen of Last Hopes: The Story of Margaret of Anjou Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sisters of Treason: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meridon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Concubine: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Favored Child: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stormbringers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Respectable Trade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secrets of the Tudor Court: The Pleasure Palace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tudor Bride Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Tudor Throne Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Women of the Cousins' War
33 ratings17 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Women of the Cousins War* by Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones. Non-fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed the pieces on Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort, each written by the subject’s major biographer. Philippa Gregory’s contribution is on Jacquetta Woodville (Elizabeth’s mother and the subject of her book, The Lady of the Rivers) as well as a lengthy introduction on women in history and history in historical fiction. Since there is very little that’s really known about her subject, Gregory is forced into lots of “maybes”, “perhaps” and “could haves”. I liked her introduction much more and even though I don’t agree with a lot of her theories, it was interesting to hear her point of view on the topic and how she approaches writing her novels. 4 stars (based on the contributions of Baldwin and Jones)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5” ‘There is no place for them’ – how that echoes down the years!”This non-fiction volume has been published to accompany Gregory’s three novels about the women of The Cousins’ War (mostly known as The War of the Roses these days): Jacquetta, Elizabeth and Margaret. Inside, Ms Gregory gives us an introduction on why such a volume is absolutely necessary, as well as a considered biography of Jacquetta. David Baldwin profiles Elizabeth and Michael Jones includes a piece on Margaret.Having read all three novels (and very much enjoyed them), I was fascinated by the idea of having the historical record juxtaposed against them. My long distrust of history and non-fiction was absolutely justified when it turns out to be pretty dull – mostly all that is left are housekeeping accounts (so we know exactly what food was ordered when Edward IV dined with Margaret Beaufort and her husband) and court documents in which women are relegated to the margins, almost literally.The volume didn’t really add anything to the novels for me – I’d rather have stayed with the women as characters in my head; I find it easier to suspend that connection to the real world (even if I know these are real people from history) if I don’t know the details of their accounting.As one might expect, the biographers have chosen the slants that Gregory chose (or vice versa) for her novels: Margaret as a devious politician, Elizabeth as a caring wife and homemaker, proud of her royal husband and unforgiving of those who wronged him, and Jacquetta as ambitious, loving and clever. The authors are at pains to point out that these are by no means the only interpretations; I felt the point was a little laboured when the perspectives and the novels align so neatly.However, the book is well worth reading solely for Gregory’s introduction. It’s not just the references to the continuing struggle of women to be taken seriously in the classical music world (a matter close to my heart due to family connections), but the fact that the 35-page introduction gives a very solid grounding to the lay reader in the conflicts arising for biographers of previously minimally-documented persons.Fans of non-fiction, particularly historical biography, would no doubt enjoy this far more than I did.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is an excellent companion piece to the series of books about the women who probably had more to do with the Tudor dynasty than they are given credit for. The book is broken into three parts, each written by a different author to give a place in history to these fascinating women. The wonderful introduction by Gregory explains that women were very rarely mentioned and record keeping about them, is spotty at best. By piecing together historical documents, letters and conjecture, it is possible to recreate the importance these women had in the history of the ruling class. The first section written by Gregory sparkles with her familiar style of bringing history to life and covers Jaquetta, the Duchess of Bedford and her rise in English Royalty. The next section written by Baldwin details the ascent of Elizabeth Woodville answers many questions about her life, but it lacked a bit in the sparkle department. The last section, written by Jones, reveals Margaret Beaufort, who I disliked in The Red Queen, but now understand a bit better. This is a must read for anyone that wants a better understanding of the lives of these women.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a non-fiction book. I have seen reviews where people read it thinking it was a novel and were disappointed - of course they were! Real history is never as fleshed out as an historical novel especially they further back you go in time. That does not mean it has to be a trial to read.This book was NOT a trial; it was very easy to read and very informative. Each author took one of the three woman that Ms. Gregory had profiled in her trilogy covering what most people know as The War of the Roses but what was known in its time as The Cousins' War. Ms. Gregory also provides a very extensive introduction as to the origins of the book and the difficulties in writing about people from the time period and about women in particular.Ms. Gregory explains in that introduction that there is very little historical record left about the three women profiled; Jacquetta Woodville, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort and yet the book is sold as a tome about them. In this I was a touch disappointed - I suppose I wanted to know more about them but there is only so much to be known. The three separate histories were all very well written and I came away with a much deeper comfort level of the whos and whats of The Cousins War. It is a truly confusing time in history given that many of the names are quite similar and families were fighting each other. This is a very interesting history of the time written from three distinct points of view.Each author presents the events as they effect and surround his subject and while the facts do not change the players in each section do and that offers slight variations that make each woman a fascinating study. I cannot fault the authors that history did not leave more of a record and I want to know more. It was a time period when women were considered chattel if they were considered at all.I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book being the history geek that I am. If you are at all interested in this subject this would be a good book to help sort out the basics. As I said it is not at all dry and dusty and you will find yourselves drawn into a time when cousins were killing each other to try and rule England.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am not a history buff by any means at all. However, I can happily attribute my introduction to historical fiction to Philippa Gregory and her books (in particular, The Other Boleyn Girl). I was never particularly interested in history growing up and I found the textbooks too boring and difficult to understand. I loved reading, but that was because I loved the stories. Gregory's books does a great job of tying the two together in an interesting way. I always had an interest in medieval times - which little girl doesn't want to know more about kings, queens, princes and princesses? However, Gregory's books were the first ones to get me hooked into historical fiction as a genre, with a special liking towards all things medieval. I wasn't sure what to expect going into this book and honestly, I was a little apprehensive once the book arrived and it was pretty thick! It reminded me of the history textbook days and I was a little anxious that I wouldn't enjoy it, but I was very wrong! There are moments when the sentences run a little long and there are so many facts thrown at you at one time that it can get confusing for a reader like myself, who is not used to reading non-fiction historical books. However, it was a very enjoyable read about three women who are not written about very much, if at all, in history, but had such an huge impact on the more well-known time of the Tudors. The book itself reads like a novel and that made it easy for me to read, coming from a historical fiction side rather than the history side.Gregory starts off the book with an introduction about history, historical fiction and women in history. I found it very interesting and reaffirmed what I already knew about Gregory - that she is an incredibly intelligent woman herself very well-versed in all things related to medieval times. I also enjoyed learning more about her process in writing historical fiction.I have read most of the Gregory's books in the Tudors period and often times found myself stopping to go to Wikipedia to read up more on the historical figures before proceeding through the rest of the book. I think this book would be a great book to have alongside while reading her series on The Cousins' War.The book is written in three sections. Gregory writes the first section about Jacquetta, the Duchess of Bedford. Baldwin writes about Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England. Lastly, Jones writes about Margaret Beaufort, who ultimately ends up being the grandmother of Henry VIII. Each author does a great job of piecing together historical documents to put together a biographical account of their lives. It did not read like a history book at all and at times I had to remind myself that I was reading a non-fiction book, not a fictional story.Overall, I think Gregory, Baldwin and Jones do a great job of giving these women a place in history. I think all fans of Gregory's books, especially the The Cousins' War series, will find this companion book a very enjoyable and interesting read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three authors recall the lives of three women who were prominent figures during the Wars of the Roses. Philippa Gregory first covers the little-known life of Jacquetta of Luxemburg. So little-known was this woman that most of this section recounts events that occurred during the Wars of the Roses and the author just speculates whether her main subject was present or how she was affected. On one hand this is disappointing, as the reader learns little of Jacquetta; however, on the other hand, this is a fascinating historical period. Being familiar with the Wars of the Roses meant that I was a little let down though, as I was left reading matters known to me and not learning much about the author’s main subject. Personally, I feel the first of the three women discussed should’ve been Margret of Anjou, who became Henry VI’s queen, as there is much more info on her, plus she was a much more involved in events of the time than Jacquetta was.Next up is Jacquetta’s daughter, Elizabeth Woodville, who became Edward IV’s wife, Edward V’s mother, and Henry VIII’s grandmother. Her life story is easier to recall than her mother’s for obvious reasons. David Baldwin’s account of this former English queen is very good, as is Michael Jones’s recollections of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and, essentially, the founder of the Tudor dynasty. In short, for those familiar with the Wars of the Roses, there is little new info here, but it’s a book still worth checking out. For those unfamiliar with the period and want to know more, then I believe such a reader will enjoy this biography.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I don't get on well with Philippa Gregory's fiction, so I'm not terribly surprised that I wasn't a great fan of this either. I do like David Baldwin's work, though I think I've already read a full biography of Elizabeth Woodville by him; Michael Jones' work here is strong enough and based solidly enough on actual research to intrigue me. I actually quite liked Gregory's introduction, ridiculously long as it is. She does actually raise valid points about the writers of history, and about how historical fiction and historical fact interact. I can at least relate to her powerful interest in the subject. On the other hand, there's very little actually known about Jacquetta, the biography she writes, and it reads very much like the fiction books she's already written, stripped of dialogue and sprinkled with "maybe".Overall, I can see this being interesting to people casually interested in the period, with enough experience of non-fiction not to complain too much about the equivocal statements (guys, if they stuck to the facts we know for absolute certain, we could say they were born, married, had children, and died -- often, that's about it; if we presented speculation as fact, that would be rather dishonest and not helpful at all to the field). I can't really recommend it for people who've already delved into non-fiction on the period: this doesn't offer much of anything new.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The book is the biography of three women involved in the Cousin's War (War of the Roses). It's a readable account attempting to restore these women to their rightful position in history, acknowledging their power and political acumen in very turbulent times.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5interesting even though there is not much info on these dollies.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a study by three authors of three powerful figures in 15th century England during the latter stages of the Hundred Years War and throughout the conflict now known as the Wars of the Roses. The three figures are: Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, wife of Duke John who was English regent of France during the minority of Henry VI (by the popular historical novelist Philippa Gregory, who also provides an introduction to the overall book which contains some interesting ideas on the role of women in historiography); Elizabeth Woodville, Jacquetta's daughter and wife of Edward IV (by David Baldwin, who has written a full length biography of this subject); and Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and who also lived to see her grandson Henry VIII accede to the throne and marry Katherine of Aragon (by Michael Jones, who has also written a full length biography of this subject).I thought Jones's piece on Margaret Beaufort was the best of the three, a well written and balanced account of the life and career of a remarkable and, by the standards of the time, long lived major figure, dying at the age of 66. From her tragic early experience of being impregnated by Edmund Tudor when she was only 12 and personally negotiating a second marriage when she was still not yet 14, she was an able and astute politician, ambitious for her only son, with whom she had a very close relationship throughout the 24 years of his reign.Baldwin offers a spirited and to me convincing defence of Elizabeth Woodville from many of the accusations of grasping ambition which are often thrown at her and her family, though in context, they were no worse than others who achieved prominence at this time.I thought Gregory's piece on Jacquetta was slightly less satisfactory (she has apparently written other history as well as historical novels, though I am not clear what other non-fiction she has written), but it offers a perspective on an important female figure who is less well known than the other two, but who nevertheless played a key role in the highest political circles in the middle part of the century.An interesting perspective on this crucial period of English history.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not as much info as I would like about these woman, though Gregory does explain in her introduction that a lot just doesn't exist on woman from that time period as well as others. Unless a woman was involved in something big in her day, like Joan of Arc, there just isn't detailed written records. It is however well written, did like what was there, and the bibliography and introduction is very informative and interesting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As someone who doesn't read very much nonfiction, I was a little apprehensive about reading The Women of the Cousins' War, but I was so fascinated by Elizabeth Woodville of The White Queen and Margaret Beaufort of The Red Queen, that I was drawn to this book, especially since it comes from Philippa Gregory. For the book, Gregory teamed up with two other historians, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, to explore the real lives of the women behind her novels.Gregory opens the book was a unique introduction that explores the role (or lack thereof) of women in history, as well as Gregory's personal reasons for writing novels about this little-known women. Most interestingly, she gives readers a glimpse into her own writing process, own own motivations for writing what she does, and the difficulties of doing historical research that lead to large holes that are later filled in with fiction.Gregory takes the lead with the first essay on Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the mother of Elizabeth Woodville. Gregory explains that when she went to research Jacquetta for her novel The Lady of the Rivers, there was no biography available about her, so she had to conduct her own research to learn about Jacquetta. Gregory pens a fascinating account of Jacquetta's life, tracing it from her birth up to her death and through the many complex politics between. Of all the essays in the book, I found Gregory's to be the easiest to read and enjoy, mostly because it pulls on her fiction writing abilities and seems to explore more of her subject's motivations and emotions than the other essays.Next comes David Baldwin, who pens an essay on the life of Elizabeth Woodville, Jacquetta's daughter. Though filled with precise accuracy, I found it to be a little bit dry and difficult to read. This was probably because my brain had honed into Gregory's style in the previous essay, and Baldwin chose to stick more strongly to fact, and didn't theorize much on what Elizabeth likely thought or felt. While informative, I wouldn't consider Baldwin's essay light reading.Last, historian Michael Jones chronicles the life of Margaret Beaufort, the virtually unknown matriarch of the Tudor family and grandmother to Henry VIII. Thankfully, Jones' writing reads much more smoothly than Baldwin's, and I particularly enjoyed the fact that Jones went further back than Margaret's birth to discuss the unique origins of the Beaufort family. Giving all this back story really helped to put Margaret and her life into context, and I felt like I had a greater understanding of Margaret's "character." Also, I kind of hate to say it, but I found Jones' short essay on Margaret to be a little more interesting than The Red Queen, which I thought was the weaker of Gregory's first two novels on the Cousins' War.A must-read for history buffs and hardcore Gregory fans, Women of the Cousins' War helps to reveal who these little-known women were and why their lives are worth the study and interest of people today. Complete with family trees, maps, portraits and other images of the period, the lives of these fascinating women from history fully come to life.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I have actually never reviewed non-fiction before, and in the end I have not read much either, since my non-fiction mostly consists of uni textbooks (and none that exciting as this one). After having read all 3 books by Philippa Gregory it was interesting to read this book since this one is all fact and thoughts about these three women. But how to review is the question. I can't say I did not like something that happens since it is what happened. So I looked at is this way, was it boring and made me fall asleep? The question to that is no. It was never dry.
Philippa Gregory has written the first part about Jacquetta and she tells the story from cradle to grave. The little that is known about this fascinating woman. I do love any woman who went her on way at a time where your father, husband, brother or king ruled you. Sure many other women went their own way, but I just like how she married so far beneath her status, she must have loved him so and I am a sucker for that.
The next part is by David Baldwin and he tells the story about Elizabeth Woodville. I will always like the Woodville family and they are just so slandered, it is horrible. They were certainly not the first family to gain lands, titles and money when someone from their family caught a king's eye. And even if her husband was a terrible womanizer I will always like their story, lust at first sight ;)
The last part is by Michael Jones and it is about Margaret Beaufort (whom I called the bitch in The Red Queen). It is strange to say that you do not like someone that has lived and you have never met, but I just do not like it (but her story is a good one), and I certainly do not like her son Henry Tudor. Lol, I have a strange aversion for all the Tudors for some reason. Well starting from Henry. Oh and I am sure these two killed the princes in the tower, ok, I am just blaming them since I dislike them.
All in all 3 good authors writing about 3 interesting women, that history has vilified or as with Margaret made all saintly and good. It is not perhaps a book you read at once. No, you can read one section and then read another another day. History is not going anywhere.
Conclusion:
A good book to read after reading this series, or a good book to make you want to read the Cousin's War books. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a biography of three women during the time of the Wars of the Roses (once called “The Cousins’ War”): Elizabeth Woodville (Edward IV’s wife, and the mother of the two “princes in the tower”), Jacquetta “Rivers”(?) (Elizabeth’s mother), and Margaret Beaufort (Henry VII’s mother). Each author writes about one of the women, plus Philippa Gregory writes an introduction on women and history – why you won’t find as much information about women in history and more. As mentioned in the (quite interesting, I thought) introduction, it’s hard to find information about historical women. Because of that, it’s hard to write an interesting biography, I think. Jacquetta seemed to have the least amount of information to work with. For all three (but especially Jacquetta), there was more about the war and what the men were doing and the big events than about the women themselves, and I’m not as interested in the wars, the fighting, and the politics. So, I tended to skim over those parts, unfortunately, and that’s why I kept my rating to 3 stars, ok. I did learn a bit, though. Although I’ve read a little bit about the Wars of the Roses, I couldn’t have told you who Jacquetta was. I also get Margaret Beaufort mixed up with Margaret of Anjou (and I’m still not entirely certain who Margaret of Anjou is, although she was around at the same time and was mentioned in this book).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Women of the Cousins' War was written to bring to light the "truth" behind the women featured in Philippa Gregory's Cousins' War trilogy, The White Queen, The Red Queen, and The Lady of the Rivers. Jacquetta (The Lady of the Rivers), Elizabeth Woodville (The White Queen), and Margaret Beaufort (The Red Queen) take center stage in this exploration of their lives and how they were very much a part of the Cousins' War, or the Wars of the Roses. I have to admit to not knowing much previously about the Wars of the Roses except for the most minute details. I found the accounts of the events very interesting and thorough in this book.
While Philippa's "essay" was supposed to be about Jacquetta (mother of Elizabeth Woodville), her section really centers on the unfolding of the events in the Cousins' War...we really do not learn too overly much about Jacquetta. However, I don't fault Gregory for this, as she does state in the introduction that very little is known about Jacquetta. What Gregory does reveal about Jacquetta is that she was a loyal and staunch woman who bore fourteen children--a major feat in that era.
I found that David Baldwin's account of Elizabeth Woodville (wife of Edward IV and mother to the princes in the tower and the future queen of England, Elizabeth, mother to Henry VIII) was the most interesting, as he explores both sides of what was said about her. On one hand, she has been maligned as a witch, that she obtained her marriage to Edward IV through sorcery and that once she achieved such high status, she became a cold and calculating person. However, in some accounts of the time, she is portrayed as a generous and charitable woman who was patron to many religious institutions. She also had a great love of learning and the written word.
The final woman featured in the book by Michael Jones, Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VI and grandmother to Henry VIII), would seem to have had one end in mind and that was the advancement of her son, Henry. According to Jones's account, this was quite the truth. Throughout the maneuverings of the Wars of the Roses, Margaret had only one goal and that was seeing her son on the throne and, as we know, she succeeded. Margaret was the most tenacious of the three women, in my opinion.
In conclusion, I have to say that I enjoyed this book thoroughly. I now have more knowledge about the Wars of the Roses (the Cousins' War) and I look forward to reading more about the all the other individuals who were involved in the events. Also, I have not yet read Gregory's Cousins' War trilogy (although I own two of the three books) and I feel that when I do, this book has given me great insight into the true events behind the fictionalized stories in the books. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For me, Margaret Beaufort (The King's Mother) was especially interesting. She has always been portrayed as a domineering and rather nasty character. While I still may not like her very much, I can understand more of her seesaw of a life and her subsequent behavior.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a non-fiction book. I have seen reviews where people read it thinking it was a novel and were disappointed - of course they were! Real history is never as fleshed out as an historical novel especially they further back you go in time. That does not mean it has to be a trial to read.This book was NOT a trial; it was very easy to read and very informative. Each author took one of the three woman that Ms. Gregory had profiled in her trilogy covering what most people know as The War of the Roses but what was known in its time as The Cousins' War. Ms. Gregory also provides a very extensive introduction as to the origins of the book and the difficulties in writing about people from the time period and about women in particular.Ms. Gregory explains in that introduction that there is very little historical record left about the three women profiled; Jacquetta Woodville, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort and yet the book is sold as a tome about them. In this I was a touch disappointed - I suppose I wanted to know more about them but there is only so much to be known. The three separate histories were all very well written and I came away with a much deeper comfort level of the whos and whats of The Cousins War. It is a truly confusing time in history given that many of the names are quite similar and families were fighting each other. This is a very interesting history of the time written from three distinct points of view.Each author presents the events as they effect and surround his subject and while the facts do not change the players in each section do and that offers slight variations that make each woman a fascinating study. I cannot fault the authors that history did not leave more of a record and I want to know more. It was a time period when women were considered chattel if they were considered at all.I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book being the history geek that I am. If you are at all interested in this subject this would be a good book to help sort out the basics. As I said it is not at all dry and dusty and you will find yourselves drawn into a time when cousins were killing each other to try and rule England.
Book preview
The Women of the Cousins' War - Philippa Gregory
INTRODUCTION
Philippa Gregory
This is a new sort of book for me; a collection, written by myself and two other historians, of three short lives
of three extraordinary women: Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford; Margaret Beaufort; and Elizabeth Woodville. This book came about because so many readers ask me for the true
stories on which I base my novels, and there is nothing readily available for these three: The Lady of the Rivers (2011), The Red Queen (2010), and The White Queen (2009). The existing biographies of Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville were out of print when I started my research, and so I worked from rare secondhand copies. I invited the authors, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, each to write a short essay on their subject for us to jointly publish here.
There was no biography at all of Jacquetta, and I realized that if I wanted to find out about her life, I would have to do my own original research from the early documents, and trace the brief references to her that occur throughout other histories. As a woman who was present at many great events, and a kinswoman of both royal houses of England, she is often mentioned in the histories of her time; but her story has never before been told. To trace her life, I had to read accounts of the lives of her contemporaries and of her times, forever looking out for a reference to her, her husbands, or her family. This way I have managed to trace her from her childhood in English-held France, to her family home of Luxembourg, through her first marriage into the royal House of Lancaster, into her second marriage, when she lived at the royal courts of Lancaster and York and in her country house in England. If she was present at a great event, she was sometimes mentioned by name; once or twice she was one of the primary actors. Most of the time the record does not speak of her, and I can only speculate as to what she was doing.
In the course of writing the biography of a woman who was present at the events but all but missing from the record, a woman who is hidden from history,
I had to think about what it means to write the different forms of history-based writing. In one week I wrote some of this nonfiction biography, some pages of the novel, and a synopsis for a drama screenplay that is based on the novels. All of these are grounded on the few known facts of Jacquetta’s life, and all of them (including the history) are works of speculation, imagination, and creativity.
WHY WRITE A HISTORY OF THESE WOMEN?
Why should one bother to write the history of a woman such as Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford? Or of Elizabeth Woodville? Or of Margaret Beaufort? Does Jacquetta’s absence from the records of her own time indicate that she is no great loss to the history books of today? Of course not. Jacquetta is absent from the records of her time because the letters, chronicles, and journals written then mostly told of public events, and as a woman, excluded from formal political power and military service, Jacquetta was not a primary actor. Occasionally, she was at the forefront, and then we find her recorded, for instance, accused of witchcraft, or kidnapped to Calais; sometimes she was an actor representing the queen or king; sometimes she was in a conspiracy, and her work is still secret. So she does have a presence in the historical records if they are carefully examined.
But the interests of medieval chroniclers were not the same as ours. Historians today are interested in women, in the dispossessed, in the marginal, in the powerless. In particular, we are interested in women’s history—women as a group, and individual women. Historians would now agree that an account of a society that does not look at the lives of half of the population is only half an account. Jacquetta’s life, as a prominent medieval woman, can tell us much about the queen’s court, about elite life, about marriage, loyalty, social mobility, sex, childbirth, and survival. She is interesting as a representative of her time and class as well as her gender. The medieval historians do not record such things; we have to look for them through the records, reading between the lines.
The histories of the other two women of this book are little better known; but Elizabeth Woodville’s life story has been told largely in terms of her second husband, Edward IV, and the tragedy of her son Edward V. She is often slandered—as a social climber, as an abuser of power, and as morally corrupt—on a biased reading of very little evidence. Margaret Beaufort, on the other hand, has been made into a stereotype of virtue. There is very little written about her, and even less that sounds realistic. We can read about her piety and self-sacrifice, almost nothing about her ambition, conspiracy, and passion. Much of the work she undertook for her son was done in secret, the collaborators sworn to silence and any documents destroyed. It is almost impossible to reconstruct the history of her life’s work: it was a secret she kept to the grave.
And finally, to me, these women are interesting as individuals. They are my heroines; they are my foremothers. To paraphrase Ecclesiasticus 44:1, Let us now praise famous women, and our mothers that begat us . . .
If a woman is interested in her own struggle into identity and power, then she will be interested in other women. The lives of these, and other women, show me what a woman can do even without formal power, education, or rights, in a world dominated by men. They are inspirational examples of the strength of the female spirit.
WHAT IS HISTORY?
History is not a simple factual record, though it depends on the facts. There are sciences underpinning the making of history; for instance, the sciences of archaeology, or forensics, genetics, or geography; but history itself is not a science. There may be historical explanations that can be expressed in forms other than prose: in formulas, in statistics, or in maps. But most history is written in prose; and the selection of the material, the organization into narrative, and the choice of language show that it is a created form, an art.
Selection is inevitable. No history can include all the known facts of any event, even a single small limited event. There is simply too much material for one description. This is now so thoroughly agreed that the very idea of a total history—a History of the English-Speaking Peoples sort of history—is regarded by historians as impossible. We all understand that under such inclusive titles there were massive exclusions by the historian, sometimes unstated, sometimes unconscious. These days we understand that only a partial story can ever be told, and there is no longer any expectation that a historian will tell the whole of history, or even explain the full context. Historians select what story they are going to tell, then they select what facts they are going to use to illustrate and prove this story. They make this selection on the basis of what they think is most relevant to their subject, and on what is most interesting to themselves. Just because it is factual does not mean it is innocent of artifice. It is structured: the process of selection, assembly, description, consideration, and ranking of facts shows that. There is no such thing as an unbiased, unprejudiced history. The very act of selection of the subject introduces a bias. The author’s preferences and opinions are the basis of the history that he or she writes, though sometimes readers—reading only one account or perhaps watching only one historian on television—think that this single view represents the totality of the subject. It does not: it cannot. It only ever represents the totality of the view of one historian. Someone else, even looking at exactly the same facts, might read them differently to a different conclusion, or start with a different view.
The writing of a history book is a personal process, a creative process, undertaken inside the strict innate rules of a craft form. Historians only rarely explain their process and their prejudices; these are rightly concealed under the smooth narrative of the story they have chosen to tell. They almost never discuss their writing style. Reviewers and readers tend to look at the content, but hardly ever question the narrative technique of a history. It is interesting that the convention of how histories are written is almost never challenged, though it is a powerful unstated convention, almost universally applied. Almost all histories are almost always written in the third person. Very occasionally, histories are written in third-person present tense—a device to give the illusion of intimacy. You will often see this in promotional material trying to entice readers into studying a history that the publicist secretly fears is too old and too dull: Mary Queen of Scots is in flight from rebels in Scotland and puts her trust in her cousin Elizabeth.
Most histories are written in third-person past tense, with a concealed narrator—the magisterial voice, a tone most powerful in conveying information without inviting challenge: For Elizabeth, Robert Dudley had one supreme advantage over all her other male admirers. He could not offer her marriage.
As readers we are accustomed to accepting information from a concealed narrator. It is also the form used to convey instruction in everyday life: During rapid heat-up, do not place any food in the cooking compartment.
And, of course, it is the form usually used for orders: Jews will not be permitted to employ female citizens of German or kindred blood as domestic servants.
In short, the concealed narrator is the one who reassures the reader that he is an authority to be trusted, or whose commands should be obeyed. The historian, fallible, biased, prejudiced, sometimes ignorant—above all, singular with a singular point of view—writes in a form that sounds universal, authoritative, certain. And—significantly—the form conceals his or her very presence. How much less powerful is the phrase I think that, for Elizabeth, Robert Dudley had one supreme advantage over all her other male admirers. He could not offer her marriage . . .
than the authority of the sentence when the historian’s thought process is unstated, and the historian herself is invisible.
History is a personal creative craft, not a science; it is an account made by each historian, not a body of facts that exists independently of them. Indeed, there is no such thing as a body
of accepted facts—it is more like an amorphous flock
of accepted facts of which the individuals come and go. E. H. Carr, answering this very question, discusses how a fact discovered by one historian might become an accepted historical
fact, and be admitted to the general body of known historical facts, changing the narrative. He suggests a fair admission policy would be when a fact has been cited by three different historians.
Equally, I suppose, a historical fact might fall out of the historical record. Perhaps Anne Boleyn’s vestigial finger (almost certainly a fallacy invented by her detractors) may disappear in time. It was common knowledge
when I was at school; it has now disappeared from reputable scholarly histories, lingering only in popular belief. Perhaps another decade will see it disappear altogether. History is a created narrative that tells a story stepping from one agreed fact to another, with gulfs of unknown between each step, bridged only by speculation and imagination.
WHAT IS FICTION?
Fiction is not wholly the creation of an imaginary world, any more than history is the total description of a real one. Even the most unrealistic and fantasy-like fictional creations have a lineage that often stretches back to a reality. The extraordinary creations of science fiction are often rooted in science research, as the work of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein demonstrates. Their fiction is rooted in science fact, research, or possibility and is called hard science fiction
as a result. Other novel forms are also based on reality. Some great classics have even been written to expose a reality of life and stimulate change. Charles Dickens’s Hard Times is a novel set in the northern manufacturing towns as an appeal for better treatment of the workers. Other novels, such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, use a real childhood experience as the starting point for the fiction. Some novels are firmly based in the real present world of the author, with fictional characters and story. Jane Austen’s Persuasion accurately describes Bath and Lyme. Some novels go even further into reality, taking their setting, characters, and, even, events from everyday life; and some tell stories of the historical past.
HISTORY AND FICTION
It is odd that—even though history is not purely fact, nor fiction purely imaginary—historical fiction, which openly declares itself to be both fact and fiction, should be denied serious attention. Too many critics think of historical fiction as flawed and unreliable history, written by authors too lazy to check the facts. Others condemn it for being insufficiently imaginative, written by authors too lazy to invent. Some readers want to know the proportion of fact to fiction—as if fact and fiction were not combined in every form of writing, as if historical fiction were a recipe. Some readers want to identify the facts from the fiction; but this is to deny the very form of the novel: something that combines fact and fiction.
As a writer who prefers to read history to fiction—but loves to write history, journalism, and fiction—I choose to write historical fiction for love of the form. I find it uniquely satisfying to be able to research real characters in the real past and then speculate about their emotions, motives, and unconscious desires, which cannot be discovered from the records they left but have to be imagined.
There are differences between historians and novelists, of course. But perhaps fewer differences than readers think. Historians, like novelists, have to make things up—make up their view of the character, theorize about the character, imagine the character’s inner life—just as novelists do. As any biographer will confirm, the subject of a history is created in the mind of the author, built up from anecdotes and facts and snippets and portraits, in just the same way as a fictional character is made in the mind of a novelist. Both writers use their imagination to flesh out and animate their subject. The process of imagining someone who no longer exists is very like the process of imagining someone who has never existed.
Historians have to speculate. There are simply not enough certain facts available to write an unbroken historical account in which everything is known. Historians have to speculate about how one character arrives at a conclusion, who has advised him, how events are caused. When historians speculate, they make it clear they are doing so (at any rate the good ones do!). You will find the essays in this book are full of probablys,
maybes,
and likelys.
It is frustrating for the historian; but in many instances, when there is no record of what exactly a historical character was doing, the historian has to fall back on what was most likely, what people of the same sort were doing, what would be typical behavior at this particular time.
Novelists writing historical fiction do the same (at any rate, the good ones do!). A nonsensical novelist will make up whatever he likes—but I am not concerned here with what should really be called historical fantasy—when an imagined historical period offers little more than the costume and the excuse for the story, a creation more like a pantomime than a realistic drama. Here I am discussing the serious historical novel in which the author takes the history seriously, researches like a historian, but chooses to write as a novelist. A historical novelist who is serious about his craft will speculate just like the historian: falling back on the most likely of the facts available. The job of the historian is to select the facts, speculate, and then declare the speculation and acknowledge other possibilities. The job of the novelist is to take the facts, speculate, and make such a convincing story path of the speculation that the reader does not wonder if there was any other route. The novelist cannot allow the reader to escape from the spell of the novel; the reader cannot be allowed to unpick the history from the fiction until the book is closed at the very end of the story. To write a successful novel, the historical fact, the history-based speculation, and the pure fiction have to blend.
The novelist has all this to do and more. The novelist has to write something that is pleasing on the page and to the ear. The very words are chosen with care, not just for what they mean, but also for what they conjure, perhaps even for how they sound or what they look like on the page. Far more than the historian the novelist is concerned with extraneous detail: costume, saddlery, food, hobbies, weather. The novelist is also concerned with the inner life: secrets and the unconscious.
And a novel, unlike a history, has a choice of narrators. A novel can be written from many points of view. Most often a novel is written in the style called omniscient narrator or concealed narrator, in which the story is narrated by a disembodied voice, someone who sees everything and describes it with apparent neutrality, just like the usual style of a history. When the novel is narrated by the omniscient narrator, the rule generally is that the narrator has to be omniscient and stay omniscient: this narrator knows everything. The omniscient narrator cannot write as a historian who is honor bound to acknowledge the limits of the research. Readers of history are accustomed to a break in the narrative when the historian explains that the facts are missing and that at this point we are inside the realm of informed speculation. Sometimes the historian will even step into the third-person prose to say why he or she personally cannot be certain about a fact. But this is not possible for the novelist. The reader of a novel doesn’t want to start with a worldview, a god’s view, which suddenly breaks down and says, Actually, we don’t really know the facts here, but the most likely thing is . . .
The reader wants to be captured by the narrator, and the reader wants to stay captured.
Not all novels are told by an omniscient narrator. They can come from an authorial voice, whose presence is understood by the reader and who sometimes directly addresses the reader. They can be written as if by one of the characters, looking back over their lives. As I have developed my own writing I have come to love the narrational device of writing in the first person, present tense, as one of the characters reporting on the events from her own viewpoint, as they happen. The advantage of this is to put the reader in the shoes of the protagonist, seeing the world from her viewpoint:
I touch the milestone once more, and imagine that tomorrow the messenger will come. He will hold out a paper sealed with the Howard crest deep and shiny in the red wax. A message for Jane Boleyn, the Viscountess Rochford?
he will ask, looking at my plain kirtle and the dust on the hem of my gown, my hand stained with dirt from the London milestone.
I will take it,
I shall say. I am her, I have been waiting forever.
And I shall take it in my dirty hand: my inheritance.
The present tense also has the advantage of avoiding the hindsight of historians who know what is going to happen and whether or not it was a success. Some of my favorite scenes have been when the narrator expected the wrong
history: thinking that something would happen, that did not, in the end, take place. This challenge has been very stimulating for me as a novelist and sometimes even led to new conclusions for me as a historian. For example, I suggested that Mary Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl was certain that her sister Anne would escape execution. The history indicates this. Anne made an agreement, mediated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, to accept that her marriage with Henry VIII was null and void. She was probably expecting retirement to a nunnery. Historians have not paid much attention to this agreement since they write from the point of view of knowing the end of the story: that the agreement did not save her, and Anne was executed. From the point of view of the history of what happened, the agreement is not very interesting—it made no difference to the outcome; it can be safely all but forgotten.
But for me thinking as a historian about what might have happened, or what Anne might have hoped and planned, these days become tremendously interesting. By thinking about them as live
negotiations and putting aside the eventual outcome, I came to realize the importance of those last days in the Tower. That Anne should have struggled for her life, should have been prepared to set aside her position as queen and the inheritance of her daughter is a most important historical insight. For me as a novelist, writing in role
as the doomed woman’s sister, this is also tremendously interesting. This is a moment where I (speaking as Mary Boleyn) am absolutely convinced that my sister will survive, that my former lover Henry VIII will let her go. The tension and then pathos of the execution scene are based on the history but draw all their energy from the fact that it is written from the point of view of Mary, who is expecting a pardon not a death. To write this scene as a novelist, I had to forget
what I knew of the history.
Thank God,
I said, knowing only now how deeply I had been afraid. When will she be released?
Perhaps tomorrow,
Catherine said. Then she’ll have to live in France.
She’ll like that,
I said. She’ll be an abbess in five days, you’ll see.
Catherine gave me a thin smile. The skin below her eyes was almost purple with fatigue.
Come home now,
I said in sudden anxiety. It’s all but done.
I’ll come when it’s over,
she said. When she goes to France.
Interestingly, readers captured by the novel and by the controlled delivery of the information seem to accept the convention, and forget
the history they know. Many people have told me of the sense of great tension in the novel at the prospect of the execution, though, of course, we all know that Anne will die.
A novel about Anne Boleyn need not end with her death—though every biography does so. Most histories aim for a complete account of their subject, and so a traditional biography starts with the birth of the subject and ends with the death. History, as a study of time, tends to be written in a narrative line that follows time from the furthest past to the most recent. But a historical fiction need not do this. It can obey, instead, the requirements of the novel form to open with a powerfully engaging scene, and this can be a foreseeing, or a flashback, or an event outside ordinary time, or outside the story altogether. Over the years this has become a signature technique for me. I try to make the opening scenes of my novels a powerful insight into the entire story, a vivid freeze-frame moment: a gestalt moment. The first scene for me does not just start the narrative—it symbolizes it. My novel The Other Queen opens with Mary, Queen of Scots, breaking out of Bolton Castle by climbing down a rope made of sheets, a factual event and an act of typical adventure, courage, and recklessness that the more traditional and sentimental portraits of the doomed queen deny. The man who is going to fall disastrously in love with her sees her captured, circled with torches, lit like an angel, ringed with fire like a witch.
In The Red Queen the novel opens with a dream sequence, the dream that inspires Margaret Beaufort to her life’s work, and that warns her that exceptional women face exceptional dangers. The White Queen opens outside of time altogether, with the myth of Melusina, the water goddess, which is threaded through the novel as both a traditional story and one of the themes of the book: the different worlds of men and women. The Lady of the Rivers opens with the young Jacquetta meeting Joan of Arc, a girl who sees visions and speaks with angels, just as Jacquetta sees visions and hears the singing of spirits.
THE RECIPE
But how much fiction should there be in an historical novel? And how much fact? All historical novelists would give their own answer. Personally, I would say: as little fiction as possible in the chronicle of events. A chronicle is a simple narrative that says: this happens and then this happens. I believe that the chronicle should form the structure of the historical novel, and it should be as solid as the historical record allows. If we know that a battle happened at Bosworth in 1485 and we know how it was fought and who won, then this must be the fact in the novel as it is in the history book. But what it was like, and how it felt to people at the time: this is where a historical novel can be a far more exciting, inspiring, poignant, and beautiful form than a factual account.
But however vivid and powerful the historical novel, I believe it should be based on the recorded facts and never deviate from them when they are available. How few facts are available for some periods and lives, and how much the historian has to speculate to tell a coherent story is perhaps demonstrated in this collection of three essays: the factual basis that underpins my first three novels of the cousins’ war.
WOMEN AND HISTORY
When I consider how significant a role these women played in their times, the interest of their own lives, and the importance of their children, it amazes me that their histories have not already been thoroughly explored and recorded. Why are there not many histories of the three women of this book, when one was a queen, one was a royal duchess, and the other the founder of the best-known line of monarchs in the world? Why are these three women, and so many of the other women I write about, either absent from the historical record altogether, or hardly mentioned? Michael Hicks the medieval historian explains:
Historians used to suppose that there could be no history of women; especially medieval women, and certainly none that was worth the recounting. Initially, perhaps, this was because historians (especially male historians) had no wish to write about members of the other sex. They subscribed to the presumption that history was about politics, in which women have traditionally played little part. Women’s failure to participate in what really mattered in the past meant that women themselves were unhistorical and unworthy of the historian’s attention.
When women do emerge into the historical record, why are they viewed so negatively? Why was Mary Boleyn all but invisible to history, when the story of her life and her family was so extraordinary? And why is Anne of Cleves almost forgotten, or remembered only as the fat, smelly one?
I believe that women are excluded from medieval history as historical characters because of the traditional view at the time of the nature of women, which was that women were innately incapable of major public acts: The Church provided two models for women: Eve the temptress and Mary, the Mother of God; thus, society viewed women as either pure and virginal or filled with the carnal lust of the deceitful Eve. In either case the culture stereotyped them.
We can see the consequences of viewing women as Eve the temptress, or Mary the Virgin, when we look at women who have entered the historical record and been firmly categorized as one or the other. Later historians revise in vain; some stereotypes are very tenacious. For instance, Katherine Howard, the young fifth wife of Henry VIII: She was beheaded on February 13, 1542, only nineteen or twenty years old. The drama of her execution lends gravity to a brief life that would otherwise pass unnoticed.
Actually, I think that Katherine Howard’s brief life is very worthy of notice, and her beheading is not the only interesting thing about her. But of all of the Henry queens, she is the one most likely to have been promiscuous, and this ruined her reputation in her own times, and even today inspires a sort of smug tolerance:
Then there is the question of her sensuality. The long withdrawing roar of Victorian morality inhibited generations of historians from treating this with anything other than disapproval and distaste. But we are past that now. We can confront sex as a fact, not as a sin. We can even, if pushed, see a sort of virtue in promiscuity.
Katherine benefits enormously from this shift in moral values. True, she was a good-time girl. But like many good-time girls she was also warm, loving and good natured.
It seems extraordinary to me that I should be stepping up to defend the reputation of a young woman who was executed in 1542. But new research indicates that—born between 1524 and 1527—she was even