Academic Articles I Can't Wait to Read

I was going to do something special for my 300th post today, but I was distracted from that greater purpose when I read abstracts of these articles, to be published in the Summer 2008 issue of The English Historical Research Journal. It's truly exciting how discoveries like these come in clumps sometimes, isn't it? Here are the abstracts:

Isabella’s Scottish Lover: New Evidence

For centuries, it has been assumed that Edward II was the father of Edward III. Now a recently discovered cache of documents, buried deep beneath the site where once stood Hanley Castle, has established irrefutably that—as long suspected by filmmakers and historical novelists—Edward II’s infamous queen did indeed enjoy a brief liaison with a Scottish warrior and that Edward III was the product of this extramarital affair.

The evidence, which comes in the form of a letter from Isabella intended to be given to her son when he came of age, notes by Edward II’s physician, and a fragment of a kilt that Isabella saved as a remembrance of her lover—as well as Edward III’s well-known and hitherto unexplained taste for haggis—indicates that when Isabella was staying in York, the warrior, injured and delirious, wandered south and was taken in by Isabella, who nursed him back to health, with extremely successful results. Meanwhile, Edward II himself had fallen ill and was being cared for daily by his physician, making his own paternity of Edward III an impossibility. When the warrior—known only as “Robert”-- returned north, Isabella, discovering she was pregnant, confessed her secret to her husband, who was so concerned about the situation of his own lover, Piers Gaveston, that he agreed without argument to treat the child as his.

The location of the documents beneath Hanley Castle, home to Hugh le Despenser the younger and his wife, Eleanor de Clare, suggests that Eleanor, Isabella’s lady-in-waiting and favorite niece to Edward II, secreted them there, possibly with the idea of blackmailing Isabella or Edward III, or possibly to protect the Plantagenet dynasty from revelation of this secret.

In light of this discovery, it appears that research into the paternity of Isabella’s other children will be a fruitful endeavor.


Elizabeth Woodville and the Princes in the Tower: New Light on an Old Mystery

Historians have long puzzled over the question of the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. Was it murder? Were they smuggled north or abroad by Richard III? Now a recently discovered document, buried deep beneath the site where once stood Bermondsey Abbey, Elizabeth Woodville’s last home, has revealed the startling truth: Elizabeth Woodville herself ordered the murder of her sons.

The document, which takes the form of a written confession and which has been established by handwriting experts as matching the queen’s handwriting, explains that Elizabeth, who turns out to have detested the male sex and small boys in particular, believed that by eliminating her boys, she could put her favorite daughter, Elizabeth of York, on the throne, either as wife to Richard III or as wife to Henry Tudor (“if it had to be a man, one was as good as another,” writes Elizabeth).

This discovery solves many other riddles about Elizabeth as well. Her hatred of men—attested here by explicit comments such as, “I hate men” —readily explains why she arranged good marriages for her sisters, but not for her brothers, why she sent young Edward to live far away from the court at Ludlow, why she acceded so willingly to Gloucester’s and Buckingham’s demand that her son Richard join his brother in sanctuary, and why she agreed to leave sanctuary in 1484 and place herself under the protection of Richard III. (Indeed, Richard III appears to have been one of the few men Elizabeth tolerated. “Richard wasn’t nearly as bad as the rest of them,” she writes. “At least he gave me more money to live on than Tudor.”)

Further research into the issue of Elizabeth Woodville’s sexuality, formerly not an issue among academics, may well be warranted by this discovery.

Coming Soon! (With Even a Reappearance by Queen Isabella)

One of the reasons I've been somewhat quiet in blogdom lately is that I've been completing my second novel, Hugh and Bess, which follows the marriage of Hugh, the eldest son of Eleanor from The Traitor's Wife, to Elizabeth de Montacute, daughter of the Earl of Salisbury. I'm in the proofreading stage now, and if everything goes well and I figure out the formatting, it should be available online, probably through Lulu, within a few weeks. (That's a rough version of the cover you see.) It's quite different from The Traitor's Wife, being much shorter (the sigh of relief you hear is coming from my mother) and more of a love story than anything else. In the meantime, here's an excerpt featuring a familiar face. It takes place in early 1344, following a ladies-only banquet at Windsor Castle at which Elizabeth and her sister-in-law Joan of Kent enjoyed the king's wine a bit too much:

The ornate entrance to Queen Isabella's apartments was so different from the simple one to hers and Hugh's that no sober person could have mistaken the two. A page showed her in, and Bess sank to a curtsey, though every bone she had resisted. She spoke the words that she had been rehearsing since Hugh had given her the news. "Your grace, I beg your pardon for my inexcusable and disgraceful behavior last night. I assure you it shall never happen again."

"Inexcusable and disgraceful? Ridiculous will do, Lady Despenser." The queen waved her to a stool. "Sit there. You brought some needlework with you, I see? Show it to me."

"It is for our portable altar, your grace."

"Very pretty. You work very nicely. Don't look so frightened, child. I didn't call you here to upbraid you. So you are wondering, no doubt, what did I call you here for?"

"My head aches so badly, your grace, I could hardly figure it out if I tried."

Isabella laughed. "Well, it's no mystery, Lady Despenser. You are the eldest daughter of my son's favorite earl and wife to one of the wealthiest men in England. It would be remiss of me not to take some notice of you." She settled back with her own work. "I gather you haven't been to court much."

"No, your grace. I have mostly stayed on my father's lands and now my husband's."

"And you have visited your husband's aunt, Lady Elizabeth de Burgh. She is an old friend of mine. She has spoken very highly of you."

"There were no opportunities for me to make a fool out of myself when I visited her. I suppose that is why."

Isabella chuckled. "She said you were a clever girl. So was I, at your age. I noticed you and your pretty sister-in-law looking at me quite intently last night."

Bess blushed. "We did not mean to be rude. It is just that your grace is so handsome, and the king's mother, and so seldom seen, and—"

"A wicked woman, I am sure you have been told. I suppose if I were a young lady again I would stare at me too." She paused. "Don't fear, Lady Despenser. I won't force you to turn confessor. I have a perfectly good one of my own."

Relieved and disappointed at the same time, Bess concentrated on her needlework. To break the silence, she said, "If it is not being impertinent, is it strange being back at court after all this time?"

"Why should a girl who embraces her king in front of a hall of people worry about being impertinent? I miss very little, you see."

"Your grace—"

"Oh, I blame my son entirely. He shouldn't have filled the hall with ladies, half of them who have never been outside their little shires before, brought out his best wines, and not expected half of them to make fools of themselves. My husband had the right idea. He discouraged women from being at court, unless they were among my ladies and damsels."

She spoke of her husband as if she were an ordinary widow, Bess noted with fascination.