New Blog and New Read

Since I yip so much about Richard III on this blog, I've started a new one for that very purpose! Check it out here.

I've been reading Michelle Moran's historical novel Nefertiti, even as a stack of books on my shelf to be reviewed grows yet higher and higher. I'm enjoying it thoroughly, but as I have some other writing and reviewing obligations to take care of in the coming weeks (not to mention that pesky day job), I doubt I'll be giving it a full-fledged review. But it's well worth checking out, though I confess that what I know about ancient Egypt could fit into a miniature thimble. (If I knew anything about ancient Egypt I'd be able to come up with a better metaphor, for one thing. Any suggestions?)

Booking Through Thursday: Moustache-Twirling

Booking Through Thursday

Well, after last week’s record-breaking number of responses (92 last time I checked–an all-time BTT record), I was tempted to use this week’s question to ask what you all thought about Harry Potter 7–but since a decent proportion of you weren’t going to be reading it at all, that seemed unfair. So instead . . .

Who’s the worst fictional villain you can think of? As in, the one you hate the most, find the most evil, are happiest to see defeated? Not the cardboard, two-dimensional variety, but the most deliciously-written, most entertaining, best villain? Not necessarily the most “evil,” so much as the best-conceived on the part of the author…oh, you know what I mean!

There's scads of good candidates, but since Iago was taken, I'll go with Tulkinghorn from Bleak House. He destroys, or tries to destroy, lives dispassionately and for no better reason than the enjoyment he gets from having his victims in his power.

I'd say that Shakespeare's Richard III meets the criteria for the most entertaining villain. Having read a surfeit of novels where Richard is all but beatified, I find his stage version rather refreshing!

Queen Isabella: The Sitcom

In church on Sunday, being the pious rockin' blogger girl that I am, I thought when the lesson about Mary and Martha was read, "Wouldn't this make a good sitcom?" Well, the hamster in the ol' brain started going, and thanks to that and Alianore's recent post on Queen Isabella's later years, this was the twisted result:

"Rising to the Occasion": A New Sitcom

Queen Isabella expected things to be a little different when she left her son's court for a quieter life on her estates, but she didn't bargain for the wild and wacky retainers at Castle Rising! Can a dowager queen adjust to the simple life amongst the local yokels?

Episode #13: "A Heart in the Wrong Place"

When Isabella's new damsel, Alice, takes it upon herself to polish the dowager queen's jewel caskets, she accidentally throws out something very important—Edward II's heart! Can Alice and her friend, Isabella's bumbling steward, find it and put it back in its place before Isabella notices?

Episode #22: "Ladies' Knight"

Thanks to a gift of wine from the folks of Lynn, Isabella is having a rollicking girls-only evening with her old friends Elizabeth de Burgh and Marie de St. Pol—when Henry de Grosmont shows up! Will three merry widows be too much for even the gallant Henry?

Episode #49: "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"

Isabella plans to ask her son Edward III for an increase in her allowance—but just as the king settles into his chamber, Isabella's cousin King John of France comes to visit, expecting to be entertained in high style! Will the gang be able to convince Edward that Isabella's poor while impressing John with Isabella's riches?

Episode #53: "The Papal Chase"

Just for fun, Isabella's clerks write a letter to the Pope in which Isabella confesses to her husband's murder—and they accidentally give it to the queen's messenger! Can they outride the messenger to Avignon?

(P.S. Vote for your favorite Henry in the sidebar!)

Rockin', Reading, and Raving

I've been named as a

by Alison and by Tanzanite. Thanks, ladies! For my own nominations, I'll add not only those who nominated me, but these:

Sarah, over at Reading the Past. Always lots to read there!
Alianore, of course. Edward II, he's the man!
Tanzanite's Book Covers is a hoot!
It's always fun over at Carla's blog, even though I'm too lazy to cook her recipes.
Gabriele's site is always entertaining.
I've been enjoying the reviews on the new Historical Tapestry blog.

I know I'll think of some others once I turn off the computer and go to bed. Night, all!

Booking Through Thursday: Harry Potter

Booking Through Thursday

1. Okay, love him or loathe him, you’d have to live under a rock not to know that J.K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, comes out on Saturday… Are you going to read it?
2. If so, right away? Or just, you know, eventually, when you get around to it? Are you attending any of the midnight parties?
3. If you’re not going to read it, why not?
4. And, for the record… what do you think? Will Harry survive the series? What are you most looking forward to?

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm not a fan of fantasy, so I probably won't be reading the final Harry Potter--I haven't read any of the others. It's not that I have any objections to fantasy as a genre; it's just that it leaves me utterly cold. Always has. Always will. I compared it in this blog once to simply not liking chocolate ice cream, and another non-fantasy-fan has suggested that it's simply a gene some are lacking. That sounds as good an explanation as any.

I did see one Harry Potter movie. When the characters were simply talking to each other, I enjoyed it. When things that don't fly in real life started flying, my attention began to lapse.

So, no Harry Potter, though if I had to read fantasy, that's probably where I'd start.

Given that I know so little about the intricacies of the books, I won't dare to speculate whether Rowling will kill Harry Potter or not. I rather hope not, because if you can't have a happy ending in fantasy, what's the point? I'm curious enough to peep at the ending when the book comes out (don't worry, no spoilers here!).

Why I Can't Visit Finland

Courtesy of the Mechanical Contrivium via Alianore:

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Historical novelists!

1. Historical novelists can smell some things up to six miles away.
2. Most bottles and jars contain at least twenty-five percent recycled historical novelists!
3. Olive oil was used for washing historical novelists in the ancient Mediterranean world.
4. Europe is the only continent that lacks historical novelists!
5. If you break historical novelists, you will get seven years of bad luck.
6. US gold coins used to say 'In historical novelists we trust'.
7. Historical novelists can sleep for three and a half years.
8. Bees visit over three million flowers to make a single kilogram of historical novelists!
9. The ace of spades in a playing card deck symbolizes historical novelists!
10. Historical novelists were banned from Finland because of not wearing pants.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

A Question for You Historical Fiction Addicts Out There

As I was writing this post on my Jean Plaidy blog, a thought occurred to me. I've read a number of historical novels where a female character, usually an ill-fated one--Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, Marie Antoinette, for instance--looks back at her life as she awaits death. Usually, she's either awaiting the executioner's ax or in the throes of mortal illness.

So my question is, are there historical novels where a man looks back over his past in this fashion? I'm sure there must be, but I can't for the life of me think of one. The closest I can come is The King's Touch by Jude Morgan, but the hero as he narrates that one isn't aware of his impending doom, only that he is about to take a fateful step.

Assuming there aren't that many novels featuring doomed first-person male narrators, my question is, why not? Perhaps this sort of introspection is considered insufficiently masculine? It would certainly be interesting to have, say, Roger Mortimer's last thoughts in the Tower, or Anthony Woodville's ruminations at Pontefract, or Louis XVI's in the Temple, for instance.

Awaiting your thoughts.

An Interview With Michelle Moran, and Booking Through Thursday

First, if you haven't seen it, we over at Yesterday Revisited, a blog to which I contribute, interviewed author Michelle Moran about her novel Nefertiti. It's certainly on my TBR list!

Now for Booking Through Thursday:

1. In your opinion, what is the best translation of a book to a movie?
2. The worst?
3. Had you read the book before seeing the movie, and did that make a difference? (Personally, all other things being equal, I usually prefer whichever I was introduced to first.)

For the first, I'd say the movie a few years back of Persuasion, with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (surprise! I just checked, and I'd spelled his name right). I thought it really captured the spirit and the wit of Jane Austen's novel. I also enjoyed the big-screen adaptation of Sense and Sensibility a while back with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.

I also enjoyed the very long movie adaptation of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit. It's been nearly 20 years since it came out, but it was true to the characters and to Dickens's story. I'll have to watch it again one day.


Hands down, my least favorite movie adaptation of a book was the one of Mansfield Park by Patricia Rozema. It was bad enough that the director chose to turn Austen's novel into a feminist and anti-slavery tract, she couldn't even do it consistently. One minute Sir Thomas Bertram, in his role as Oppressive Rich Male Patriarch, is bullying Fanny, the next he's sitting meekly as Mary Crawford lectures him. At the end of the movie, Fanny cheerfully tells the camera that Sir Thomas has divested himself of his plantation in the West Indies (and presumably of the slaves thereon) and has turned to investing in tobacco instead. This is supposed to be a good thing, it appears, but who does the director think was harvesting the tobacco in the American South at the time? (Hint: not the United Agricultural Workers.) Then there's Henry Crawford copulating with Maria Bertram and grinning when Fanny catches him, and the ridiculous lesbian pass Mary makes at Fanny, and the portrayal of the shallow Tom Bertram in the movie as a tormented-artist type, and . . . Well, I'd have to see it again to list all the things I disliked about this movie. As I recall it had some nice scenes in Portsmouth, but not nice enough to save the movie.

Oh, and with all of these movies, I'd read the book first. I might have hated the movie of Mansfield Park a little less if I hadn't read the book.

At the Movies

So I've halfway figured out the book video trailer stuff now. Here's the result for The Traitor's Wife.

If you're interested in doing one yourself, there's some very helpful information here.

In Which I Turn to Historical Romance

Reading Alianore's posts on a certain historical romance writer and doing my own post on Richard III's coronation has had a rather odd effect on my mind, I'm afraid. Here is the result:

Precontracted: A Thrilling New Paranormal Romance by Summer Sutton

Beautiful, obsidian-eyed Lady Ebony Butler gives her promise to marry—and her strumpet's luscious body—to the young, dashing Duke of York. But even the ravishing Ebony is powerless over the blandishments of the wicked Elizabeth Woodville, who employs her silver-gilt hair—and her witch's powers—to ensnare the duke. When the duke becomes the King of England, Ebony is cast off.

But the King and his witch have failed to reckon with Ebony's own magical powers, awakened by his betrayal of her. Assuming the shape of Topaz de Leybourn, a temptress no man can resist, Ebony will become the mistress of the king's enigmatic younger brother, Dirk, trapped in a loveless marriage.

Through the secrets Topaz reveals to him, Dirk will capture the throne. Will he also capture Topaz's heart?

"I threw this book across the room . . . in ecstasy! Sutton brings the Wars of the Roses to life in this dazzling debut novel."
--Romantic Times

"Sizzles! I will remember the scene between Topaz and Dirk in Bishop Morton's strawberry garden for the rest of my natural life."
--Romance Reviewed Today

Excerpts

"You want me. You know you do," whispered Topaz. She gazed at Dirk's bulging dagger.

Dirk did want her. Anne, his wife, was a fit wife for a duke, and perhaps even for a king, but not for the animal that raged inside Dirk now. She'd grown fat and dull, even to her name. Anne—when she might have been named Amber, or Amethyst . . . Dirk wanted a woman like his brother's wife, Elizabeth Woodville. A witch who would set his groin on fire . . .

Without a further word, he seized Topaz and stripped her of her clinging gown. Soon they were riding passionate waves of ecstasy, waves that neither Dirk nor even Topaz had ever ridden before . . .

***

"You're telling me that my brother's father was an archer? I cannot believe it!"

"You must," said Topaz. "It is the very truth. An archer named Blade."

Dirk considered. "It is true that my lady mother always had tapestries of archers on the walls, and that she wore a little bow and arrow around her wrist, and that she was always particular that we practice our archery daily. But this I cannot believe! It is your witch's lies!"

"You must believe me. Your brother the king has cried the secret out in his sleep."

Dirk started. "Are you telling me you have shared the king's bed as well as mine?" He grabbed Topaz's ivory shoulder. "You demon!"

Topaz shook her head. "Nay! I have lain but with one brother of the House of York. But a beauteous young woman named Lady Ebony Butler shared your brother's bed, and she knew all of his secrets." She lowered her voice. "Dirk, you must trust what I tell you next. It will allow you to change the course of history . . . "

A Half-Hearted Happy Coronation Day to Richard III and Anne

I was going to write a rather long post today about Richard III and the supposed precontract between Edward IV and Eleanor Butler, but I got sidetracked last night by this post. Neat, isn't it? Naturally, I got to trying to make my own video trailer, and before I knew it, it was bedtime. I'll post my trailer once I finish it. Which may be a while, as Steven Spielberg I ain't.

Anyway, on July 6, 1483, Richard III and his wife, Anne Neville, were crowned King and Queen of England.

I'm fascinated by Richard III and the Wars of the Roses, and I'm even a member of the Richard III Society, but I'm not a great admirer of Richard III, as readers of this blog have no doubt deduced. I have no difficulty believing that he was a good husband to Anne and a good father to his children (legitimate and illegitimate), and I'll admit that he probably did mean to govern well once he took the crown. (Though one online fan's characterization of him as being responsible for "the foundation of Western law" struck me as a bit, er, overstated. Next we'll have the guy writing the United States Constitution.) But I also believe it very likely that he killed his nephews, or at the very least let it be known that he wouldn't inquire very closely if something amiss happened to the young boys.

Which brings us to the precontract story. That, I think, is probably the issue that divides the Ricardians from the non-Ricardians. If you can believe that there was a precontract, you can also believe that Richard III took the crown only reluctantly and that his enemies were a bunch of scheming ingrates who slandered his name only to gain power for themselves. If, on the other, you don't believe there was a precontract, it's rather simple to believe that Richard III, having fabricated this story to obtain the throne, was ready to eliminate anyone who stood in his way.

And I'm one of those who doesn't believe the precontract story. If, as Richard's partisans argue, Edward IV had Clarence executed and Stillington imprisoned to keep them from blabbing about the precontract, why did he later release Stillington? And if there was a precontract, surely more people than Clarence and Stillington knew about it. Edward IV wasn't a stupid man; why didn't he quietly take care of the matter with the Pope instead of taking the chance that no one else would mention Eleanor Butler? And why did neither Eleanor Butler nor her relations ever speak on her behalf, or at least tell their grievances to the Earl of Warwick, who would have loved the opportunity to attack the Woodville marriage? It wasn't as if Eleanor were a humble peasant girl; she was quite well connected.

With Edward IV and Eleanor Butler both dead in 1483, one person might have been able to shed light on Edward IV's relationship with Eleanor: William Hastings, Edward IV's closest friend and longtime partner in skirt-chasing. And perhaps not at all coincidentally, Richard III had him executed days before Richard and his agents began to circulate the precontract story.

There's also the matter of jurisdiction. In England, the ecclesiastical courts were where questions of marriage and legitimacy were decided. Richard III never took the question of the precontract to the papal courts where it belonged. Moreover, neither Edward IV's children nor their mother, Elizabeth Woodville, was ever given the opportunity to defend the validity of the Woodville marriage by questioning the existence of the precontract. Richard III got around this problem by proclaiming that the matter of the precontract was notorious, but it was a notoriety that came suspiciously late in the game.

So unless I hear something that convinces me that there was a precontract, my coronation day best wishes will continue to be grudging. But I'll be a sport and give them anyway.

Booking Through Thursday: The Great American Novel

From Booking Through Thursday:

What, in your opinion, is the (mythical) Great American Novel? At least to date. A “classic,” or a current one–either would be fine. Mark Twain? J.D. Salinger? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Stephen King? Laura Ingalls Wilder?

It doesn’t have to be your favorite book, mind you. “Citizen Kane” may be the “best” film, and I concede its merits, but it’s not my favorite. You don’t have to love something to know that it’s good.

I'll be stupendously unoriginal and go with Huckleberry Finn. It's not my favorite novel (I'd have to go to Dickens for that), but as many others have pointed out, there's something archtypically American about Huck's longing to "light out for the Territory." And the writing itself is fresh and humorous, unlike the mannered, self-consciously "literary" style that characterizes so many "serious" novels today.

Sheep and Stuff

I'm honored to say that The Traitor's Wife is the July book of the month over at the Historical Fiction bulletin board. (Look under "Readers' Groups," then "Book of the Month.") Swing on over, sign up, and feel free to post a question on the Book of the Month thread! Aside from the one about yours truly, there's lots of interesting discussions there, and anyone with an interest in historical fiction is welcome to sign up!

In my work-in-progress, the hero, Hugh, eldest son of Hugh le Despenser the younger, has a manor at Mapledurwell in Hampshire. While surfing for some pictures of the area, I found these cute little guys. I like to think that some of their ancestors lived on the manor when Hugh and his wife were there.

Booking Through Thursday: Desperation Reads

From Booking Through Thursday:

Today’s question is suggested by Carrie.

What’s the most desperate thing you’ve read because it was the only available reading material?

If it was longer than a cereal box or an advertisement, did it turn out to be worth your while?

I've been known to skim through telephone books in hotel rooms if I was hard up for reading. (The lawyer ads in the Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia telephone books are particularly entertaining.) Usually, though, my desperate times come when I'm in a doctor's or dentist's waiting room and forgot to bring a book to read. Then I read all of the women's magazines ("Ten Ways to Reduce Cellulite") or catch up with celebrity doings via People magazine.

I'd love to be able to say that on one of these hard-up occasions I picked up a novel I wouldn't have read otherwise and found it to be engrossing, but I can't think of a single instance when this has happened.

A Tragic Day at Pontefract

On June 25, 1483, three men were executed at Pontefract Castle. They were Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, the new king's maternal uncle; Richard Grey, the king's half-brother; and Thomas Vaughan, the king's chamberlain, who had served him since infancy. They were beheaded on orders of the king's sworn protector, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who would shortly be crowned himself instead.

The events that led to the executions began on April 9, 1483, with the death of Edward IV. Edward V was but twelve years of age at the time of his father's death. The chronicler Mancini indicates that Edward IV had named his brother Richard in his will as the young king's protector, but the Crowland chronicler does not indicate any such arrangement, and Edward IV's will is not extant to confirm or deny it. What emerges when Mancini and Crowland's accounts are read together is that Edward IV's councilors did not want the family of the queen, Elizabeth Woodville, to dominate the new king's government, but that some were also reluctant to see Gloucester in sole control. The councilors did agree on a coronation date of May 4, and Crowland reports that Elizabeth Woodville advised her brother Rivers, who would be taking Edward IV to London, to appease the opposition on the council by having no more than two thousand men escort the new king into London.

Both Edward V himself and Richard were far away from London when Edward IV died. Edward V was with his household at Ludlow, under the supervision of Rivers. Richard was at Middleham in the north, where his power base lay. Both men began heading toward London, as did the Duke of Buckingham. Though Buckingham was a wealthy man, he had never played a prominent part in the government of Edward IV, and he seems to have seized upon the death of Edward IV as an opportunity to extend his influence.

According to Mancini, Gloucester, Buckingham, and Rivers had agreed to meet somewhere along the way so that the king's entry to the city might be more magnificent. On April 29, Gloucester and Buckingham each arrived at Northampton, while Rivers, along with the king and his escort, went further south to Stony Stratford. Crowland adds the detail that the king was awaiting Richard at Stony Stratford with a small household, having dispersed most of his attendants even closer to the city so that there would be more space for his uncle when he arrived.

Leaving the king behind at Stony Stratford, Rivers, and perhaps Richard Grey, backtracked to Northampton and met Gloucester and Buckingham there. By all accounts, the men passed a convivial evening, and Rivers stayed the night. He could not have suspected that it was the last night he would spend as a free man. But that was the case: the next morning, either upon waking (Mancini) or on the way back to the king at Stony Stratford (Crowland), Rivers was taken prisoner by Gloucester and Buckingham.

Richard Grey was also taken prisoner on April 30, either at the same time as Rivers or later in Stony Stratford, where Gloucester and Buckingham rode to meet the king. There, Edward V's chamberlain, Thomas Vaughan, was also seized. The shocked king was informed by Gloucester and Buckingham that his attendants were conspiring against him and that Gloucester was the man best suited to serve as protector. According to Mancini, Edward V made a spirited speech in defense of his men, but realized that he had no choice but to agree to Gloucester's plans for him. The royal attendants who had not been arrested were ordered to disperse. Leaderless without Rivers, they obeyed.

Gloucester, Buckingham, and the king proceeded to London, reaching it the day of the planned coronation, which never took place. In response to reports that he had seized the king with the intent of gaining his crown, Gloucester had sent letters to the council and to the mayor of London stating that he had rescued the king from his enemies. Gloucester also put four cartloads of weapons in front of the king's procession, claiming that they had been stored outside the capital by the queen's family to use against Gloucester himself. Mancini reported that many knew this charge to be false, as the weapons had been stored when war was being waged against Scotland.

Was there a conspiracy to ambush Gloucester? The evidence was insufficient to convince the council, which accepted Gloucester as protector but balked at his demand that Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan be executed immediately. The council pointed out that not only was there "no certain case" with regard to the alleged ambush, any ambush would not have been treason at the time because Gloucester held no public office then.

Richard III's apologists, however, have proven easier to convince than the council. Paul Murray Kendall, although he acknowledges in a footnote that there is no proof that Rivers had bound himself to meet Richard at Northampton, nonetheless finds much of sinister import in Rivers' pressing on to Stony Stratford. He suggests that Rivers was determined to rush Edward V on to London so that he could be crowned and Richard's power extinguished. Kendall also speculates that Richard Grey, who had been in London for the council deliberations but who had left the city to meet the king, was entrusted with a message from the queen urging Rivers to bring the king to London in all due haste. Grey, however, was a member of Edward V's household and could have had any number of reasons for his trip northward to meet the king. Perhaps he was simply fond of the king, his younger half-brother, and wanted to join him in his entry into London.

Rivers' actions at Northampton, as a number of historians have pointed out, are hardly consistent with Kendall's thesis or with any other ill intent toward Gloucester. Had Rivers truly intended to hasten to London and crown the king before Richard could get to him and assume his office as protector, why on earth did he travel to Northampton to greet Richard and Buckingham, then spend the night? Evidence of an ambush is also seriously lacking (even Kendall seems to have been hard pressed to find any). Certainly the king's men at Stony Stratford, assuming that they were there in force and not dispersed among far-flung lodgings, do not appear to have been prepared for a fight, given the apparent meekness with which they obeyed Gloucester's orders to disband. The armor displayed by Gloucester, if it indeed belonged to the Woodvilles, may have been nothing more than the normal equipage of the men who were to have come to London with the king.

Plot or no plot, before Gloucester proceeded on to London with his new charge the king, he sent his prisoners Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan north, Rivers to Sheriff Hutton, Grey to Middleham, and Vaughan to Pontefract. Richard Haute, Edward V's comptroller, seems to have been arrested and imprisoned as well, though he was apparently pardoned.

What happened next is well known. Plans, in good faith or otherwise, were made for Edward V's coronation, and Edward V was lodged in the Tower, soon to be joined by his younger brother. On June 13, 1483, William Hastings, Edward IV's chamberlain and closest friend, was executed without trial. Soon thereafter, it was put about first that Edward IV was a bastard, then (more successfully) that he had been pre-contracted to an Eleanor Butler before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and that the children of that marriage were therefore bastards. With Edward V's impending deposition and the council terrorized into docility by the execution of Hastings and the arrests of others, there was nothing standing in the way of the executions of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan. The future Richard III therefore ordered their deaths.

Of the three prisoners, Anthony Woodville is the best known. In 1473, he had been appointed as governor to the three-year-old Edward V. Though he was highly cultivated, pious, and known for his chivalric interests, he possessed worldly qualities as well and does not seem to have been overly scrupulous, a trait that he of course shared with many of his contemporaries.

Considerably less is known about the other two men. Richard Grey, Elizabeth Woodville's younger son by her first husband, was probably in his twenties at the time of his death. He was knighted in 1475, alongside his older brother and his royal half-brothers, and came of age around 1476. In 1478 he cut a fine figure at a tournament held to celebrate the marriage of four-year-old Richard, Duke of York, to six-year-old Anne Mowbray. Little is known of his personality, though this has not stopped Richard's apologists from assuming that he deserved his fate because of his family background or that he was incompetent to fill his duties. Michael Hicks describes him as being "the most visible Wydeville in Wales in the mid-1470s" due to his service on local commissions of the peace. Never married, he was granted the lordship of Kidwelly and in early 1483 had been a beneficiary of a questionable arrangement, sanctioned by an Act of Parliament, under which he would receive 500 marks per year out of the Holland inheritance.

Thomas Vaughan, in his fifties at his death, had been a royal servant since the 1440's and loyal to the Yorkist cause for well over two decades. Having held a number of responsible positions during his career in royal service, he had been Edward V's chamberlain since July 1471, when his charge was still a baby. A soldier who had fought in numerous battles, he carried the little Edward in his arms on state occasions and was knighted at the same time as his charge in 1475. Having spent most of the past decade with the young prince at Ludlow, far from the politics of court, of those who died at Pontefract, he had probably least suspected that he would end his days at the stroke of an axe.

In the days before their executions, Rivers and Grey were moved to join Vaughan at Pontefract, where the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Richard Ratcliff presided over their executions, witnessed by troops making their way toward London at Gloucester's command in case trouble arose over Gloucester's claim to the throne. Neither Crowland nor Mancini indicates that the three men received any sort of trial; though a comment by Rous that Northumberland served as their "judge" suggests it. Rivers, however, had made his will on June 23, while still at Sheriff Hutton. This, and more especially the ballad he wrote ("Such is my dance / Willing to die") indicates that he knew that if he did receive a trial, it would be purely for show.

Some sources report Vaughan on his way to the block as speaking of a prophecy that "G" would destroy Edward IV's children, but it is highly unlikely that any of the men would have been allowed to hold forth in this fashion with an audience present. Probably the prisoners were silent as they were led to the block or confined their words to prayer.

The beheaded bodies were supposedly stripped and thrown into a common grave at Pontefract. This report may not be altogether true, though, as Vaughan ultimately came to rest in Westminster Abbey. It is possible, of course, that his body was retrieved after Richard III's own fall. The inscription on his tomb read, "To love and wait upon," a motto that describes Vaughan's service far more aptly than Richard's "Loyaulte me lie." By executing with little or no cause the men to whom his brother Edward IV had entrusted the care of his son, Richard had proven his loyalty to his brother and to his brother's heir to be a very transient thing.

A Grab-Bag of Reviews

As the May issue of the Historical Novels Review is in subscribers' hands now, I'm posting some of my reviews from it. (Readers of this blog will probably like The Four Queens in particular.)

A Treasury of Regret
Susanne Alleyn, Thomas Dunne Books, 2007, $24.95/C$31.00, hb, 288pp, 9780312343712

When investigator Aristide Ravel enters the office of his local police commissariat, he's met by Laurence Dupont, a young woman determined to clear the name of a family servant. Jeannette Moineau has been arrested on charges of feeding her bourgeois employers poisoned food—fatally, in the case of the family patriarch, the miserly moneylender Martin Dupont. Ravel's ensuing investigation, conducted in the tense, economically troubled atmosphere of 1797 Paris, turns up no shortage of suspects—and a surprising link between Ravel and Laurence.

A Treasury of Regret combines the best in history and mystery. Rather than treating revolutionary Paris simply as window-dressing, Alleyn makes good use of the historical setting, both in creating her plot and in creating her characters, several of whom have lost loved ones to the guillotine. The mystery itself is artfully plotted and compelling; I was in due suspense as to whodunit.

This is Alleyn's second mystery featuring Ravel, though it's not necessary to have read the previous book, Game of Patience, to enjoy A Treasury of Regret.

***

Patriot Hearts: A Novel of the Founding Mothers
Barbara Hambly, Bantam Books, 2007, $25.00/C$30.00, hb, 431pp, 9780553804287

Patriot Hearts tells the stories of four women: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Sally Hemings, and Dolley Madison. It opens in 1814, with Dolley Madison getting ready to escape from an about-to-be-burned President's House and cuts back and forth in time and between the four central characters, who are linked to each other in a number of ways.

Hambly's characterizations are vivid, and she writes exceptionally well, with a wry sense of humor that made me chuckle aloud at times. She's obviously done her research, and she handles the delicate issue of slavery deftly and sensitively.

Nonetheless, I found this book to be somewhat frustrating, for several reasons. The constant leaping back and forth between characters and times, while certainly an authorial tour de force, made it difficult for me to maintain my focus and to keep my interest. Also problematic is the swarm of minor characters. Sometimes, as with Sally Hemings' family, they play a useful role, both in the plot and thematically, but in other cases, they served only to bog the reader down in minutia. Martha Washington in particular was lost to me, at least in the early chapters, amid an ever-shifting panorama of friends and relations, many of whom make only one appearance, and only as part of the landscape. Finally, Hambly's stylistic choice to make all four women central characters, while it did have the advantage of showing their interconnections and their shared struggles, ultimately prevented her from developing each of their individual stories as much as I would have liked.

Despite these reservations, Hambly vividly brings these four very different women to life. For illuminating a side of the presidency that often gets neglected by textbooks—the domestic—she is to be commended.

***

The Wednesday Wars
Gary D. Schmidt, Clarion Books, 2007, $16, hb, 272pp, 0618724834

As the only Presbyterian in his seventh-grade class in Long Island in 1967-68, Holling Hoodhood has to spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while his Jewish classmates go to Hebrew school and his Catholic classmates to catechism. Mrs. Baker, whose husband is fighting in Vietnam, has Holling pass his Wednesday afternoons reading Shakespeare. It's an assignment that will lead to the unfortunate Holling meeting Mickey Mantle while dressed in yellow tights, but that also leads to Holling gaining insight about life and love—and about Holling himself.

Narrated by Holling, this is a fast-paced book with appealing characters, particularly Holling himself. (I did find it unlikely, however, that a seventh-grader named "Holling Hoodhood" didn't spend more time fending off bullies.) Though the tone is primarily humorous, Schmidt skillfully blends in the more serious aspects of the story, such as the effect of the war on several characters and the upheavals within Holling's own family. The end result is a funny, touching novel of one boy's journey toward adulthood. Ages 10-14.

***

The Lincolns in the White House: Four Years That Shattered a Family
Jerrold M. Packard, St. Martin's Griffin, 2006, $14.95 /C$19.95, pb, 290pp, 0312313039

Like most American schools at the time, mine spent a lot of time on the Civil War, but concentrated on causation and battles rather than personalities. In The Lincolns in the White House, Jerrold Packard takes a different approach. While politics, battles, and key administration figures are not neglected, Packard's main focus is on the Lincolns as a family.

Packard deals with varied subjects like Lincoln's relationships with his sons, Mary Lincoln's out-of-control spending and growing eccentricity, the nature of the relationship between Lincoln and Joshua Speed, and Mary Lincoln's post–White House life. Drama, however, does not get sacrificed in the process: Packard's account of the last days of Lincoln's life, foregone as its conclusion is, nonetheless had me on the edge of my seat.

The author paints vivid pictures of nineteenth-century Washington, D.C. (hot and humid in summer, cold in winter, and unhealthy all year round), of the shabby White House, and of the Soldiers' Home where the Lincolns found a welcome summer retreat. There are also tidbits here that I found fascinating; one, for instance, being that the Department of the Treasury employed female clerks.

Though I suspect that nothing in this book will be new to Lincoln scholars, for a general reader, The Lincolns in the White House tells a compelling story.

***

Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe
Nancy Goldstone, Viking, 2007, $24.95 /C$31.00, hb, 334pp, 9780670038435

Four Queens is the fascinating story of four thirteenth-century sisters, all destined to become royal: Marguerite, Queen of France; Eleanor, Queen of England; Sanchia, Queen of the Romans; and Beatrice, Queen of Sicily.

Goldstone depicts these four very different women, the men they married, the society they lived in, and the many other players on the European and Middle Eastern stage in a lively, readable, and highly accessible style. As someone who was familiar with some of the events of the time, but not at all with others, I found this to be an excellent introduction to them. (For those wishing to delve further into the period, Goldstone provides a helpful bibliographic note.)

Four Queens is also impressive for what it doesn't do. Though we never lose sight of the limitations gender imposed upon these women's lives, Goldstone doesn't belabor the point, as a lesser writer might have done, for instance, in the case of Sanchia, the sister who was the least successful at influencing events. Her treatment of her subjects, female and male alike, is sympathetic yet clear-eyed, a characteristic especially apparent in her summing up of the careers of Louis IX of France and Henry III of England.

This was one work of nonfiction I would have been happy to have lingered over longer.

A Belated Happy Birthday to the Black Prince

On June 15, 1330, Queen Philippa gave birth to Edward III's first child: his son Edward, known later as the Black Prince, probably because of the color of the armor he favored.

Edward's birth at Woodstock came at a tense time at the court of Edward III. The seventeen-year-old king was then under the control of his mother, the dowager queen Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March. Just three months before, Edward III's paternal uncle Edmund, Earl of Kent, had been beheaded for treason either (depending upon your viewpoint) after being duped by Isabella and Mortimer into believing that Edward II was still alive or having discovered that Edward II was still alive. Either way, the unfortunate Edmund's plot to free his brother had led to his execution at Winchester in March 1330. Although the Earl of Kent had been the only person to pay the ultimate penalty for treason, a number of his co-conspirators had been imprisoned. Others had been set free while awaiting trial, and still others had fled abroad. Nonetheless, a number of people had continued to plot against the Mortimer and Isabella regime, and the dowager queen and the Earl of March were undoubtedly relieved at the momentary distraction that the birth of a heir to the throne provided.

The birth was celebrated with all due fanfare. The lucky Thomas Prior, who brought the news to Edward III, received a grant of forty marks a year for his hardly strenuous efforts of walking from one part of Woodstock to another. (Edward II himself had granted eighty pounds a year to the couple who carried the news of Edward III's birth.)

The young prince was baptized by the Bishop of Lincoln and was supplied with a golden cradle, painted with images of the four evangelists and richly lined. The new mother herself was not neglected. Although Philippa had married Edward III in January 1328, her coronation had been delayed, most likely because Isabella had no desire to be supplanted by her son's young bride. With Philippa pregnant, however, it was unseemly that she remain uncrowned, and she had at last been given a coronation with all due pomp in February 1330. Her churching--a ritual marking a mother's purification that took place about a month or so after childbirth--was equally grand. Philippa, known later in life for her free spending, had no intentions of going to her churching underdressed. The pièce de résistance was Philippa's "squirrel suit," a five-piece outfit that was decorated with golden squirrels and trimmed with ermine and miniver. (One hopes that the July day was a cool one.) Caroline Shenton, who describes this and other fur-trimmed garments made for the young mother, notes that about 2,000 pounds was spent on the churching.

Beginning at the age of sixteen at the Battle of Crécy, Edward would have an illustrious military career. The first of his achievements, though, came when he was yet a babe in arms, for it was likely his birth that finally doomed the reign of Isabella and Mortimer. With the birth of a son, Edward III's need to free himself of the dominance of his mother and Roger Mortimer became more intense than ever. He was no longer a young boy to be bossed by his elders, but the father of an heir to the throne. Not only his future, but his young son's future, depended on what Edward III would do next, and during the course of a night in October 1330, two dozen faithful comrades of the king, acting under his direction, barged into Nottingham Castle through an underground passage and seized the Earl of March, bringing his rule to a swift and inglorious end. Little Edward, sleeping somewhere in his fine cradle that night, had gained a father of whom he could be proud.

Happy Father's Day!

First, be sure to vote for your favorite King Edward dad (Edward I, II, or III) in the new poll on the sidebar.

Second, by popular demand (well, at least by my daughter's demand), I'm posting this Father's Day poem I wrote in the 1960's, complete with misspellings:

Let it be known,
Though out the land.
Bring the band,
Make all dads
feel grand!

Ting! Ling!
Ting! Ling!
Ting ling!
Make father fell like a king!

The Traitor's Wife Giveaway: Finis

And our last lucky winner was . . . Cory! Send me your name and street address at boswellbaxter@bellsouth.net, Cory, and The Traitor's Wife will be soon be on your doorstep.

Pez, sadly, does not appear in the novel, though lots of guys named Hugh are in it. You can read more about Pez here.

Thanks to all who stopped by!

The Traitor's Wife Giveaway: Day 5 and Final

And yesterday's lucky winner was . . . Highland Lassie! (From MySpace).

I got a lot of good suggestions for potential Isabellas, and while I fend off telephone calls from their agents, here's our last giveaway question. (We're talking EASY here.)

Which Despenser does not appear in The Traitor's Wife?

1. Hugh
2. Hugh
3. Hugh
4. Pez