Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 105

Dangerous Women

On October 29 in 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded on a charge of treason. I always felt that he got a raw deal.
And one year ago, October 29, 2012, a monster storm, Hurricane Sandy, was bearing down on the East Coast of the US, doing horrific damage and turning lives upside down. Even now, many people are still displaced and others continue to struggle, while there was a story the other day about all the lost Hurricane Sandy pets still in need of homes.
Below is a link to a Publishers Weekly review of George RR Martin’s anthology, Dangerous Women, I was so pleased that the PW review signaled out my short story as they only mentioned six of the twenty-two stories! I’d never done a short story before and am still amazed that I was able to pull it off. You guys may have noticed that brevity does not come easily to me. I am so looking forward to reading the stories by the other writers, especially a Game of Thrones one by Master Martin.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0...

St Jude's storm

I hope that all of my friends and readers in the UK came through the St Jude storm safely. It is now pounding northern France and Belgium. In the US we’d categorize a storm with such high winds as a hurricane. The Great Storm of 1987 was called one. But unlike the St Jude storm, the Great Storm stuck without warning. My memories are still vivid. I was on my way into Wales and I’d stopped for the night in the Cotswolds. The next morning I turned on the BBC news and the announcer was saying, “Do not go outside if you value your lives,” which definitely got my attention. It caught the country by surprise, reminding us of what it was like to live in times when weather forecasting could not predict coming storms. One of the most tragic examples in the US was the hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas in 1900, killing at least 6,000, including all of the children and nuns of an orphanage, whose bodies were later found roped together. There are two riveting accounts of the Galveston storm, Isaac’s Storm and A Weekend in September. Thankfully, the death toll from the Great Storm and the St Jude’s storm were much smaller, but the Great Storm leveled Kew Gardens and took down thousands of trees in Kent, isolating people in villages for weeks. Two Dover-bound ferries had to be diverted to Deal; being out on the English Channel in the midst of a killer storm is one of the last places I’d rather be. We all know the story of the sinking of the White Ship, but that was due to a drunken crew; during Henry II’s reign, though, a ship sank during a storm in the Channel, drowning over four hundred people. We are very lucky to live now. I hope power will soon be restored and the cleanup can begin.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24700001
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-...

Blackfish

On Thursday, I watched a very powerful and troubling documentary, Blackfish, about the death of a young trainer in 2010, killed by Tillikum, one of the orcas at Seaworld. It will be shown again tonight by CNN at 9 PM, EST, and it will be available as a DVD in November. It makes a compelling case that killer whales should not be kept in captivity like this, that it is cruel and abusive to tear these highly intelligent, social animals away from their families and pods and condemn them to an unnatural, isolated existence so they can entertain us. The death of the trainer was a tragedy, compounded by the fact that Seaworld was not honest with its trainers about Tillikum’s past. But Tillikum’s life at Seaworld has been a tragedy, too, and something needs to be done to prevent this from happening again. I won’t mislead you; it is often a painful film to watch. But I hope it gets as wide a viewership as possible, for that is the only hope for change. Here is a link to an interview with a man who trained both Tillikum and Keiko, the “Free Willy” killer whale. The story also offers other links to interesting articles about the subject of killer whales in captivity, all of them worth reading, too. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/26/world/a...

Of kings and dragons

On October 26, 899, the only English king to be known as the Great, Alfred, died. I confess that almost all that I know about Alfred has been filtered through the skeptical eyes of Uthred, the major character in Bernard Cornwell’s splendid Saxon series. But although Uthred did not like Alfred all that much, he still accorded the English king reluctant respect, acknowledging that Alfred’s accomplishments were impressive.
And for those curious to see what a Deadline Dragon looks like, we can thank Adele for posting this on one of my Facebook pages; the best comment to date came from Alan, who observed that dragons do occasionally leave Wales to raid into England.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/video/dragon....
PS Is it coincidence that this “sighting” was over Ken’s Cornwall? I think not.

The deaths of a king, a poet, and a great battle

The Deadline Dragon has flown away! Muttering that he’d be back, though, for I get the page proofs on November 7th. But for now the house is dragon-free and it has been a long time since I’ve been able to say that.
October 25th 1154 was the date of death for King Stephen. Henry was so lucky in those days, as he was until the end of his life, for Stephen died only a year after they’d made their peace and Henry was acknowledged as Stephen’s successor. No way to prove it, of course, but I always thought that Stephen lost heart after the deaths of his wife and son, Eustace.
October 25th, 1400 was also the date of death of the great writer, Geoffrey Chaucer. His Canterbury Tales is a literary classic and offers a mesmerizing view of medieval life.
And one of the most significant battles of the MA occurred on October 25th in 1415, at Agincourt, with the English king Henry V winning a great victory over the French. Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt is a wonderful account of this campaign; I know I’ve said it before, but I don’t think there is anyone who writes better battle scenes than Bernard Cornwell.

A Viennese waltz you'll never forget!

This is for my fellow Game of Thrones fans. I bet I can safely say you never expected to see Khal Drogo and his Kaleesi dancing a Viennese waltz to their show’s theme music. I am about to fill that hole in your lives, here. I personally agree with the author that the judges were clearly secret Lancastrians. http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidetheb...

A royal wedding night

October 22, 1071 was the birthday of Guillaume or William, the 9th Duke of Aquitaine, often called the Troubadour Duke; he was famous for his often bawdy poetry, and would in time become even more famous as the grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The following is a scene from Saints, set on Henry and Eleanor’s wedding night. They are having supper in bed after consummating their marriage and she has just revealed to her new husband that her parents had not been happy together. .
Saints, pages 645-646
* * *
“……I can understand why they were loath to wed. It had created enough of a scandal when my grandfather carried off the wife of one of his own vassals. But then to marry his son to that woman’s daughter—you can well imagine the gossip that stirred up!”
Henry sat up so abruptly that he almost spilled his wine. “Did I hear you right? Your grandfather was having a tryst with Aenor’s mother?”
“Not just a tryst, Harry. A notorious dalliance. The lady, who had the remarkably apt name of Dangereuse, was wed to a neighboring lord, the Viscount of Chatellerault. My grandfather always did have a roving eye, and he never seemed to see marriage as much of a hindrance—his or anyone else’s.”
(omission)
“But Dangereuse was different, not a passing fancy?”
“More like a grand passion. My grandmother Philippa had put up with his straying as best she could, but his infatuation with Dangereuse could not be ignored, for after he wooed her away from her husband, he brought her right under his roof, settled her here in the Maubergeon Tower. When my grandfather refused to send Dangereuse away, Philippa left him. She retired to Fontevrault Abbey, where—as unlikely as it seems—she became good friends with Grand-papa Will’s first wife, Ermengarde, who dwelt at the nunnery whenever the whim took her. Imagine the conversations they must have had on those long winter nights!”
“I’m still mulling over the fact that your grandfather was having an affair with his son’s mother-in-law!” Henry said with a grin. “It is not as if I come from a line of monks myself. My own grandfather could have populated England with all his by-blows. But I have to admit that this grandfather of yours seems to have had a truly spectacular talent for sinning. What did the Church say about these scandalous goings-on?”
“Oh, he was often at odds with the Church, but it never bothered him unduly. In truth, Harry, nothing did. He liked to scandalize and shock people, but there was no real malice in him. As you may have guessed, I adored him. Most people did, for he had more charm than the law should allow. (omission) What I remember most is his laughter and I suspect that is what truly vexed his enemies, that he got so much fun out of life. He could find a joke in the most dire circumstances, as his songs attest. That shocked people, too, that a man so highborn would write troubadour poetry, but he enjoyed it and so what else mattered?”
Henry brushed back her hair. “Tell me more,” he urged, and she shivered with pleasure as he kissed the hollow in her throat.
“Well….Grandpapa Will painted an image of Dangereuse on his shield, saying he wanted to bear her in battle, just as she’d so often borne him in bed. He liked to joke that one day he’d establish his own nunnery—and fill it with ladies of easy virtue. And when he was rebuked for not praying as often as he ought, he composed a poem: ‘O Lord, let me live long enough to get my hands under her cloak.’”
Henry gave a sputter of laughter. “Between the two of us, we’ve got a family tree rooted in Hell! Once Abbot Bernard learns of our marriage, he’ll have nary a doubt that our children will have horns and cloven hooves.”
“The first one born with a tail, we’ll name after the good abbot.”
* * *
The rest of the scene is R-rated, as Henry and Eleanor found more interesting things to do than discuss their relatives. Now that we know Eleanor was actually born in 1124, not 1122, it is not likely that she had any memories of Duke William, as he died in 1127. But we know that her sons took pride in boasting of their notorious ancestress, the Demon Countess of Anjou, so I think we can safely say that Eleanor would have been equally proud of her scandalous, pleasure-loving grandfather

A treacherous brother, a heroic earl, and a tragic duchess

I feel as if I am trapped in that Groundhog Day film, for every day I wake up and start fending off the Deadline Dragon….sigh. But before the duel starts again, here are a few October 21st occurrences. In 1449, George of Clarence was born. What can we say about Brother George? I don’t know that he was the worst king’s brother in English history. I think that was John, for he not only attempted to steal Richard’s crown, he did his best to make sure that Richard ended up in a French dungeon, where death would have been a mercy. But George certainly made an unholy pest of himself and gave so much grief to his family and others in his 28 years that it may have been a blessing if he’d been one of those babies who did not survive the perils of a medieval childhood.

On October 21, 1204, Robert Beaumont, the fourth Earl of Leicester died. He was one of the heroes of the Third Crusade, a character in Lionheart and Ransom, who was very loyal to Richard and seems to have been well regarded by all but the French king. His marriage was childless, though, and upon his death, his earldom passed to his sisters, opening the door for a young French adventurer named de Montfort to stake a claim to it twenty-some years later.

October 21, 1221 was the day that Alix de Thouars, the Duchess of Brittany, died in childbirth. The daughter of Constance of Brittany and her third husband, Guy de Thouars, Alix was only twenty or twenty-one at the time of her death, there being some confusion about her birth date. The birthing chamber was as dangerous for medieval women as the battlefield was for their men.

If you think Reign and the Tudors was fantasy.....

Not a good day for anyone trying to fend off a deadline dragon or anyone masochistic enough to be an Eagles fan. But this is very funny. I just hope no Hollywood producer reads it and thinks some of these are good ideas. http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20302...

What King John, George Washington, and Napoleon have in common

October 19th, 1216 was the date of King John’s death at Newark on Trent. He was not yet fifty years old, had ruled England for seventeen years. His reign was viewed as a failure by his contemporaries and he has not been treated kindly by most historians, but he still remains one of the best known English kings—so sometimes it pays to have a lot of bad press! The genesis of Here Be Dragons was a question: What would it be like for a woman to discover that the father she’d adored since childhood was capable of great cruelty? That was my idea, but Llywelyn had other ideas, and when I moved to Wales to research Dragons, it took him less than a fortnight to high-jack the book right out from under John’s nose. But John’s conflicted relationship with Joanna was still an important element in the book, as I hope the following scene shows, in which his estranged daughter comes to visit his tomb at Worcester a month after his death, and is met by her half-brother, Richard.
Here be Dragons, pages 499-500
* * *
They walked in silence for a while. It had been snowing sporadically throughout the day, began again as they crossed the courtyard. Joanna’s hood fell back; she seemed not to notice as droplets of snow dusted her hair, melted upon her mantle. As they entered the south walkway of the cloisters, she said, “Tell me,” and Richard did, told her all he’d learned of their father’s final days.
“A violent windstorm struck Newark ere he died. That’s not uncommon for the season, but the fool servants took fright. Word spread that the Devil was coming to claim Papa’s soul, and some even fled.” They’d stopped by the church door. He saw the anguished question in her eyes and shook his head. “No, Papa never knew. The abbot who tended him wrote to Isabelle, said that by the time the storm reached its height, Papa was no longer conscious. He died soon after midnight.”
“And did they strip his body of his clothes and rings? Did they take all of value, as they did when his father died at Chinon?”
Her bleak insistence upon knowing the worst troubled Richard, but he did not lie. “Yes. But his soldiers kept faith, the routiers whom men scorned as base mercenaries, paid hirelings. They alone did not forsake him, Joanna, escorted his body to Worcester. Bishop Silvester officiated at the burial, but it was done without much ceremony and in haste. The main concern was with getting Henry crowned as quickly as possible.”
Omission.
The candles encircling John’s tomb wavered, swimming before Joanna’s eyes in a dizzying blur of brightness. She stood very still, listening as Richard’s footsteps faded. And then she moved forward. She knelt in the coffin’s shadow for an endless time, until her knees ached and she trembled from the cold. But she could find no comfort in prayer.
“You’re proving to be a merciless ghost, Papa. I should have expected it, knowing you as I do.” Her tears were coming faster now. “What do you mean to do, Papa? Shall you haunt me for the rest of my days?” Her voice broke; kneeling on the icy tiles before John’s tomb, she wept bitterly.
* * *
It is surprising how often a medieval king was stripped of his rings and royal robes once he’d drawn his last breath; Henry II and John were not the only ones to suffer this fate. Richard I was luckier, probably because his mother, Eleanor, was at his deathbed, as was his fierce mercenary captain, Mercadier.
This next story is not at all medieval, but on October 19th, 1781, the surrender at Yorktown ended the Revolutionary War. The British generals were very poor sports, though, apparently finding it very humiliating to have been defeated by a colonial. Lord Cornwallis refused to even attend the ceremony of surrender, claiming illness, and Brigadier General Charles O’Hara attempted to give his sword to the French commander, the Comte de Rochambeau, who to his credit insisted that it be yielded to General Washington.
And on October 19th, 1812 Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow. We are fortunate that neither Hitler nor his German generals were students of history.