Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 128

French poets, a rash duke, a lovelorn emperor

History seems to be feast or famine. After a slow week, January 5th was a very busy day. First of all, although I listed Edward the Confessor’s death as occurring on the 4th, it may have happened on this date in 1066.
Richard, Earl of Cornwall and later Holy Roman Emperor, younger brother of Henry III and a major character in Falls the Shadow, was born on this date in 1209.
In 1463, the French poet Francois Villon, as celebrated for his poetry as he was notorious for his wild life, was banished from his beloved Paris for 10 years. He was a thief, once was sentenced to be hanged for killing a priest in a tavern brawl, and ran up quite a “rap sheet” in his 32 years. We actually don’t know how old he was when he died, but he was 32 when he disappeared from Paris and was never heard from again.
In 1465, another French poet died. Unlike Francois Villon, who’d been born into poverty, Charles, the Duke of Orleans, came from the upper classes. His first wife was a queen, his cousin Isabelle of Valois, widow of Richard II; Isabelle had been a child bride, but she remained very loyal to Richard and refused to consider a marriage to the future Henry V, son of the man she saw as a usurper, Henry IV. Henry IV eventually allowed her to return to France, where she wed Charles, but sadly, died in childbirth, at only 19. Charles fought at Agincourt and was found alive after the battle, buried under a pile of bodies. He would spend the next 25 years as a prisoner of the English. He was treated fairly leniently, but 25 years! During his captivity, he wrote most of his poems, which understandably had a melancholy tone. He was finally freed in 1440, returned to France, and wed for the third time. He appeared in the classic novel, In a Dark Wood Wandering, by Hella Haasse, and he is also a major character in Margaret Frazer’s mystery, The Maiden’s Tale.
On January 5th, 1477, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was slain at the battle of Nancy. His body was not found until days later, partially eaten by wolves or other scavengers. Charles was the husband of Margaret of York, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, and appears in one scene in Sunne. He was known as Charles the Bold or Charles the Rash. I favor the latter, for he had a talent for making enemies and showed increasingly poor judgment in his last years.
On January 5th, 1589, the controversial French queen, Catherine de Medici, died, at age 69. Catherine is given a three-dimensional portrayal in C.W. Gortner’s novel, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici.
Lastly, on January 5th, 1592, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan was born. His fame rests today on the splendid mausoleum he built as a tribute to his beloved wife, Muntaz-I-Mahal. We know it today as the Taj Mahal, surely one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Shah Jahan had planned to build an identical tomb for himself, only in black marble, but his son did not inherit his father’s romantic streak and he did not honor Shah’s dying wishes.

Joan of Arc, Edward the Confessor, and a circus elephant named Topsy

I forgot to mention yesterday that on January 3rd, 1431, Joan of Arc was turned over by the English to the Bishop of Beauvais. Her trial began on the 9th and she was burned at the stake for heresy on May 30th, 1431, at the age of nineteen. Her trial was a farce; the bishop did not even have jurisdiction to try the case. It was politically motivated; the Duke of Bedford had claimed the French throne for his nephew, Henry VI, and by accusing Joan of heresy, the English hoped to cast doubts upon the legitimacy of the French king, Charles VII, who abandoned Joan to her fate. Twenty-five years after her death, the Pope Calixtus III launched an investigation into her sham of a trial. She was proclaimed innocent of heresy and declared a martyr—twenty-five years too late. She was not canonized by the Catholic Church, though, until 1920. She is one of the five patron saints of France, sharing that honor with St Denis, St Martin of Tours, St Louis IX, and St Theresa of Lisieux. Joan is perhaps one of the best examples of real life being more improbable than fiction. No historical novelist would have dared to invent her story!
Back to January 4th. On this date in 1066, Edward the Confessor died, setting the stage for the fateful battle of Hastings, which resulted in the death of King Harold and the seizure of power by William, the Duke of Normandy, known in his own time as William the Bastard and in history as William the Conqueror; I think we can assume that he preferred the latter epithet.
There was another happening on January 4th in 1903, not in the least medieval, but both bizarre and sad. A circus elephant named Topsy was electrocuted after having been declared dangerous after killing three men; one of them was a sadistic trainer who tried to feed her a lighted cigarette. They’d actually planned to hang her until the ASPCA objected. Thomas Edison, of all people, suggested that they electrocute her and he actually filmed it. As you can probably tell, my sympathies are with Topsy. These intelligent animals have been exploited by men for centuries; you think they wanted to cross the Alps with Hannibal?

Queens, dogs, hurricanes, and dolphins

So far, January seems to be a slow news month in terms of medieval history. I could come up with only two items today, one very un-medieval. But although I would not have wanted to live in those times, there is something about ancient Rome that I find morbidly fascinating, so I thought I’d mention that on this date in 106 BC, Cicero was born. And back in “our” times, Catherine of Valois, widow of Henry V and unwitting maternal ancestor of the Tudor dynasty, died on this date in 1437, at only thirty-six.
Since that is all I can contribute from a historical standpoint, I thought I’d “pad” the post today with a few random thoughts. Holly is adjusting to the loss of her gallant shepherd protector; I am sure she still misses Tristan, but she seems to like being a spoiled only child, too. Eventually I will probably adopt another dog who needs a home, but I’m not ready yet. Tristan was chosen to appear on the cover of the new Echo calendar, and this is how I want to remember him, the lord of the manor contentedly surveying his domains (yard) while surrounded by all his subjects (toys).
Like most people who live in the path of Hurricane Sandy, I was stunned by the decision by the House of Representatives to adjourn without voting on the bill that would approve aid to the victims of Sandy, many of whom lost everything. I could not express my outrage any better than my governor, Chris Christie, whose comments can be read below. I am glad to report that the House Speaker reversed himself after getting such a negative response from his own party, and they will now allow a vote on the aid package. But it should not have taken political pressure to do the right thing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/p...
For a moving story and heartbreaking photos of what people endured in this monster storm, click the link below.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/20...
And since these are sad stories, here is a much more heartening one about a surfer who was attacked by a shark and saved by a pod of dolphins, which is not that uncommon an occurrence throughout history. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/2168908...

Lionheart's rebirth

I have a new blog up, although my evil computer would not let me insert the Lionheart jacket photos into the blog. But I did get to vent about a few past book covers that I did not like--at all! Fortunately, I love all four of the Lionheart covers. Here is the link in case Goodreeads does not repost the blog. http://sharonkaypenman.com/blog/

Lionheart’s rebirth in paperback

This is a brief holiday blog—to wish you all a Happy New Year.   The new year is getting off to a good start for me with the publication today by Ballantine Books of the American paperback edition of Lionheart and with the publication on Thursday by Macmillan of the British edition of Lionheart.   I will try to include the book covers, though lately my computer has been very uncooperative about agreeing to post photos on my blog, just another of the many ways my computers find to torment me.    This is one of the rare times when I am very happy with all four book covers; that has not always been true in the past.  
I think Here be Dragons was particularly unlucky in this regard.  I was never a fan of the American hardback cover, which showed two figures supposed to be Llywelyn and Joanna in a landscape that looked like the far side of the moon to me, complete with a little flying dragon.  It could have been worse, though.  I was told that when it was first unveiled in the art department, there were murmurs of approval, until a junior editor said, “But in the book, didn’t Llywelyn and Joanna have black hair?”   The artist had made them both flaming redheads.  Since that mistake was caught before I ever saw it, my blood pressure was not affected.    But an early Avon paperback edition of Dragons had Llywelyn looking like Tom Selleck in his Magnum, PI days and Joanna looking like…well, like a wench who had just tumbled out of her lover’s bed, and as the piece de resistance, in the top corner was a depiction of King John, who was a dead ringer for Peter O’Toole in Becket.   Yet that was not the worst.  The first version of the British hardback Dragons was bad enough to give me nightmares, all done in bilious purple and pink, with two hollow-eyed zombies purporting to be Llywelyn and Joanna.  It looked like a medieval version of a poster for Night of the Living Dead.   Fortunately, my British editor had loathed it, too, but had been outvoted by the marketing department, and she was able to get it deep-sixed after the extremely negative reaction from me and both of my agents.   They had to settle hastily for a generic scene of knights on horseback, but that was still such an improvement that I was quite happy to go with bland.  
 I don’t think I have one particular favorite book cover, though I confess to being partial to the hardback edition of Time and Chance because I found that image of a twelfth century lion myself while browsing in the on-line collection of the Cloisters.    Most of them I have liked, although I confess I was not crazy about the hardback edition jacket used by my American publisher for Devil’s Brood.  I was in the minority, and had no real objections to it; it simply did not resonate with me at the time.  But after we visited the chapel in Chinon during my Eleanor tour last year and I got to see the actual twelfth century mural for myself, I found my views changing and now I smile whenever I pick up a copy of Devil’s Brood, for it calls up memories of that very special day.   In terms of my input, I have a lot with Putnam’s and Macmillan has been wonderful, too, about consulting me.  For many years, I had no say in the paperback covers on either side of the Atlantic; I was often not even shown a cover beforehand.    Thankfully that has changed dramatically now with Ballantine, which has been extremely receptive to my ideas, and Macmillan is publishing my books both in hardback and paperback so there is no problem there, either.       
 But I am very happy with Ballantine’s regal lion and Macmillan’s battle-weary king, since I assume he is meant to be Richard, after what was obviously a hard day at the office.       The jacket used by my American publisher, Putnam’s, was taken from a nineteenth century painting depicting Richard and Philippe in the Holy Land, so it is not only visually very compelling, it is historically on-target.   Putnam’s art department deserves much credit for discovering it.    I am already very curious about the book cover for Sunne in Splendour when it gets its rare rebirth in hardback next September in the UK.    Of course I am so pleased that Sunne will be available in hardback after thirty years that they could probably publish it in a brown paper wrapper and I wouldn’t complain—too much.  
 Because of the merciful extension that my publishers have given me for A King’s Ransom, that will mean it will not be published until 2014, as I explained in an earlier Facebook Note.   But I was not going to be able to meet the original deadline, despite my increasingly frantic efforts to do so, so this extension is a blessing for the book and for my peace of mind. 
         So on that happy note, I am signing off, hoping the new year is off to a good start for all of my friends and readers, who happen to be the best readers on the planet.    (You know who you are.)   
January 1, 2013

The new year

I couldn’t find any medieval events of interest for January 1st. But I did find some non-medieval happenings to mention. IN 1431, Rodrigo Borgia, who would later become the controversial “Borgia Pope,” Alexander VI, was born; I suppose that might be considered medieval. He is probably luckier than he deserves, for he has been portrayed in the past few seasons on Showtime by the incomparable Jeremy Irons. And on January 1st, 1511, a son was born to Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, but sadly, he lived only a few weeks. This is a good example of one person’s death truly changing history. Imagine if Henry VIII had not been so desperate to sire a son. If this boy had lived, Henry might not have morphed into the Tudor Bluebeard. And two definitely non-medieval birthdays on this date, but both of interest to Americans. Paul Revere was born on January 1st, 1735 and Betsy Ross born seventeen years later, in 1752.
I hope you all are enjoying the first day of 2013. I expect to have a new blog up later today, too.

The Battle of Wakefield, evil printers, and the new year

I am back! My router died and I had to replace it and then arrange for tech support to come out today and install it. I know my limitations and was sure I would not have been able to do it myself. As it turned out, I was correct, for both printers balked at accepting the new router and the wonderful tech had to find a way to outwit them; it was not easy, either, since my main printer kept insisting it was still connected to the old router. Most people don’t realize that printers are dangerous; they sit there looking deceptively innocuous, but they are really receiving instructions from their master, Satan.
So I have to catch up now. December 30th, 1460 was the date of the battle of Wakefield, in which a Lancastrian force defeated the Yorkists when they rashly ventured out from Sandal Castle. The Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury were among those who lost their lives. The death that shocked people, though, was that of the Duke of York’s seventeen year old son, Edmund, who was captured after the battle and murdered in cold blood by Lord Clifford. Edmund was the first character that I had to kill, and it was a challenge. I didn’t realize then how much blood there’d eventually be on my hands, but writers always remember our “first.” Even after so many years, when I reread that scene on the bridge at Wakefield, I feel a sense of loss, and from what readers have told me, they do, too. RIP, Edmund, I wish your life had not been cut short so brutally.
On today’s date, December 31th, Leopold V, the Duke of Austria died in 1194, a particularly gruesome death that convinced his contemporaries he was being punished by God for having defied the Church by laying hands upon a crusader king. He had remained defiant, even threatening to kill Richard’s hostages if Richard did not send his niece to Austria to marry Leeopold’s son, one of the many conditions of Richard’s release. Richard had not wanted to do this, but to save his hostages, he yielded. His ten year old niece was on her way to Vienna when word spread of Leopold’s death. She was able to return home, but ironically, given the future that lay ahead of her—held prisoner by John and then John’s son for forty years—it would have been better for her if the marriage had taken place. The circumstances of Leopold’s death probably gave even the German emperor a few uneasy moments. He’d crushed his ankle when his horse rolled on him, and when it turned black, his doctors warned that only amputation could save his life. But none of them were willing to attempt it, including his own teenage sons. So Leopold himself held an axe against his ankle and ordered his steward to strike it with a mallet. It took three tries to chop the ankle off, and it did not save Leopold. He was lucky, though, that he was able to reconcile with the Church on his deathbed, for he’d been excommunicated for the part he’d played in Richard’s abduction and imprisonment. But when he expressed contrition, his cousin, the Archbishop of Salisbury, absolved him of his sins after he promised to return Richard’s hostages and repay his share of the ransom. Before the archbishop would permit him to be buried in consecrated ground, though, he extracted a vow at graveside from Leopold’s eldest son, that he would honor Leopold’s deathbed promise. .
I think most of us are glad to see 2012 go; some good but too much tragedy and heartbreak, ending with the slaughter of the innocents. I hope the new year will be a better one for us all.

Thomas Becket and a missing beagle

December 29th, 1170 was the date of one of the most shocking events of the Middle Ages, the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his own cathedral by four knights who thought they’d be pleasing their king. This act of violence would have far-reaching consequences. It would make Becket a saint and cause Henry great trouble with the Church. There is a new biography of Becket out, but it is very hostile to Henry and that presented a problem for me. I would recommend the biography by Frank Barlow, which I consider the best one done to date. I would also recommend Thomas Becket, His Last Days, by William Urry, which I found very helpful in writing Becket’s death chapter. And then, of course, there is a novel called Time and Chance. 

The brilliant writer, Dennis LeHane, has shown considerable ingenuity in attempting to find his lost dog, a rescue beagle named Tessa. He has promised to write her finder into his next novel. Good luck to both him and Tesssa; I hope she is found and returned home. Here is a link to a story about this and a link to his Facebook page. If any of my readers live in the Boston area, maybe they could post this on their Facebook pages, too. http://www.facebook.com/sharonkay.pen...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/28/showbiz...

The thief 0, the Good Samaritan 1

Richard and I are very busy at Issoudun Castle in the Berry region, but I am taking a quick break to mention today’s historical happening; on December 28th, 1065, Westminster Abbey was consecrated. Of course this was not the magnificent cathedral that we know today; that one, we owe to Henry III, who wasn’t a very good king, but who left quite an architectural legacy.
And here is a post-Christmas miracle for one little girl. Video captures her terrified little dog being stolen by a thief on Christmas Eve. But when he tried to sell it, a Good Samaritan became suspicious, bought it, and took it to her vet. Thanks to the dog’s microchip, Marley and mistress are reunited, as you can see below. Yet more proof of how indispensable a tool microchips have become.
Now back to the bloodletting.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/...

A bargain Sunne

I forgot to alert my Briitish readers that Macmillan has included Sunne in a special deal. For now you can buy Sunne in the e-book format for 99 pence. Sorry, but this is only good for UK readers. Here is the link. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Sunne-in-...