Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 39

King John

One of England’s most notorious kings, John, died on October 19th, 1216 at Newark, apparently of dysentery, which was a deadly disease in the MA; those it claimed included Henry II’s son Hal, Edward I, King Amalric of Jerusalem, and Henry V. John’s death may have saved the throne for his son, for the English lords then rallied to young Henry and the French were defeated. I’ve been asked occasionally if John really said some of the things he says in his death scene in Here Be Dragons. The answer is no; there was no one around to take down his last words, as he was abandoned by his last loyal courtiers once they realized he was dying. Sic transit Gloria mundi—thus passes the glory of the world. But I think—hope-- I did justice to the real John. We know he had a sardonic sense of humor, so I can see him jesting about auctioning off his choice body parts when the abbot asked him if they could have his heart and bowels for burial at Croxton’s abbey of St John the Evangelist. And I find it easy to imagine John really saying this, too:
* * *
As the spasm passed, John lay back, closed his eyes. “I think I always knew…”
“Knew what, my liege?”
John turned his head, looked at the abbot for a long time without answering. “I always knew, he said, “that I’d die alone…”
* * *
Also on October 19th, 1330, Queen Isabella’s lover, Roger Mortimer, was arrested at Nottingham Castle on the orders of the young King Edward III, after using a secret passage to get into the castle; how cool is that? Well, not so cool for Roger, who’d be executed the following month.
And on October 19th, 1469, Fernando of Aragon wed Isabella of Castile. Christopher Gortner’s The Queen’s Vow dramatizes the life of this controversial and powerful queen.
Lastly, it may not be medieval, but on October 19th, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, ending our Revolutionary War. Actually, Lord Cornwallis did not attend himself; he claimed to be sick and sent someone else to surrender his sword rather than have to yield to a colonial. Bad form, Lord C, definitely bad form.

Thank you, Canada!

Continuing with my mission to cheer us up in these very stressful times, here is an article sure to make you all smile. Our Canadian neighbors want to cheer us up, too, and they have made a video reminding us of all that is wonderful about America and Americans. Here is the link.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/na... This is my own favorite of the Canadian comments:
Gatsby, Huck Fin, Moby Dick, Scarlet Letter, Grapes of Wrath, Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye... got literature down #tellamericaitsgreat Thank you, Canada! We think you guys are great, too.

A historical smorgasbord

I am a few days late on this post, but I hope it is worth waiting for. October 13th was an incredibly busy day from a historical standpoint. So fasten your seat belts for this one.

On October 13, 54 AD, the Roman emperor Claudius was poisoned. I am sure that thousands are like me, having gleaned most of what we know about Claudius from the brilliant television series, I, Claudius, based upon the equally brilliant novel by Robert Graves. The wonderful actor Derek Jacobi played Claudius as a very sympathetic character who was extraordinarily unlucky in his choice of wives, including the notorious Messalina and Agrippina, who is believed to have murdered him to gain the crown for her son, Nero. The series is available on DVD for those who’ve never seen this classic. And Margaret George’s gripping new novel, The Confessions of Young Nero, will be coming out next spring; Claudius, Messalina, Nero, and his notorious mother, Agrippina, are all in it.

On October 13, 1162, Leonora, the second daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born. She would become Queen of Castile, winning the affection of her husband and his subjects. She is one of the two children who outlived their mother, the other being John. She seems to have had a happy marriage, but there was much tragedy in her life due to the deaths of so many of her children; she was devastated by the death of her husband, too, too stricken even to attend his funeral. The abbot of Mont St Michel was her godfather. Like all of Henry and Eleanor’s children, she was said to be very attractive, and a later Spanish chronicle described her as having dark hair.

On October 13, 1278, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd wed Ellen de Montfort at Worcester Cathedral. They’d actually been wed by proxy but Edward I then had the bride kidnapped by a pirate in his pay and held her prisoner for 3 years as he sought to extract as many concessions as possible from Llywelyn. Edward paid for the wedding and then blackmailed Llywelyn into making even more concessions on the eve of the wedding. Knowing his sense of humor, I do not think it was coincidence that he scheduled it on October 13th, which was the feast day of St Edward. Llywelyn and Ellen’s marriage appears to have been a happy one, but I doubt that they enjoyed the wedding itself.

On October 13, 1307, the grasping, unscrupulous French King, Philippe IV, ordered the arrest of the Templars. You will occasionally see October 13, 1244 give as the birthdate of the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, but there is no evidence for that as we are not even sure of the date of his birth year.

On October 13, 1399, Henry IV was crowned at Westminster as the first Lancastrian king, having deposed and probably murdered his cousin Richard II, his usurpation laying the seeds for the Wars of the Roses. Brian Wainwright has written an excellent novel about Henry’s reign, Within the Fetterlock.

On October 13, 1453, the only child of Marguerite d’Anjou and the hapless Henry VI was born, Edward of Lancaster, who would die at seventeen at the battle of Tewkesbury.
It is sometimes claimed that October 13, 1537 was the birthday of the Nine Days Queen, Jane Grey, but that is open to dispute, with some historians believing that she was born earlier than that, possibly even in 1536. Susan Higginbotham has written a novel about Jane, Her Highness, the Traitor. I’ve always had great sympathy for Jane, the ultimate political pawn.

October 14th in history

Here are the historical events that occurred yesterday, October 14th.
The best-known event was the Battle of Hastings, a battle that changed history in ways that are still reverberating today. As we all know, William the Bastard—more politely known to posterity as William the Conqueror—was the victor, and the Saxon King Harold Godwinson was slain on the field. Helen Hollick has written a novel about Harold and Elizabeth Chadwick’s novel, The Conquest, also deals with this period in English history from the vantage point of both Normans and Saxons; Elizabeth has a very good description of the Battle of Hastings.
On October 14, 1322, Robert Bruce defeated Edward II at the battle of Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scottish independence.
According to Wikipedia, one result of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar was that there was no October 14th in 1582 in the countries of Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. Please don’t ask me why other countries got to enjoy the 14th, for I haven’t a clue. But I bet at least one of my readers will know!
And on October 14, 1586, Mary Queen of Scots went on trial on a number of charges, including conspiracy and the planned assassination of her cousin Elizabeth. I think the best novel about Mary is still Margaret George’s Mary Queen of Scots.

October 12th in history

On October 12, 1176, William d’Aubigny, Earl of Arundel, died. He is best known for wedding Queen Adeliza, the widow of Henry I. Elizabeth Chadwick’s Lady of the English, gives us a very appealing account of their courtship and marriage.
On October 12, 1216, King John—who was not having a good year—lost his crown jewels in The Wash.
On October 12, 1459, the Battle of Ludford Bridge was almost fought. The Yorkist army was already skittish, for they saw the king’s standard flying in the Lancastrian camp and were hesitant about opposing the king himself, even a figurehead king like poor Henry VI. The death blow to their chances occurred that night when Andrew Trollope and six hundred of his men defected to the Lancastrians. The Duke of York and the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury retreated to Ludlow Castle and then fled the country, York and his younger son Edmund going to Wales and then to Ireland, his elder son Edward going to Calais with the Earl of Warwick. York’s wife, Cecily Neville, and her two young sons, George and Richard, were left in Ludlow, awaiting the Lancastrian army the next day on the steps of the high cross. It is interesting to speculate how history might have been changed had Edward been the son to accompany his father to Ireland. If he had, he'd have been with York at Sandal Castle the following December, when York rashly left the castle and fell into a Lancastrian trap. Would Edward have been the one to die on Wakefield Bridge instead of Edmund? Might there have been a King Edmund? It is impossible to answer the first question, but I don’t think a King Edmund was in the cards. Edward won over the Londoners with his personal charm and then won the crown itself on the battlefield. Take him out of the equation and who knows what might have happened.
On October 12, 1492, the crew of Columbus’s Pinta sighted land—the Bahamas—although Columbus remained convinced until his death that he’d found a way to the East Indies.
And on October 12, 1537, the future Edward VI was born. Jane Seymour, his mother, would soon die of childbed fever, so she did not get to enjoy the triumph of doing what neither Katherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn could—give Henry VIII his longed-for son.

Nora the polar bear

Such sad stories in the wake of this hurricane. The last I heard, at least eight hundred people died in Haiti. It seems that most Floridians heeded the call to evacuate, but the property damage will be devastating. I have friends in North Carolina, so I am really hoping that the forecasters are right and it will then take a sharp turn east away from their coast.
On a happier subject, here is a video that no one can watch without smiling. Meet Nora the polar bear as she discovers a wading pool filled with ice. It is hilarious. And following it on YouTube is a longer film about Nora’s history. fhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsX1W...

A monster storm and a beloved dog

All of the people in the path of Hurricane Matthew need prayers and luck, for this is a monster storm. It has devastated Haiti and battered the Bahamas and is now bearing down on Florida. I hope all of my Florida friends and readers stay safe from the worst of Matthew’s fury. I think the rest of us on the US East Coast will be luckier, as they are predicting it will not continue on up the coast.
And here is an eloquent and touching farewell to a beloved dog, a pain all pet lovers have experienced too often. http://m.seattlepi.com/sports/moore/a...

A sad French princess and a luckier Tudor queen

On October 4th, 1160, the unfortunate French princes, Alys, daughter of Louis VII, long-suffering betrothed of the Lionheart, was born. Her life got off to a rough start, as her mother died in childbirth. As most of you know, she became a political pawn, as Henry refused to allow the marriage to take place, and indeed, rumors began circulating that Henry had taken her as his mistress. I don’t think he did, for Henry had his flaws, but the one thing he was not was an idiot, and it would have been the height of idiocy to bed the French king’s daughter and his own son’s fiancée. Poor Alys was then caught up in the power play between Richard and Philippe. And when she was finally freed, Philippe, who was about as warm and fuzzy as a cactus, married her off to a teenage boy half her age. But she got the last laugh, for I am sure he expected her marriage to be childless given her age, which would then have given him a claim to her new husband’s lands. She did have a daughter, though, and Eleanor of Castille, queen of Edward I, traces her descent to Alys.
Also on October 4th, 1539, Henry VIII wed Anne of Clives. I wouldn’t say that was the wedding night from Hell, since Philippe’s wedding night with the Danish princess, Ingeborg, was even worse, though it probably came close. But Henry’s sudden aversion to Anne was her Get Out of Jail Free Card, making her the most fortunate of his six wives.

On horses and a gruesome medieval murder

I want to start with an interesting article about the underestimated intellects of horses. Too often you hear people dismiss them as unintelligent, but anyone who has been around horses knows better. My mom grew up on a Kentucky farm and she had fascinating stories of the horses on their farm, all of whom had distinctive personalities. Humankind owes horses a great debt for civilization could not have developed as we know it without them; sadly, it is a debt that has gone unpaid, for they have not been treated as well as they deserve. Here is the link to the story; I am sure it will surprise many people. http://www.care2.com/causes/horses-de...

I want to alert everyone that what follows is a rerun, for it was posted last year. Hopefully, many of you have memories as defective as mine and you will not remember reading it! This was one of the most challenging scenes I ever had to write; others include Henry II’s penance scene at Canterbury Cathedral and Richard III’s death at Bosworth.

On October 3rd, 1283, Davydd ap Gruffydd, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’s younger brother, was put to death by Edward I in the most brutal way possible—hanged, then cut down while he was still alive, then eviscerated and drawn and quartered. Davydd is sometimes said to be the first man to suffer this barbaric punishment, but there were at least two other cases in which this horrific penalty was imposed. But in Davydd’s trial and execution, we have the origins of the state trial. Waging war against the king was not a crime in medieval England, not until Edward chose to make it one, classifying it as high treason. Even so, he ordered no executions after Evesham, probably because almost all of Simon de Montfort’s supporters died on the field with him, but also because Davydd was more vulnerable than the de Montfort partisans, with no one to speak up for him. The author of The Law of Treason in England in the Middle Ages pointed out that “The king could make an example of Davydd with impunity.” And after his death, drawing and quartering became the standard form of execution for those convicted of high treason. Readers of Sunne may remember that the Earl of Somerset was very relieved when Richard told him after the battle of Tewkesbury that he and the others charged with treason would be beheaded, not drawn and quartered; the fourth Edward did not share the first Edward’s vindictive nature. Davydd claimed the title Prince of Wales after Llywelyn was slain in 1282, but he was overshadowed even in death by his more renowned brother, who is known in Wales as Ein Llyw Olaf—Our Last Leader.
Davydd’s dreadful fate posed a challenge for me. I did not want to dwell upon his dying agonies and I doubted that my readers did, either; moreover, my mother vowed that she’d never forgive me if I did that. So I chose to write about his last hours, confined to a dungeon at Shrewsbury Castle, knowing what awaited him with the coming of dawn. In a way, this was even worse, though, for the suffering of the mind can be even more intolerable than the suffering of the body.
The Reckoning. Page 563
* * *
His last meal lay untouched by the door. They’d given him a double helping of some sort of fish stew and a full flagon of ale—execution eve charity. He’d brought the flagon back to the bed, and he reached for it now, swallowed and grimaced at the flat, tepid taste. The cell was damp and chilly, but his tunic was splotched with sweat; although he could not remember his dream, he’d wager it held a gallows and a grave. But no….not a grave. Passing strange, for he’d not wanted to be buried in England and now Edward had seen to it. Even the Saracens did not deny a man decent burial. Only the most Christian King of England would think of that.
He’d never doubted his courage, not ever. Until today, it had not even crossed his mind that his nerve might fail him. But how could flesh and blood and bone not shrink from such deliberately drawn-out suffering? How could he be sure that he’d be able to face it without flinching?
He was not accustomed to asking hard questions; that had never been his way. But he’d had three months and more of solitary confinement, time in which he’d been forced to confront the consequences of his actions, after a lifetime of evading them. There was no room to run in a prison cell.
He’d always gotten his strength from his utter confidence, from his faith in his own abilities. What could he fall back on now? The Almighty was said to be deaf to the prayers of an excommunicate. Even though he did not believe that God was on England’s side, divine mercy might well be as scarce as Edward’s. Those charges flung at him in the Chapter House were crimes only in English eyes, not in his. But he had no lack of sins to answer for, a lifetime’s worth if truth be told. How could he be sure that God would understand? Llywelyn never had.
Omission
Reaching for the flagon, he drank again. Well, if God would not get him through the morrow’s ordeal, that left only pride. He smiled bleakly at that, seeing the twisted humor in it. For if pride was to be his deliverance, it had also been his downfall. If not for pride and jealousy, would the bond between brothers have frayed so badly? If not for pride, it might have held fast—and Wales with it.
Leaning back against the wall, he made a careless move, almost knocking the flagon over with his chain; he righted it just in time. “I’ll admit it,” he said. “I got more than I bargained for. But fair is fair, Llywelyn. Even you cannot deny that it is also more than I deserve.”
He could not remember when he’d begun to talk to his brother. It had been a joke at first, a self-mocking attempt to deny his pain, and perhaps, too, an expression of his hunger to hear a voice, even his own, to escape the smothering burden of silence, for he’d never been utterly alone before, not like this. But although he jeered at his own need—telling himself that confiding in the dead offered distinct advantages over confessing to the living---it had given him an odd sort of comfort, and he was fast learning to take comfort anywhere he could find it.
Omission
He lay down on the blanket again, closed his eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come, and he swore suddenly, savagely. “So I lied, Llywelyn! Mayhap I do deserve it. Is that what you’d have me say? You want me to confess my sins? For that, I’d need more time than I’ve got, much more…..”
He was lying again, though. There was time. So be it, then. Wales, the greatest casualty of his war. Just as Llywelyn had foreseen. “We’d become aliens in our own land,” he’d warned, “denied our own laws, our own language, even our yesterdays, for a conquered people are not allowed a prideful past. Worst of all, we’d be leaving our children and grand-children a legacy of misery and loss, a future bereft of hope.”
More than a prophecy. An epitaph for Wales, for Llywelyn’s doomed principality. Davydd knew it had never been his, not truly. He’d ruled over a domain in its death throes. But if he could not be blamed for losing the war, he could be for starting it.
Omission
Elizabeth, I’m so sorry, lass, so sorry….His eyes were stinging, his breathing growing ragged and hurtful. Where was she? Still held at Rhuddlan Castle? What would happen to her now? Would Edward convent-cage her like Gwenllian and Gwladys? Or would he think it safer to shackle her with another wedding band? Marry her off to a man of his choosing, lock her away in some remote English keep until the world forgot about her, and she alone remembered that she’d once been the wife of a Welsh prince.
He’d known, of course, that if he fell into English hands, he was a dead man. But he’d not expected Edward to take vengeance upon Elizabeth or his daughters. He’d thought his sons would be spared, too, that their youth would save them, for Owain was only three and Llelo five. The worst he’d feared was that they’d be taken as hostages, reared at the English court as he and Rhodri had been. Merciful Christ, if only he’d realized what Edward had intended!
Omission
Edward would never let them go. They would grow to manhood behind the walls of Bristol Castle. They would not know the joys and dangers and temptations that life could offer a man. They would learn naught of friendship or the urgency and sweetness of bedding a woman. They’d never have sons of their own. They would never see Wales again, and as their memories faded, they’d forget the world they’d known before Bristol Castle. They would forget him, forget Elizabeth, and not even know why they were doomed to live out their days as prisoners of an English king.
* * *
Davydd was executed the next morning and even his many enemies acknowledged that he died with courage. For some reason, that reminds me of dialogue from my favorite film, The Lion in Winter. Richard, Geoffrey, and John have been flung into a dungeon at Chinon by their father and they are awaiting their fate. Richard declares defiantly that he’ll not beg for his life. Geoffrey lashes out, calling his brother a prideful fool and saying it does not matter how a man falls. Richard looks at him and says that it matters when the fall is all there is. The wording might not be exact, but the sentiment is one I think Davydd would have agreed with.

October 2nd in medieval history

I would like to wish a Happy Rosh Hashanah to my Jewish friends and readers, as their New Year began at sundown today. And I have a link to a heartening story about three bears rescued from lives of misery in Albania. http://www.care2.com/causes/3-of-euro...

On October 2nd, 1187, Jerusalem yielded to Saladin, an event that would trigger the Third Crusade. Balian d’Ibelin was the savior of the city—the only thing that Kingdom of Heaven got right—persuading Saladin to accept its surrender rather than taking it by storm, thus sparing it the bloodbath that occurred when the men of the First Crusade captured it in 1099.

On October 2nd, 1452, the future Richard III was born at Fotheringhay Castle, the youngest son of the Duke of York and Cecily Neville. For centuries, Richard’s lost grave seemed certain to be the sad epilogue to his turbulent, often tragic life, and too-brief reign. Even now, it still seems almost miraculous to me that he should be entombed at Leicester Cathedral, given the funeral and honorable burial that was denied him after his death at Bosworth Field.

And on October 2nd, 1470, Edward IV and Richard were forced to flee England when John Neville switched sides, declaring his loyalty to his brother, the Earl of Warwick. It had to be a great shock for Edward, going from King of England to fugitive in one dizzying turn of Fortune’s Wheel. And for his young brother Richard, it must have added insult to injury that this day of such desperation was his eighteenth birthday. As they sought refuge in Burgundy, few in England expected them to return. But it was always dangerous to underestimate Edward of York, who was at his best in adversity. He would defy all odds by coming back to reclaim his crown, and Richard would be at his side through it all, sharing betrayal, exile, and then the battles that would restore the House of York to power.