Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 42

Catching up and honoring the French and my favorite king

I am very relieved to report that I am now able to spend some time at the computer, so I ought to be able to visit with everyone again, even if in short bursts. It seems that whenever I am able to start posting again, there are so many tragedies and horrific events to mention. Here is a link to a story about the way the French illuminate the Eiffel Tower in honor of the latest victims of terrorism. After the appalling carnage in Nice, other countries also lit up their national monuments and landmarks to show solidarity with the victims. But it was so painful to read how many times the Eiffel Tower has been illuminated after a terrorist attack just in the past year; they honor victims of terror in other countries as well as in their own. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...
I hope that all of my American friends and readers who are suffering under this latest deadly heat wave are managing to cope. I have been lighting candles to my new patron saint, Willis Carrier, the inventor of modern air conditioning.
It will probably take me years to catch up on all the Today in History posts that fell through the cracks while I was sidelined. But I have to mention the death of one of my favorite kings. On July 6, 1189, Henry II died in misery at Chinon Castle, feverishly murmuring “Shame upon a conquered king” after having been forced to make a humiliating surrender to his own son Richard and the young French king Philippe. He’d saved Philippe’s throne several times in the past, but Philippe did not hold gratitude to be a virtue. Henry probably died of septicemia, the result of a wound to his heel, although he had numerous other ailments by that time—as well a broken heart, having learned that his beloved son John had betrayed him.
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Devil’s Brood, page 713. “Henry’s delirium soon returned, and he did not speak coherently again, dying the next day after a hemorrhage that stained his bedding with dark blood. He was fifty-six, had ruled almost thirty-five years as King of England and even longer as Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou.”
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Bastille Day

I am finding it very frustrating to have to stay away from my computer for so long. But even if I’d been able to post on Facebook, there would have been no words for the week that our country endured.
I will see if I can at least post brief comments now and then until the injections start to work; the power of positive thinking. Today is the French national holiday, Bastille Day, all the more significant in light of the cowardly assaults upon France by ISIS terrorists. Here is the best scene from Casablanca. Vive la France. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTsg9...

My absence and Game of Thrones finale

I am so sorry that I’ve become such a stranger to Facebook, but I’ve been in too much pain to spend time at the computer and yes, that delights the Deadline Dragon greatly. I had a cortisone shot last week; it did not help, though. So we are trying a series of four injections which the orthopedist thinks will help, although he cautioned I probably won’t get relief until I’ve had all four shots. I’ve decided to believe him, as that beats the alternative.
My deepest sympathies to the people suffering so much in the West VA flooding and in the California fires. Life has been turned upside down, too, in one of my favorite places—the UK. This has not been a good year for so many.
I will try to stop by when I can. Meanwhile, here is the EW recap for last night’s jaw-dropping finale of Game of Thrones; it also offers some interesting interviews with various cast members. Anyone anticipate those serpentine plot twists? I sure did not. http://www.ew.com/recap/game-of-thron...

Yet another slaughter of innocents

I have had to stay off the computer this past week; it is just too painful. But I had to speak out after yet another mass killing. Fifty people murdered. It almost defies belief, or it would if it had not happened so often. This is the fifteenth time that President Obama has had to offer comfort to the nation after a murderous rampage—fifteen. Our only meager consolation is that such horrors bring out the best in people, too, who show great courage and compassion and empathy—the police officers who try to stop the killing, the survivors and bystanders who risk their own lives to help the injured. My heart goes out to the families and friends of the slain and wounded. Please pray for them. That seems to be all we are ever able to do.
I see the orthopedist again next week, hope that he will be able to help as he did earlier in the spring. Wish me luck.

A medieval king and an icon in our times

I am sorry I have not been able to post here very often this spring, but it has been due to circumstances beyond my control. Unfortunately, some of my body parts are no longer user-friendly and I have had to limit my time at the computer. But I love interacting with you all on Facebook, and will try my best to stop by more often as we slide into summer.
Here is a post involving my favorite king, Henry II, and one of his rare political blunders. As I had Eleanor say in Devil’s Brood, “Harry and I have more in common than quick tempers. We rarely make mistakes, but when we do, they tend to be spectacular.”
There were a few other historical happenings on June 3rd, ( the fall of Antioch, for one) but I am going to have to beg off from dealing with them, for real life has come to a screeching halt as I remain trapped in the deadline doldrums. So I’ll just focus on June 3rd, 1162, a day that would soon give Henry II considerable grief, for it was on this date that his great good friend, Thomas Becket, was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury, just one day after he’d been ordained as a priest. Henry was convinced theirs would be the perfect partnership. Rarely ever was he so wrong.
I would also like to mention the passing of an icon. Very few people have the courage of their convictions; we all would like to think we do, but when the moment of truth comes, most of us compromise. I think it is human nature to do so. There are those, though, who are willing to make great sacrifices to honor a principle. Muhammad Ali was such a man. In honoring his courage, I am not talking of his feats in the ring; I have never been a boxing fan. But he took a moral stand even knowing that it could cost him his career, his liberty, his glowing future. At the time, I greatly admired him for that. And in his later years, I admired him for revealing he had Parkinson’s. Here is Michael J Fox discussing the impact that Muhammad Ali had. http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/05/opinion...
I think it always helps for well-known individuals to be candid about illnesses. Today it is far more common, but I remember a time when people were secretive about disease, almost as if they were ashamed of being stricken. When Betty Ford spoke with candor about her fight against breast cancer, people were actually shocked that she was willing to go public with it. So when Muhammad Ali and Michael J Fox refused to hide their struggles with Parkinson’s, they were making life easier for others afflicted with this ailment or with other incapacitating diseases. In the same way, I am grateful to the Reagan family for shining a spotlight upon one of the most insidious of diseases and the terrible toll that it takes upon everyone, what Nancy Reagan so heartbreakingly and eloquently called “the long goodbye.”

Another one of history's what-if moments

I am beginning to feel like the Grim Reaper, for lately all I seem to do is write death and battle scenes. Unlike my other books, of course, which all had such happy-ever-after endings. I am playing hooky from the bloodshed long enough to wish my American friends and readers a happy Memorial Day. Do any other nations have a similar remembrance day for those who gave their lives for their country? I know you have Armistice Day in the UK, which is very similar to our Veteran’s Day. Canada? Down Under?
Anyway, on May 28, 1265, the Lord Edward outsmarted his cousin Harry de Montfort, which does not seem to have been all that difficult. Edward had been held captive since the battle of Lewes the year before, but he was treated more as a guest than a prisoner or even a hostage, and on this May afternoon, he convinced Harry that it would be fun to hold races. Harry and his knights took turns racing one another, while Edward lamented that his new stallion had gone lame. You can see where this is going, can’t you? A pity Harry couldn’t. When Edward got the signal he’d been awaiting from a nearby hill, he vaulted into the saddle of his “lame” stallion and after a mocking salute to his de Montfort cousin, spurred toward freedom. Of course Harry and the other knights pursued him, but their horses soon shortened stride, no match for Edward’s fresh stallion. Roger de Mortimer and his men then rode out to meet him, and the scene was set for the battle of Evesham in August. This is another What If moment of history. If Simon had entrusted Edward into the custody of his son Guy instead of Harry, he’d not have been able to escape. Why am I so sure? Because when some of Edward’s supporters had tried to free him from Wallingford Castle that past November, Guy had threatened to send him out to them--via a mangonel. And there would have been no Evesham if Edward had remained Simon’s hostage. English history would have taken a dramatic detour—and so would Welsh history.

May 24th in History

I am still trying to catch up on my Today in History Notes. These events occurred on May 24th.
On May 24, 1153, David I, King of Scotland, uncle to the Empress Maude and a stalwart supporter of her claims, died.
On May 24, 1444, Henry VI and Marguerite d’Anjou were betrothed; they would be wed the following April.
And on this date in 1487, the pretender Lambert Simnel was crowned in Dublin. Not much is known of his background, but he is thought to have been of humble birth, the son of a carpenter or cobbler. He was about ten years old and at first it was claimed he was Edward IV’s second son Richard, Duke of York. But then it was contended he was actually Edward, Earl of Warwick, who’d supposedly escaped from confinement in the Tower of London. His claim was accepted by the Irish government and his cause was supported by Richard III and Edward IV’s sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. Not surprisingly, this did not end well, and he was captured when the Yorkists were defeated at the Battle of Stoke Field; Richard’s actual nephew, the Earl of Lincoln, was slain on the field, but Francis Lovell escaped. At the time I wrote Sunne, I was not aware that he apparently reached Scotland and I accepted the belief that he drowned crossing the River Trent. There does not seem to be any truth in the later legend that he’d taken refuge at his manor at Minster Lovell and starved to death when he was somehow trapped in a secret room.
Lambert Simnel, probably because of his youth, was not made to suffer for his part in the rebellion in a rare example of Tudor mercy, and was instead given a job as a scullion in the royal kitchens, which was also a shrewd way to emphasize his status as an imposter; Henry VII was nothing if not clever. Lambert later became a royal falconer and was therefore more fortunate than the man he’d impersonated, for the real Earl of Warwick, imprisoned in the Tower since the age of ten, would be executed by Henry VII at age 24; supposedly his death was the price demanded by King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile for agreeing to wed their daughter Catherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur. Gallons of ink would later be spilled over whether that marriage was ever consummated.
The real victim of the Lambert Simnel conspiracy seems to have been a most unlikely one, Elizabeth Woodville, for in February of 1487 she was stripped of her dower lands and banished to Bermondsey Abbey. How likely is it that she would have conspired against her own daughter to put upon the English throne a boy whom she had to know was an imposter? When she died at Bermondsey in 1492, she had nothing to leave her daughters but her blessings.

Game of Thrones--The Door

Here is EW's recap of last night's episode of Game of Thrones. There are so many out there. Even the Wall Street Journal has joined the party. But I think EW's recaps are the best, thanks to James Hibberd's snarky sense of humor. I do think we need to urge GRRM to put dyrewolves on the Endangered Species List, though. http://www.ew.com/recap/game-of-thron...

Deaths of a crusader and a queen

May 19, 1102 was the day that Stephen, the Count of Blois, was slain at the battle of Ramleh. Stephen appears briefly in the prologue of Saints, as he tries to explain to his five year old son and namesake that his wife, the Countess Adela, daughter of the Conqueror, is insisting he return to the Holy Land to regain the honor she thinks he lost by abandoning the siege of Antioch. I found myself sympathizing with Stephen’s plight, both for being unfairly accused of cowardice and for being wed to Adela. She prevailed, as she usually did, and her husband redeemed his “lost honor” by his death at Ramleh. Here is a touching and very personal letter that Stephen wrote to his wife before the siege of Antioch.
http://mw.mcmaster.ca/scriptorium/ste...
I seem unable to keep the Tudors from crashing the party this month, for I have to mention that on May 19th, 1536, Anne Boleyn was murdered in the Tower of London by her husband, who went riding off to court Jane Seymour as soon as the cannons sounded to assure him that his unwanted wife was no longer a hindrance to his plans for a third marriage.

A wedding that truly changed history

May 18th was a day of historical happenings. The Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer Omar Khayyam, was born on May 18th, 1048. He is best known in the West for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated in the 19th century by Edward Fitz Gerald. Even those who’d not recognize his name would recognize this verse:
The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

On May 18, 1096, there was a bloody massacre of the Jews of Worms, Germany; whenever crusades were launched in the MA, men afire with crusading fervor turned their zealotry and wrath upon the “infidels” closer to home than the Saracens. The Bishop of Worms had tried to shelter the city’s Jews from the mob, but they broke into his palace and murdered at least 800 of the Jews they found there when they refused to accept baptism. Sadly, this would happen again after the Second and the Third Crusades were preached, and while I am not one of St Bernard of Clairvaux’s greatest fans, I do admire his response to these pogroms in 1146. When the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz appealed for his aid in ending the violence against the Jews in their cities, he set out at once for Germany, and stopped the attacks that had been led by a fanatical French monk named Radulphe.

Still on the subject of crusades, Richard Coeur de Lion had failed to recapture Jerusalem, which caused many—including Richard himself—to view the Third Crusade as a failure. But he had been able to give Acre one hundred more years of life as a Christian bastion. That came to an end, though, on May 18, 1291, when the city fell to the Sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-Ashraf Khalil. Michael Jecks ‘s novel, Templar’s Acre, offers a dramatic and compelling account of this siege.

But for me, May 18th will always be most significant for the wedding that took place in the cathedral of St Pierre in the city of Poitiers in 1152, a marriage that truly changed history, when the young Duke of Normandy, Henry Fitz Empress, took Eleanor, the former Queen of France and Duchess of Aquitaine, as his wife. Here is a brief scene from their wedding night in Saints, page 646, as they enjoy a late-night supper in bed and Eleanor regales Henry with tales of her infamous grandfather, the duke known as the first troubadour.
* * *
Henry brushed back her hair. “Tell me more,” he urged, and she shivered with pleasure as he kissed the hollow of 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 with a tail, we’ll name after the good abbot.” Eleanor reached for a dish of strawberries in sugared syrup, popping one neatly into his mouth. He fed her the next one, and when she licked the sugar from his fingers, as daintily as a cat, his body was suddenly suffused in heat. Dipping his finger in the syrup, he coated one of her nipples. She looked startled but intrigued, and when he lowered his mouth to her breast, she exhaled her breath in a drawn-out sigh. “Abbot Bernard preaches that sin is all around us,” she said throatily, “but I doubt that even he ever thought to warn against strawberries.”
“He’d likely have an apoplectic seizure if he only knew what can be done with honey,” Henry predicted and Eleanor began to laugh.
“I think,” she said, “that you and I are going to have a very interesting marriage.”
Henry thought so, too. “I want you, Eleanor.”
Her eyes reflected the candle flame, but brighter and hotter, making promises that would have provided Abbot Bernard with a full year of new sermons. “My lord duke,” she said, “tonight all of Aquitaine is yours for the taking.”
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