Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 57

One of my favorite characters and one I enjoyed killing off

September 4th 1199 was the death date for one of my favorite female characters, Joanna, Queen of Sicily and Countess of Toulouse, the daughter most like her celebrated mother. Joanna really put me through the wringer; not that it was much fun for her, either. It always seems so sad to me when my characters die of ailments that could be treated in the 21st century. It doesn’t seem fair that they are doomed for the sin of being born in the wrong century.
It is also the birthdate in 1454 of the Duke of Buckingham; any reader of Sunne knows my opinion of him. A pity his mother did not practice birth control.

Of truces, fires,and marathons

September 3rd is another one of those days when a lot was happening from a historical standpoint, although only one such happening was medieval. On September 3, 1192, Richard I and Saladin signed the peace treaty (actually a truce) that officially ended the Third Crusade and gave Christians access again to Jerusalem. Richard was still very ill from malaria at the time and had not fully recovered when he left sailed from Acre a month later; had he only known what was in store for him, he may have considered starting life anew in Outremer. Saladin’s future was equally bleak, for he’d worn himself out with the constant warfare and died the following March, by which time Richard was an involuntary guest of the Holy Roman Emperor, Heinrich.
In non-medieval occurrences: On this date in 31 BC, the battle of Actium was fought, resulting in a victory for Octavian and a defeat for Mark Antony that would doom him and his lover, Cleopatra. Even further back, on this date in 490 BC, Pheidippides, a Greek messenger, purportedly ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of a great Greek victory, after which he dropped over dead---or so the story goes, according to Plutarch. Other historians have been a bit more skeptical. But whether this happened or not, we continue to run marathons to this day---well, I don’t, not being a masochist!
Lastly, on this date in 1666, the Great Fire of London began; before it was done, 80% of the city had burned.

German Shepherd Property Laws

For anyone wanting to start the day off with a laugh, click here to see the German Shepherd Property Laws. Actually, none of my shepherds---none of my dogs—subscribed to these rules, at least not with me. With one another, definitely! But I think it is funny and bet most of you will, too. http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/...

The king and the sultan

Two important historical figures died on August 31st, one of whom I find quite intriguing and one whom I do not. On this date in 1422, Henry V died at the age of 35, his premature death dramatically changing the course of English history, for he was succeeded by his young son, the hapless Henry VI, who would find himself caught up in the Wars of the Roses. Henry V is considered to be one of England’s great warrior kings, but I have never been drawn to this man. I acknowledge he was a superb soldier, but I have never had any inclination to write about him. On the other hand, I find the other man who died on August 31st (1218) to be quite intriguing: al Malik al-Adil, the younger brother of Saladin, who would later become Sultan of Egypt. He was a very competent commander, better than his more celebrated brother, and a very shrewd politician, an astute practitioner of the most dangerous game of all—the pursuit of power. He made a few appearances in Lionheart, having become very friendly with Richard, who called him “my brother.” Richard even knighted one of al-Adil’s sons! He will appear again in Outremer. Already he has gotten two important scenes, one with Balian d’Ibelin and one with his favorite wife as Cairo braces for the planned invasion by the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Because he is so much fun to write about, I am sure he’ll have much more time on center stage. But if you are still determined to read about Henry V, you can find him in Bernard Cornwell’s brilliant novel about his most famous victory, Agincourt.

John's other wife

On August 29th, 1189, Eleanor and Henry’s son John wed the heiress to the rich estates of Gloucester. For a woman who might have become queen of England, she is oddly invisible. Even her name is uncertain. She is usually called Isabel, but she’s also been called Avisa and Hawisa. John and Isabel were second cousins—she was the granddaughter of Robert of Gloucester, the Empress Maude’s brother and mainstay—and because they did not seek a dispensation, the Archbishop of Canterbury placed their lands under Interdict, although the Pope later lifted it. One story has it that this was done with the proviso that John and Isabel were not to have sexual relations, but I don’t know if this is true or not. It couldn’t have helped marital relations when John agreed in 1193 to put Isabel aside and marry the unfortunate Alys, Philippe’s sister, who was Henry’s alleged mistress and Richard’s long-time betrothed. But John’s failure to seek a dispensation gave him a convenient Get out of Jail card, allowing him to seek an annulment soon after he became king. He then showed how a crafty king can have his cake and eat it, too, taking his former wife into wardship as an unmarried heiress! This allowed him to enjoy the revenues from Isabel’s lands while keeping her in limbo.
John then wed the twelve year old Isabelle d’Angouleme, who was said to be quite beautiful; chroniclers were scandalized that John often stayed in her bed till noon. So while it was usual to postpone consummating a marriage when the bride was very young, it would appear that John jumped the gun, so to speak. Fortunately for Isabelle, she did not get pregnant for six years. In that, she was luckier than Henry Tudor’s mother, who gave birth to him at age thirteen, and was never able to have another child. Isabelle, of course, proved to be very fertile, presenting John with two sons and three daughters, and then giving her second husband a baker’s dozen. Slight exaggeration there, but she produced enough children to make life difficult for Henry III. They swarmed the English royal court like locusts and much of his unpopularity could be traced to his attempts to provide for his rapacious half-brothers and sisters.
Poor Isabel of Gloucester; she gets shoved off center stage even here, eclipsed by John’s gorgeous trophy wife. She was about twenty-two at the time of her marriage to John, and she survived John by a year, dying at age fifty in October, 1217. She made two subsequent marriages, but not until she was past her childbearing years, so she was denied the opportunity to have children because John kept her in wardship for 15 years. In 1214, the Earl of Essex paid John the huge sum of 20, 000 marks to wed her; it is possible the earl was coerced into this. He and Isabel were understandably outraged when John retained control of the most valuable manor, Bristol, and they joined the rebellion against him in 1216. The earl died that year of injuries suffered in a tournament, and Isabel wed Hubert de Burgh in 1217, dying just a month after that marriage. If we know little about Richard’s Berengaria, we know nothing about Isabel, another one of medieval history’s female ghosts.

The butterfly effect

Most of you probably have heard of the butterfly effect—the theory that even a very minor action can have very complex results. This article shows that there can be a butterfly effect in acts of kindness. A very heartening story at a time when we need one. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-inspi...

More Game of Thornes speculation

Life slows down as summer ends. The football season has not started yet. Nor as the new television season. We are being bombarded by political lunacy, though, so we are desperately in need of an escape from reality. What better time to do some speculating about the convoluted, arcane Game of Thrones plot? So here is a new theory about Jon Snow’s identity. I don’t buy it myself, but as I said, we’re in need of diversion. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/j...

The troublesome duke and the forgotten queen

Two medieval deaths to report on August 25th. Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, died in 1192 at Acre, after falling ill. At the time, Richard was gravely ill at Jaffa, hovering near death from an attack of malaria, but according to the chroniclers, this news set him on the road to recovery. And in 1482, Marguerite d’Anjou died, alone and forgotten--at least her body did. I think her heart died on the field with her son at Tewkesbury eleven years earlier.

August 24th, one of history's busiest dates

So many important historical events occurred on an August 24th that I’ll practically have to write a novella to mention them all. In chronological order, here they are
August 24, 79 BC Mt Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, on the day after the festival of the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. For years, it was thought that Mt Vesuvius erupted on August 24th, 79 AD, destroying Pompeii and two other towns, but some historians now think it occurred in October. I don’t know which date is correct, but here is an eye-witness account of the tragedy. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/po...
August 24, 410 AD The Visigoths sacked the city of Rome. And on August 24th, 455 AD, it happened again, or almost did; this time it was the Vandals who were about to sack the city. But after their king met with Pope Leo, the Vandals turned around and left Rome in their dust I saw a movie about this as a child and I remember being fascinated, wanting so much to know what the pope could have said to convince the Vandal king to spare the city. It was disillusioning years later to learn that this mystery was so easily solved—the mother of all bribes.
August 24, 1113 Geoffrey le Bel, Count of Anjou, reluctant husband of the Empress Maude, father of Henry II, was born.
August 24, 1200 King John wed 12 year old Isabelle d’Angouleme
August 24, 1215 Pope Innocent III obligingly annulled the Magna Carta, unwillingly signed by John barely two months earlier
August 24, 1217 In a sea battle fought off the coast of Sandwich, the English prevailed over the French. The pirate chieftain Eustace the Monk was captured and beheaded on the deck of his own ship. John’s illegitimate son, Richard, an important character in Here be Dragons, was one of the heroes of this battle—and am I the only fascinated by the fact that John would have named not one, but two sons after the brother he’d tried to destroy? An interesting aside; if my memory serves, the English sailors threw powdered lime into the French ships, blinding some of the crew.
August 24, 1349 In a panic as the bubonic plague swept across Europe, people looked for scapegoats and, sadly to be expected, blamed the Jews. Over six thousand men, women, and children died in the German town of Mainz. In a scenario reminiscent of the massacre of the Jews of York in 1191, the Mainz Jews, trapped in their barricaded houses and knowing they were doomed, set fire to their homes and died in the inferno. It was never easy to be a Jew in the MA, but it was particularly dangerous to be a German Jew, for the worst pogroms occurred in the German cities, starting with the First Crusade.
Lastly, on August 24, 1572, the St Barnabas Day massacre began in Paris, with the slaughter of at least two thousand French Huguenots. The killing then spread into the countryside; it is impossible to be sure of the number of people who lost their lives, with 10,000 often given as the most likely figure. The man who would become my favorite French king, the 19 year old Henri of Navarre, who’d just wed the king’s sister, Marguerite of Valois, was saved by his bride, although he was then forced to embrace the Catholic faith. He was held at the royal court, but when he was able to escape in 1576, he at once renounced his forced baptism and proclaimed himself still a Huguenot. His marriage to Marguerite failed and ironically he would later voluntarily become a Catholic when that was price of kingship, supposedly saying “Paris is worth a Mass.” These bloody events are dramatized by C.W. Gortner in his novel, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici,, which I recommend.

"There are bears in our pool!"

Many of you have probably seen this video already, for it quickly went viral. The first link is to the shorter version, showing a mama bear and her five cubs (yes, five!) cooling off in a NJ family’s backyard pool and playing with the toys. For bear lovers, the second link is to a much longer video of the bears’ visit, with sound effects from the watching human family, who had mixed feelings about their furry visitors. My sympathies are with the mother bear; imagine trying to ride herd on five mischievous babies…..yikes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMRmM...
https://whttps://www.youtube.com/watc...