Susan Higginbotham's Blog: History Refreshed by Susan HIgginbotham, page 37

Steal a Look at The Stolen Crown

I noticed tonight that the "Look Inside" feature on The Stolen Crown's Amazon page has gone live, so head on over and take a peek!

Here are some Amazon statistics for you:

A search for the word "Richard" in The Stolen Crown turns up 227 results.

A search for the word "Edward" turns up 175 results.

A search for the word "Henry" turns up 109 results.

A search for the word "Anne" turns up 71 results.

A search for the word "Melusine" turns up no results. See, I promised you!

Margaret of Anjou Does Facebook

You'll be glad to know that as I'm snowed in, I've taken advantage of the occasion to create a Facebook page for Margaret of Anjou. Do stop by and become a fan. Margaret loves fans, even when they're not guys with the last name of Beaufort.

A few search terms:

the duke did not discuss his feelings with the duchess because he

Some men just can't get in touch with themselves, no matter how many self-help books we make them read.

what she done elizabeth woodville

Nothin'! She ain't done nothin'!

corp...

Harry Buckingham Gets Arrested: 1471

It's generally known that Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was arrested and executed in 1483 after joining the failed rebellion against Richard III, and it's often hypothesized that Harry was impelled to rebel in part because he was a closet Lancastrian. But did you know that in 1471, Harry was arrested--as a Yorkist sympathizer?

Harry, whose father had died in 1458 and whose grandfather the first duke had died in 1460, was a ward of the crown. He was first placed by Edward IV with Edward's...

This and That

Margaret of Anjou and company have been demanding this week, so this is going to be a short and miscellaneous post.

First, as the owner of three cats and a dog, I know well that my chief duty in life is to keep the pantry stocked with food, and Brandy Purdy (who shares an agent with me) has similar responsibilities. So make her very ample cat happy and pick up a copy of her novel, The Boleyn Wife! It's a lively read about a perennially fascinating subject, Henry VIII and his wives, told from t...

Another Eleanor: The Duchess of Somerset and Her Sons

Born in 1408, Eleanor Beauchamp was the second of three daughters of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and his countess, Elizabeth Berkeley. (Despenser tidbit: through her mother, Eleanor Beauchamp was a descendant of Hugh le Despenser and Eleanor de Clare through their youngest daughter, Elizabeth, who married into the Berkeley family.) She married Thomas, Lord Ros, after 1423. Ros was killed in France on August 18, 1430, leaving behind a son, Thomas, who was born on September 9, 1427. Ele...

Your Favorite Henrys

Of the 39 people who voted for their favorite King Henry, Henry II won, with 15 votes. Henry VIII and Henry V each got 7. Henry VII managed 4 votes, Henry III 3, Henry VI 2, and Henry I 1. Poor Henry IV got no votes. Ian Mortimer, where are you?

Richard III: Friend of Womankind?

In a particularly hagiographic passage in Richard the Third, Paul Murray Kendall writes, "[O:]ften Richard scattered small gifts like a benevolent agent of Providence . . . to Anne Caux, 'once the nurse of Edward IV,' he gave £20 yearly 'in consideration of her poverty'; Katherine Vaux, the faithful lady in waiting to his old enemy Queen Margaret, received an annuity of 20 marks. He relieved the distress of wives of rebels whose property had been forfeited: he granted an annuity to the Duchess...

The Age of Henry Stafford, Second Duke of Buckingham

Although Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham, hasn't suffered the same fate as his wife, whose actual age at the time of the couple's marriage in 1465 or possibly 1466 is often tripled by modern writers who are either superficial in their research and/or eager to depict the Woodvilles in the worst possible light, his own date of birth has often been a matter for confusion. So what is it?

According to the Complete Peerage and the current Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Henry Staf...

Another Woodville Myth

While updating my website this morning, I added the myth that Elizabeth Woodville concealed Edward IV's death from Richard, Duke of Gloucester to the Myths About Elizabeth Woodville page. It's a revised version of a blog post I did some time ago, but as some new readers have come to my blog since then (and since the myth keeps popping up), I thought I'd add it here as well.

Among the modern myths that have grown up around Elizabeth Woodville, one of the most pervasive is that when Edward IV di...

Did the Woodvilles Raid the Treasury?

Of all the stories that have circulated about the Woodville family, surely one of the most damning, and one of the most beloved by the Woodvilles' modern-day detractors, is the story that Elizabeth Woodville, her son Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, and her brother Edward helped themselves to the royal treasury after Edward IV died. But does the story stand up to scrutiny?

The story comes from a single contemporary source: The Usurpation of Richard the Third by Dominic Mancini. After discussin...