Susan Higginbotham's Blog: History Refreshed by Susan HIgginbotham, page 40

A Winner!

Congratulations to Julianne Douglas, who will be receiving a copy of The Traitor's Wife! Hope you enjoy it, Julianne!

While I'm here, I'd like to remember Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, the co-narrator and hero (antihero if you will) of my forthcoming novel, The Stolen Crown. Henry was executed at Salisbury on November 2, 1483, for his role in the rebellion against Richard III that bears his name. Henry's own motives for rebelling against the man he helped to bring to power will probably ...

Happy Halloween!

Just dropping by to wish you all a rather belated Halloween. Here's Boswell in his hot dog costume:



I'll probably be rather quiet for the next few days, as I've got page proofs of The Stolen Crown to review and am getting on with the Margaret of Anjou novel (it's not been a very good time for dukes or for the English in France).

In Which I Breathe New Life Into an Old Cliche

Let sleeping dogs (and a cat) lie:



(Boswell's brother Merritt, who lives with my parents, is visiting while my parents are at Disney World with my great-nephews. Unlike certain people I can think of, we are nice to our nephews in our family.)

New Things and Giveaways

First, I want to congratulate Alianore and Lady D on their new Edward II website! It looks great, and is chock-full of information. Stop on by and soak up the Edward II knowledge it contains.

Second, I've put a couple of new letters in the In Their Own Words section of my own website, these from Richard III and Henry VII to their respective mothers. I have to say I think Henry's letter is the more personal and friendly, but take a look and see what you think.

Third, Michele over at Reader's Res...

Some Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII

In my gambling post, I mentioned some of Henry VII's expenses for gambling. Here are some more of his expenses. They give a rather broader view of Henry than that of the miserable miser:

To a fello with a berde a spye in rewarde, £1.

To Carter for writing of a boke, 7s. 4d.

To one that brought the King a lyon in rewarde, £2. 13s. 4d.

To my Lady [of:] York mynstrels in rewarde, £1.
[This lady was Cecily, Duchess of York:]

To the childe that playeth on the records, £1.

To bere drunken at a fermors house...

In Which I Fall Into Bad Company

I was checking my website statistics this morning, and on the page that lists links from which people reached my website, I found that no fewer than three people came from this site:

http://wvjails.info/

Beats me, but if you're on that site for a good reason (or, as seems more likely, for a bad reason) and have some time to kill (I don't mean that literally, folks) while you're waiting to call your lawyer, you might be interested in reading this post on Richard III and bail I did a while back. ...

Medieval Gambling

I'm back from the annual general meeting of the American Branch of the Richard III Society, which took place in, of all places, Las Vegas. Since the Saturday banquet was a costume-optional occasion, this gave me the opportunity to strut through a casino floor wearing a medieval gown and hennin, an opportunity I will surely not have again any time soon.

My fellow Woodvillians were either too busy with their fulfilling lives elsewhere to make it or hadn't had time to practice the secret Woodvill...

Some Website Additions, and a Support Group

First, if you haven't seen it already, do stop by Alianore's blog for The Support Group for People Unfairly Maligned in Historical Fiction. It's hilarious, and, alas, all too true! I was pleased to see that Margaret of Anjou (maligned as an adulteress), Katherine Woodville (maligned as a child molester of the young Harry Buckingham), and William Hastings (maligned as a rapist of a virgin peasant girl) all showed up, as did Richard III (treated as impossibly bad or impossibly good). Do check o...

Eleanor le Despenser Gets a New Dress

The other day, I was fooling around on eBay (a place I really have no business being). As is my wont, I did a search for "Despenser" (among other searches) and lo and behold, what appeared but a doll costume entitled "Eleanor le Despenser"! I said to myself, "Self, if there's one person in the world who truly needs this, it is you!" (Talk about niche marketing.) So in the great tradition of consumerism, I pressed the "Bid" button, and in due course, I won the auction and received my item.

Unfo...

What I Read This Summer, and a Couple of Things I'm Looking Forward To

Following are some reviews I did for the August issue of the Historical Novels Reviews. First, though, I'd like to mention that there are some nonfiction books I'm chomping at the bit to read! First is Arlene Okerlund's biography of Elizabeth of York, who to my knowledge has been the subject of only one previous biography, that by Nancy Lenz Harvey. Harvey applied novelistic techniques to her biography, which focused mainly on Elizabeth's life before her marriage to Henry VII, so I'm looking ...