Gillian Polack's Blog, page 78

Women's History Month - guest post by Faye Ringel

She is the author of New England's Gothic Literature: History and Folklore of the Supernatural from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries (E. Mellen Press, 1995); she has published articles in The Companion to the American Gothic (Wiley-Blackwell 2013) and in many other reference books, collections, and journals. Her CD of traditional music is Hot Chestnuts: Old Songs, Endearing Charms. Currently, she plays keyboard and sings with the Jewish traditional band Klezmenschen, with April Grant as the Midnight Belles.

A Tribute to Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler was Guest of Honor at Readercon 14 (July 12-14, 2002): I was accorded the immense privilege of serving as her interviewer. One of the many great things about Readercon is their serious treatment of the Writer Guests of Honor, including this one-hour interview with no program scheduled against it. Without exaggeration, that hour spent in her company was the peak experience of my life. I was too busy listening to record her answers to my questions, but it was not only her words—it was the entire Gestalt: her manner, which was imposing, regal—yet equally shy, at times hesitant, at times eloquent—always enthralling. The photographs of her so easily accessible online do not do her justice. She had Presence. The Readercon audience, full of fans who tend to lack the niceties of social behavior, were quiet and leaned forward on the edge of their seats.

I had offered to show Ms. Butler the questions in advance, but she declined. She answered each one graciously, considering her responses seriously without an “interrupter” (um, like, etc.) to be heard. How I wish her voice had not been stilled in 2006. What a devastating loss that was! She was still young—just 58—and she had so much more to write.

Should you want more biographical information, the Wikipedia article appears to be accurate (even if it does omit her Guest of Honor stint at Readercon). Its bibliography is—of course—incomplete. These days, Butler is one of the most often analyzed writers in any genre of the fantastic: searching on her name in the Modern Language Association database yields a longer list than any other writer I checked. Her novel Kindred has found a secure place in the canon of literature assigned in college, in courses ranging from American Studies to African-American Literature to English Comp.

Because I did not record her answers in any medium, I must draw on the document with the questions and my memory for the following. In 2002, she had just completed the stipend period for the MacArthur Foundation unrestricted "genius" grant that she had won in 1995. I was humbled by her account of what that money meant to her—everything. Neither she nor her mother had ever lived in a house that they owned until the MacArthur grant enabled her to buy one. She was the ideal recipient: the money enabled her to live and work slowly (her preference) and to revisit and edit her earlier published fiction. The “authorized editions” we now have would never have existed without the grant.

I wish I could remember all her answers! Here are a few I do remember: “In Parable of the Talents, Olamina's daughter Larkin/ Asha Vere describes her mother as ‘a somewhat reluctant optimist.’ How accurate is that as a description of you?” She agreed: Despite all evidence to the contrary, she said she held on to hope.

I followed that question with a specific instance: “The breakdown of American society portrayed in the Parables called "The Pox" is similar in many respects to that found in Clay's Ark--both extrapolate existing trends of poverty, violence, increasing division between haves and have-nots-- but the aftermath or results are very different. Could you comment on this?” I remember her saying that it was easy to write destructive apocalyptic fiction and more difficult to write believable yet optimistic science fiction. Remember that this was before the current wave of popularity for YA dystopian novels, many of which have unrealistic “happy endings,” wish-fulfillment fantasies where the young point of view characters bring down the evil repressive state and restore democracy.


I asked about a few common threads in her work:

Family: In Parable of the Talents, Olamina observes that "kids were the key to most of these adults"--and it is so. The urge to generativity—to parent, not necessarily to reproduce
Examples: Patternist novels: the mutant gene from the stars causes humans to reproduce, but their humanity causes them to love the resulting families of clayark mutants.

Xenogenesis: the human desperation for children causing the resister humans to steal children—even knowing they are construct hybrids. In turn, Lilith and the others who mate with the Oankali deeply love their children, and come to believe that the loss of species identity is worth the sacrifice

The Parables: adoption across race and class is a given, and adults seem to exist only to nurture their children. One of the unusual conditions of this dystopia is that this future has abandoned birth control, that everyone seems to be having children, naturally or by stealing them.

She agreed with all my examples, and she spoke movingly about her own single, childless state. I hope she knew before her death how deeply she had inspired an entire generation of Black women writers of the fantastic, and how they thought of her as a mother.

Symbiosis: So much of your work is about the benefits of symbiosis and the dangers of parasitism, rather than the simpler relationships of predator and prey. For example:

In Adulthood Rites, Nikanj compares the Oankali to “normal” human relationships with our mitochondria and other helpful bacteria:
“So many very different things are working together to keep him alive. Inside his cells, mitochondria, a previously independent form of life, have found a haven and trade their ability to synthesize proteins and metabolize fats for room to live and reproduce. We’re in his cells too now, and the cells have accepted us. One Oankali organism within each cell, dividing with each cell, extending life, and resisting disease. Even before we arrived, they had bacteria living in their intestines and protecting them from other bacteria that would hurt or kill them. They could not exist without symbiotic relationships with other creatures.” (427)

In Clay’s Ark, the “invaders” from Proxima Centauri are also symbionts: “We’re the future. . . We’re the sporangia of the dominant life form of Proxi Two—the receptacles that produce the spores of that life form. If we survive, if our children survive, it will be because we fulfill our purpose—because we spread the organism.” These organisms also convey enhanced strength and near-immortal resistance to disease.

In Parable of the Talents:

Partnering: from Earthseed: The Books of the Living:
Partnership is mutualistic symbiosis. Partnership is life.
. . . Partner diverse communities. Partner life. . . . Partner God. Only in partnership can we thrive, grow, Change. Only in Partnership can we live.

In Kindred, Dana seems to tied to her hated ancestor the white slave-owner Rufus: she depends on his continued survival for her own existence; he in turn controls her with emotional blackmail and threats. Is this a comment on the symbiotic as well as parasitic relationships of chattel slavery?

The Hugo and Nebula-winning “Bloodchild” has been read—she said it has been misread—as an allegory of slavery and colonialism. Instead, in person and in the Afterword, she read it as being about symbiosis—“a story about paying the rent.” When humans land on far-off planets, “It wouldn’t be the British Empire in Space, it wouldn’t be Star Trek. Sooner or later, the humans would have to make some kind of accommodation with their um. . . their hosts. [. . . ] Who knows what we humans have that others might be willing to take in trade for a livable space on a world not our own?”

In responding, she paid me the compliment of saying she had never realized how thoroughly the theme of symbiosis pervaded her own writing. She described being inspired by the revolutionary biology of Lynn Margulis, herself long considered an “outsider scientist. ” [She continued writing this theme into her work, most notably in her final novel, Fledgling, published just before her death in 2006.]

I asked “How does it feel to create a religion? Heinlein's Church of All Worlds from Stranger in a Strange Land has had a strange afterlife of its own—have you heard anything about fannish or mundane-world adaptations of Earthseed?” I remember her low amused chuckle as she said “Of course not.”

But such creations have a habit of outliving their sub-creators. According to Wikipedia—and the organizations’ websites—Earthseed has inspired new religions in the real world: A “social movement” called SolSeed, reveres Octavia Butler as “The Shaper” and declares “The SolSeed movement is a real-life community inspired by Earthseed. They've adopted the fulfillment of The Destiny as their purpose both literally and metaphorically. They work to shape the world around us into patterns that bring more life.” Earthseed has also inspired the Terasem Faith, another movement combining religion, science, and futuristic technology.

Octavia Butler is honored (more appropriately, perhaps) by The Afro-Futurist movement, who revere her as a Foremother. Most recently, they gathered at the Brooklyn Museum Feb. 20—how I wish I could have been there!—to present “Fantastic Futures: Black Women Writers in Conversation with Octavia Butler's Legacy.” Novelist N.K. Jemisin, poet and professor Mendi D. Lewis, artist and writer Kiini Ibura Salaam, and writer and storyteller Ibi Zoboi used “audio and video clips to engage in conversation with Butler's fantastic ideas, visions, and brilliance.” We can read her books—and do the same!

gillpolack @ 2014-03-06T10:15:00

Yesterday was not a good day except for my lovely students in the morning. As a result of yesterday not being a good day, I did vast, vast amounts of administration and sorting and getting stuff in order. This is the good part. The not-so-good part was that you didn't get your WHM post. I like this guest and her words particularly, too, so I shall just put it all down to yesterday not being a good day. Give me five minutes and at least one small aspect of yesterday will be redeemed.

gillpolack @ 2014-03-05T15:35:00

My update on "Self as Schroedinger's Superstitious Duck" is that there is no real change. I have had interviews for permanent jobs*, but no job offers. I have stuff out with editors and out with editors and out with editors and out with editors (one is reaching 7 years, but all I'm trying to do at this stage with that one is get them to say "OK, so we didn't really want this after all") but no contracts. Except when there are (but always for short work).

What happens when I get a set-back? I paddle faster underwater. I'm discussing this with one of my various overlords tomorrow.

I'm also going to the Aurealis Awards. This is unexpected, for I was supposed to be in Melbourne - this doesn't mean I'm being given anything, though, it means it's my university hosting them and so I get to present something. And I'm going to Continuum. I don't know how I shall afford all this and LonCon, but I'll work at it and make it happen. Much paddling. Much, much, much paddling.

Since my Wednesday class now meets in a library, I'm getting them used to the idea of working with books. Extensively. Reading one a week. Writing about them. Being inspired by them. Learning what makes them tick. They love the book-a-week I instituted a couple of weeks ago and today I heard all kinds of report-backs. The word of the day was complimentary/complementary and when using 'free' is more sensible. As ought to have been the case in an email I received the other day.

I've taught these folks for more than seven years, and in that time they've become fully culturally literate and been published and done all the things that creative writers are supposed to do. They work harder than any writing group I know. They overcome obstacles that other people don't know exist. And they cushioned my difficult time by telling me today that if I didn't get a job, they would throw a celebration party.



*Apparently even being long-listed is worthy of celebration right now, for the job market is beyond dire.

Women's History Month - guest post by Sharyn Lilley

Sharyn Lilley is an author, with horror steampunk and fantasy short stories. Her first YA science fiction series will be coming out this year with Snapping Turtle. In past incarnations during this lifespan, she has been a musician, editor and publisher.

Esther Abrahams.

This year I am choosing to write about a convict from the First Fleet. I freely admit, my choice was made by considering the hatred, misinformation and demonization the Australian Government and our media are handing out on a daily basis. Also because this goes back to my personal history; one of my ancestors came out here on the First Fleet. I’m not proud of what they did to the Aboriginal people, but I’m less proud of the fact that our history is not taught fully. If it was, more people would know that the Black Wars did not finish in Australia until quite a long way into the 20th Century, and they’d also know about Esther Abrahams.
Esther Abrahams was a remarkable woman On the face of it she should have sunk without trace. A pregnant teenager, sentenced to seven years out here, and shipped off with her newborn. Instead she became the First Lady of NSW. Born in 1771, Esther Abrahams, also known as Esther Julian (after a Judeo/Spanish family) and Esther Johnston, is variously described as having been a prostitute and a milliner. There is a portrait of her here and she appears to be giving the artist the same sort of ‘hurry-up’ look I have been known to bestow upon photographers.

Persecution of England’s Jewish communities could be quite brutal, and came in waves over hundreds of years. A recent archaeological dig found seventeen bodies, eleven of which were children as young as two, and five of whom were identified positively as being from the same family. This group had been murdered in the 13th Century. This blog gives you some insights into that case. These are the attitudes and actions that informed most interaction between Christians and Jews, it’s hard to believe that things were any better in the 1780s, especially when there is considerable conjecture that Jews may have deliberately committed petty crimes to get away from such entrenched hatreds.

Was she a prostitute? She was listed as such in her court appearance, but given how Jewish women’s sexuality was perceived to deviant, destructive and insatiable (I remember the first time I came across this construction in a 19th C novel – I no longer recall the novel, for as I read more, I came across this ‘othering’ more and more – but I vividly recall the wtf-ness of the first time I came across it) it’s hard to not give her the benefit of the doubt as there appear to be no other documentation saying she was.

So was Esther guilty of stealing some lace? Well, she was found guilty, though the evidence was only circumstantial, and she had good references. You can read part of the transcript from her trial here (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17860830-4-punish22&div=t17860830-4 ) and despite good character witnesses, and a petition for Royal mercy, she gave birth to her daughter, Roseanna, in Newgate, and mother and child were shipped out to the colonies for seven years.

On board, Esther met George Johnston, a First Lieutenant of the Marines. It’s tempting to give them a rosy love story, for they went on to have seven children together, but the realities are she was most likely either raped, or traded favours to get food for herself and her child at least, at first. However George Johnston (yes, that one from the Rum Rebellion) Esther and their family named their farm Annandale, now a suburb of Sydney, for his birthplace in Scotland.

In 1808, he overthrew the Governor, William Bligh, in the Rum Rebellion (yes, yes, but it’s not about him!) He became for a time the Lieutenant-Governor of NSW, and Esther his de facto First Lady. People made a great deal over the fact that our first female Prime Minister was unmarried. It amused me no end, for if they had known their history, they’d have stopped pillorying her as ‘the first ever’ – Ms Gillard was definitely our first ever female PM, and our first ever atheist PM, but she was not the first ever unmarried woman in a position of political power.

On top of all the political support Esther had to give her partner, she also did the day to day farming of the land, the cattle, etc, while he had to absent himself from New South Wales at various times. This included a four year period following the Rum Rebellion. In 1809, Esther received a land grant of her own. We don’t know what her interactions were with the Aboriginal people whose land it really was. But reading W. H. Suttor’s memories of early colonial life (his Grandfather was a friend to Windradyne) it would be difficult to assume her interactions were any different to other settlers, they were here to take and hold land under the legal fiction of Terra Nullis, and those involved with the Rum Rebellion weren’t noted for softness of character. I have been told she had a predilection for racing, unfortunately I’ve not found linkable sources for this. But with the Australian character noted for being the type to gamble on two flies crawling up a wall, this tidbit into her personality amuses me greatly.

George returned, and they married in 1814, in an Anglican ceremony. But they only had a few more years together as George died in 1823. His will said that their son Robert was to inherit Annandale on Esther’s death. However when, in 1829, Esther announced that she wished to mortgage the property and return to England, Robert had his mother declared insane, claiming she had become an alcoholic and that the estate had declined. He took the property and forced her to go live with her son David.

Esther died in 1846. And the end of her story leaves as many questions unanswered as the start of her story – but she was one hell of a woman to have not only survived such times, but to have lived and loved well.

gillpolack @ 2014-03-04T19:55:00

I've won my manga bet with over a half day to spare, and still time to finish the other reading. This is because of a bad piece of breathing I am enduring.

I try not to write under the influence of asthma, because the lower oxygen in me tends to result in poor thinking. I'm better tonight, though, so I shall write a bit then read a bit, then read a bit more, then wonder where the time went.

The manga was unexpectedly useful work-wise. Not for this current chapter, nor for the weekend's writing, but for the research I'm doing once that lot is out of the way. I'm beginning to suspect that what teens read and enjoy reading can be exceptionally dark. I enjoy the dark (but not the splatter), but the fuss about one of Margo's books made me think that it wasn't quite YA. These books have all passed through my hands, however, because a 14 year old loves them and wants to share.

Tomorrow is my Wednesday class. I need something special for them, for we're in our third location this term. While I write and read, I shall think.

Women's History Month - guest post by Brian Wainwright

When considering John Talbot (1384-1453) first Earl of Shrewsbury, and his second wife, Margaret Beauchamp (1404-1468) it is difficult to decide which of the pair was the more formidable. John Talbot was a sort of fifteenth-century Field-Marshal Montgomery, a famous soldier who spent much of his adult life fighting first against Owain Glyndwr’s Welsh supporters, and later in numerous campaigns against the French. An English hero in his time (though largely forgotten now) he was hated and feared by his enemies in roughly equal measure. When dealing with rivals in England he was every bit as ruthless as he was in war, and not at all reluctant to make use of outright violence.

As for the Countess Margaret, whom he married in 1425, she had inherited a feud of her own with her Berkeley cousins. Her mother had been the only child of Thomas, 5th Lord Berkeley – the cousins were Berkeley’s heirs-male. The resulting dispute over the family lands ran on for decades, and like her husband, Margaret was none too nice in her dealings. After Lord Berkeley had attacked Margaret’s manor at Wotton-under-Edge (in 1452), she had her son respond by seizing Berkeley Castle itself and taking Lord Berkeley prisoner. She also arranged for Lady Berkeley to be thrown into prison, where the lady died next year. (The feud was patched for a time by a marriage between Lord Berkeley and Margaret’s step-daughter – but that was by no means the end of it.)

This delightful couple had three sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Viscount Lisle, died with his father at the Battle of Castillon. The second, Sir Lewis Talbot, died in 1458 – possibly of violence, although the facts are sketchy. The youngest son, Sir Humphrey, lived a quieter life, initially as a retainer of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk, and died in 1492 while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

The two Talbot sisters are the main subject of this article. One may have been the rightful Queen of England. The other became a duchess, and mother-in-law of one of the Princes of the Tower. Both have a place in the ongoing saga of Richard III.

Eleanor was married to Thomas Butler, heir to Ralph, Lord Sudeley, a Lancastrian, when she was approx. 14 years old. This was in some ways an unambitious match, as the Butlers of Sudeley were not of magnate rank. They would have been regarded as having only local importance but for the family’s long tradition of personal service to the Lancastrian kings, which gave them influence at court. Having said this, it is important to recognise that Shrewsbury himself was a ‘new man’ a first earl, promoted through the peerage because of his exceptional military service.

Thomas Butler died around 1461, during the lifetime of his father. His stepmother was Alice Deincourt, Lady Lovel. This Alice, who was Francis Lovel’s' grandmother, was governess to Edward (Lancastrian) Prince of Wales. She petitioned to be released from the job in 1460 because a) he was old enough to be ruled by men and b) her own infirmities.

Elizabeth Talbot, while young had married the Mowbray heir and become Countess of Warenne. This was a much greater marriage than Eleanor’s and lined her up to be one of the greatest ladies in England, Duchess of Norfolk after her father-in-law died in 1462. After Thomas Butler’s death she seems to have gradually assumed the role of protectress of her sister, who eventually spent most of her time living within the Mowbray sphere of influence in East Anglia.

Eleanor quite possibly caught Edward's eye when she petitioned him about her dower rights. (Edward was in Norwich in May and October of 1461), though the Butler family were acquainted already with him since Lord Sudeley's sister, Elizabeth Butler, Lady Say, was his godmother. Some difficulty had been caused by the transfer of lands to Eleanor without royal licence. This issue was resolved, but Eleanor’s property remained small, to say the least – the consequence of her husband dying during his father’s lifetime.

If Richard III’s accession statute, Titulus Regius is to be believed, at some point before Edward IV’s purported marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464, King Edward went through an irregular marriage with Eleanor and the relationship was consummated. An irregular marriage was one conducted without the full rites of the church and in private without publication of banns. Even the participation of a priest was not required to make it binding. Such marriages could be ‘regularised’ by obtaining a dispensation. Edward’s own grandparents had been through exactly the same process and sought a dispensation. Edward did not bother, either in Eleanor’s case or after his equally irregular marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. Why he did not in the case of Elizabeth is something of a mystery. One possibility is that he was idle and ill-advised. Another is that (if he had committed bigamy) he did not want to tell lies to the Pope.

It is sometimes asked why, if Eleanor was married to Edward, she did not come forward and protest after his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was announced. This overlooks the difficulties and real dangers that a woman of small resources had in going head-to-head with the absolute sovereign of England. It would have been utterly impractical for Eleanor to do so, to say nothing of being highly embarrassing. There were no children involved, and as Eleanor seems to have had a strong religious bent she may have preferred to keep quiet and live in peace.

Eleanor Talbot died in 1468 at Whitefriars Priory in Norwich where she was a benefactress and 'conversa' [lay member]. Her younger sister Elizabeth was out of the country at the time, attending on Margaret of York at her wedding.

You may think that if Edward had the sense to ‘renew’ his marriage vows with Elizabeth Woodville, then Edward V could very well have been legitimate, as could his younger brother and his sisters Katherine and Bridget. However, it seems that if Elizabeth Woodville knew about Eleanor, then any remarriage after 1468 would have been automatically invalid. Unfortunately we cannot possibly establish what Elizabeth Woodville did or did not know. Moreover, since Edward and Elizabeth had already been through a form of marriage, a dispensation would have been needed to repeat the sacrament, and Edward certainly did not obtain one.

A further issue is that neither the original Edward-Elizabeth Woodville marriage nor any subsequent marriage that may have taken place between the was celebrated in facie ecclesie. Such marriages were contrary to the rules of the Church and thus raised a presumption of bad faith. According to Helmholz, in the case of Edward and Elizabeth, who went out of their way not to have banns read and so on, this would ‘in most circumstances render the children of the union illegitimate’ even though (as I understand it) the marriage itself might be regarded as valid. It must be acknowledged that the same conditions applied to the Edward-Eleanor marriage, but in their case there were no children to be illegitimated.

Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk was Executrix of Eleanor's will. As well as the Norwich Whitefriars, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge also benefited from Eleanor's patronage. She gave money for the building of 10 of 16 buttresses inside the Old Court and was closely associated with the College for over 30 years. Some 28 years after Eleanor's death, Thomas Cosin, the College’s Master, set up a benefaction as a memorial at Elizabeth's request to her 'famous and devout' sister and Thomas Butler. The benefaction was a Fellowship, an institution that still continues today. John Ashdown-Hill has demonstrated that Eleanor possessed certain lands which were not dower lands (which would have gone back to her father-in-law) cannot have been inherited from the Talbots (because such lands would have gone to male heirs) and which Eleanor did not have the means to purchase. The implication is that this property was given to her by Edward IV. These lands Eleanor had already transferred to Elizabeth before her death, possibly because she knew she was dying.

On Duchess Elizabeth's return from Burgundy that summer, her retainers John Poynings and Richard Alford, were arrested. They were apparently suspected of involvement in a conspiracy with the exiled Duke of Somerset, their lady’s first cousin. Whatever the truth of the matter, the two men were found guilty and executed in November 1468. It is even possible that Elizabeth herself was imprisoned, because these sort of temporary immurements were done on the authority of a privy seal writ, the records of which (to the great convenience of fiction writers if not historians) are nearly all long since destroyed.

Elizabeth received a pardon before 7 December 1468, and another one subsequently in connection with a land-grab. Interestingly, Edward IV refused at that time to resolve the long-running Berkeley Inheritance dispute in which Elizabeth was involved. Colin Richmond in The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century mentions that Elizabeth’s social circle in the 1470s included Margaret Beaufort, Morton, and Lady Anne Paston, the sister of the exiled (and later executed) Somerset. Since her half-nephew Shrewsbury was lining up with Clarence and Warwick in 1468-1469, it’s perhaps not that surprising Edward was suspicious of her. It may be that it was as well for this particular Talbot sister that her husband was so vital (and faithful) to the Yorkist cause.

Anne Crawford's article The Mowbray Inheritance in Richard III Crown and People states that in May 1476 William Berkeley agreed to make over his reversionary rights to the Mowbray estates (rights that would of course only arise in the event of Anne Mowbray's death without children) to Richard of York and his heirs male. In return Edward IV agreed to pay off Berkeley's debts "to the Talbots" in the sum of £34000. Let’s say that again. Thirty four thousand pounds. That’s getting on for fourteen million sterling in modern values.

From the same article:

"Edward also persuaded [sic] Anne's mother, the widowed Duchess of Norfolk, to forgo her own dower and jointure in order to augment her daughter's dower. In return she received a much smaller [my emphasis] grant of manors, all of which were to revert on her death to Richard of York for his lifetime."

The subsequent marriage of Elizabeth Talbot's daughter to young Richard of York, with all its onerous conditions as far as the Mowbrays were concerned, may be seen in this light as a combination of threat and bribe. "You keep quiet and your daughter gets to be Duchess of York, perhaps even Queen. Step out of line and you're as much the loser as we are. More so; we've already forced you to give up some of your dower. We can have the rest any time it
suits."

As it happened, Elizabeth’s daughter, Anne Mowbray died in 1481, long before there was any possibility of her marriage being consummated. Under the unjust legislation Edward IV put through Parliament for his own family’s benefit, the Mowbray lands went to Richard, Duke of York, and the rightful heirs, Lord Howard and Lord Berkeley were denied their inheritance. (Though as mentioned above, Berkeley had agreed to be robbed, Howard certainly hadn’t.)

It has been suggested that after Edward IV’s death Eleanor’s family may have approached Richard about the pre-contract and that Richard got Stillington in to confirm their information. Indeed, Buck suggests Eleanor told her mother and Elizabeth of the pre-contract as she was upset at Edward’s treatment of her. However, he also suggests her father tried to do something about it, but this cannot be true as Shrewsbury was long dead.

Elizabeth Talbot certainly had no great cause to love Edward IV, and maybe she did indeed provide evidence about sister Eleanor once Edward was safely dead. It would have been an excellent way to extract the Mowbray lands from Richard of York and get herself and John Howard a fair deal.

John Ashdown-Hill in his December 1997 article in the Ricardian points out that, according to Commynes, Stillington claims to have witnessed the pre-contract, though a witness wasn't necessary - just a promise of marriage followed by sexual intercourse, and that it was up to Eleanor herself, as the 'wronged party', to put the case to a Church court, so Stillington had no obligation to speak out against the pre-contract if she hadn't done so. Stillington spoke up only when the first 'wrong' looked like it was going to be compounded by the enthronement of a bastard.

Richard III treated Elizabeth Talbot kindly when King. She was in attendance at his Coronation and given her rightful precedence as a duchess. Richard referred to her as his 'kinswoman' (she was Anne's full cousin), and he granted her land and property which she was 'to hold by the service of a red rose at midsummer'. This additional land (Chelsea) she was subsequently ‘persuaded’ (after Richard’s death) by Margaret Beaufort to grant to Margaret’s henchman, Reginald Bray.

After 1485 Elizabeth decided to take up the lease of a great house within the precincts of the Minories, London. Here she could live a religious life without actually becoming a nun, and, despite her Lancastrian family connections, she surrounded herself with a group of what might reasonably be called ‘Yorkist’ ladies.

Elizabeth died in May 1507, and was buried in the Minories. She did not spend all her time within its precincts – for example, she was one of the ladies who were sent to greet Catherine of Aragon on her arrival in England. If they had only shared a common language, Elizabeth could have told Catherine a few interesting tales about her new country.

For anyone who would like to know more about Eleanor Talbot, I highly recommend Eleanor The Secret Queen by John Ashdown-Hill. Elizabeth Talbot appears in the same source, but for more about her, see Colin Richmond’s three books about the Paston family, or indeed, the Paston Letters themselves, in which she appears as one of the more charming and tolerant characters.

gillpolack @ 2014-03-03T13:03:00

For friends concerned about the state of my bet, I have 3 manga and one novel and one chanson de geste to go. My immediate task, however, is to see if I can write 2,000 words of erudite prose before dinner. If it's not erudite, I have to do it all over again.

I might explore the possibility of lunch before I begin, though.

Women's History Month - guest post by Sherwood Smith

What ought I tell you about Sherwood Smith that she can't tell you herself? Not much. You can find her on Live Journal at sartorias or over on her webpage and her writing manifests in those places, but also in many good books. She's a longtime supporter of WHM, so it's a great pleasure to have a guest post by her today.
Gillian



In a recent discussion over on Goodreads, a couple of us got to talking about our favorite women in history, in particular ones who for some reason don’t get the academic attention they really deserve.

My suggestion was Liselotte von der Pfalz.

Liselotte was properly styled Princess Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte, or, in German, Pfalzprinzessin Elisabeth Charlotte. She was born in Heidelberg, 27 May 1652, and died at Saint-Cloud, 8 December 1722. She was a German princess brought to France to marry the Duke of Orleans, younger brother of the Sun King Louis XIV. As such they were known as Monsieur and Madame. At the end of her life, her son served as the regent for Louis XV until he came of age.

It’s her letters, a vast, delightfully trenchant collection written in a distinctive, honest voice, that has caused her to gain a steadily growing group of fans. Those letters, so much more interesting than Saint-Simon’s fretful obsessing over courtly minutiae, provide a fascinating glimpse into the personalities and activities at the court of Versailles for fifty years.

Liselotte herself was plain and fat, and also totally uninterested in sex. Here she is commenting on what she sees in the mirror:

Not one of my portraits resembles me very much; my fat is in all the wrong places, which is bound to be unbecoming; I have a horrendous—begging your leave—behind, big belly and hips, and very broad shoulders; my neck and breasts are quite flat, so that, if truth be known, I am hideously ugly, but fortunately for me I do not care one whit.

It was lucky she didn’t care, because she was married to Philippe, Duke of Orleans, who was gay. She was totally unlike Philippe’s first wife, the beautiful, fascinating Minette, sister of Charles II, who had beguiled every man around her, including the king, and had even seduced one of Philippe’s boyfriends away from him. She managed to get another one banished to the infamous Chateau d’If. Dead at 26, she was rumored to have been poisoned by Philippe’s boyfriends.

These men, who counted on lavish gifts from Philippe, eyed the new Madame with wary distrust, but though she distrusted them for how much they conned from her husband, she seems otherwise to have shrugged them off. Sex for her was a duty, and once she’d had her two children, she considered her duty done. Her relationship with Monsieur seems to have been mutually friendly, based on respect, and shared concern for their children.

She had to convert to Roman Catholicism in order to marry into France’s royal family, but she viewed the world mostly through a Protestant’s eye, her religious philosophy an interesting combination of free thinking inside a deistic worldview.

She had no sense of fashion and the courtly flirtation of the elegant ladies bored her, but there was one area in which she excelled: she relished hunting, riding fearlessly next to the king ahead of all his other ladies.

She thought the court physicians were total quacks, and believed in the efficacy of long walks over all their nostrums, blisters, leeches, bleedings, and other horrors. She adored her little dogs; during the terrible winter when the Seine iced over, she describes vividly trying to live in the frigid palace, only getting warm when she was in bed with all her little dogs.

Though in many ways she sounds like a modern woman, she saw the world in other ways like a person of her time. She adored her children, but hated seeing them married off to Louis XIV’s bastards, and she loathed the bourgeoisie Madame de Maintenon as an interfering interloper.

Unfortunately, there is no good biography of her in English, though there is an excellent, sympathetic one in French (and German), by Dirk van der Cruysse. There are also apparently large collections of her letters somewhere in Germany, probably university archives, that I wish I could get to.

If I were forty years younger, she is the one I’d pick to write a novel about. Her fifty years at Versailles covers the most interesting period of Louis VIX’s life there, and the beginning of the next reign. There is such a mix of contemporary thought and seventeenth century thought, such a sense of humor, so vivid an awareness of, and appreciation for, all things, that I would want to share her with the world.

gillpolack @ 2014-03-02T16:33:00

I'm halfway to winning my bet, and I have 2 1/2 days to go.

The bet was that I would read 10 volumes of manga by Wednesday without it disrupting my normal work. This means that my ten volumes of manga (8 volumes of Dengeki Daisy and 2 of Higurashi) shares my reading space with Neil Gaiman, Sam Bowring, Ann Leckie, Joe Abercrombie and the author of Raoul de Cambrai. Of the non-manga, I've only got the Leckie and Raoul to go and Raoul is a re-reading (I'm not counting NF reading in this tally, because otherwise it all looks like work).

I still have four items on my list of normal work for today, though, so we'll see how close to the wire it comes. If I lose the bet, I have to buy my work experience student an ice cream.

I've also started finishing up food ready for Passover.

In other news, your Women's History Month guest today is sublimely cool and will appear just as soon as I've finished another volume of Dengeki Daisy.

Women's History Month - guest post by Persia Woolley

RESEARCHING A LEGEND -- Persia Woolley

Persia Woolley became a journalist at the age of 35 and began eleven years of researching and writing her Guinevere Trilogy a decade later. The popularity of that work allowed her to become a fulltime author. The Guineveres were each Book of the Month Club choices in the US and have been translated into seven languages. Sourcebooks sought her out 20 years later and have now re-issued all three works both as bound volumes and as eBooks. She has just finished her manuscript of Ophelia's tale and her classic How to Write Historical Fiction will be launched in both audio book and eBook format later this year.


When I set out to do my own version of The Matter of Britain the first question was how you create a believable world from a myth which is so overlaid with fantasy and cultural differences? It didn't take much research for me to conclude that while social mores may change fairly rapidly, human nature evolves much more slowly and the reason our great legends survive is because they appeal to what is still basic to our make-up.

Since I was dealing with the Dark Ages in The Guinevere Trilogy, there was precious little available on my time period--I began working on it in December of 1980 and finished up the last fact check the day before the final volume went to press in autumn of 1991. My nascent library consisted of Morris's The Age of Arthur, several of Geoffrey Ashe's volumes, Dorothy Hartley's Lost Country Life plus both Bede (who was several centuries later) and Gildas (who, though a contemporary, never mentions Arthur by name).

I used this latter problem in my novels by making Gildas one of Gwen's potential suitors in Child of the Northern Spring. She turns him down because his eyes 'are set too close together'...i.e. he's too narrow-minded. And later, when the dream of a prospering realm is actually ripening, she notes Gildas's unwillingness to give Arthur credit and wonders if his nose is still out of joint because of the earlier rebuff. Hurt pride is, after all, a pretty basic feeling.

By the same token I realized in tracing the development of the myth that Gawain only began to be portrayed as negative, spiteful and downright dissolute after Lancelot was introduced by the French. For someone as hot-headed as Gawain right from the beginning (more than one scholar has noted that his earliest attributes indicate he may be been based on a Celtic sun god originally) jealousy and resentment of the Breton would be a natural reaction.

But in the end there's only so much research you can do through reading and cogitating, and my work benefited tremendously from my on site research. While the internet has revolutionized such efforts since then, there are wonderful little touches that you won't find on line. For instance, I began with a six week trip to Britain followed up by three more shorter forays. In each case I stayed in hostels, hiked all over Roman and Celtic ruins--if I could still see some semblance of them 1400 years later, she (Gwen) would have known them in far more fulsome form. I focused entirely on my research, carrying everything in my backpack and traveling almost entirely by bus; both the drivers and the other passengers were often wonderfully helpful in sharing information about their locales. (I was careful not to mention King Arthur as in those days the idea of looking for a real historical Arthur was limited to only a few crack-pots, as Geoffrey Ashe warned me.)

More than once bus drivers alerted me to unusual 'ancient' spots such as caves at the base of a footpath next to a small farm. "Seems like some early holy man lived there," led to my exploring them more fully and incorporating them in my work.

Later a casual remark of another driver noting that the old Roman Road that climbs the Cotswold escarpment was too steep for modern buses led to my hiring a taxi to take me down from the top of it only to turn around and drive back up. Though pricey, it was some of the best money I spent on that trip--not only was it a hair-raising experience, it led to my (and Guinevere) looking out over the plain around Gloucester with awe and wonder. It's a view so dramatic, so different from the soft green hills and cozy pastoral one thinks of for most of England it marked a change in Gwen's attitude toward both Arthur and the south.

It was also on a bus trip that I overheard an older couple behind me talking about the cider of their childhood. Never shy when in pursuit of material, I asked where they were from and learned it was Somerset and the brew they were remembering was 'scrumpy,' an ancient and very potent potion indeed. Taking my cue from that and Hartley's notes on horse hair sieves I dropped them into the second volume, Queen of the Summer Stars which is set in Somerset, traditionally part of Arthur's realm.

Incorporating such things as 'business' during dialogue not only helps to avoid the 'he said,' 'she said' syndrome, it also contributes to the sense of the world the reader is enjoying. You want to find ways to educate the reader about such cultural things without becoming didactic, and this sort of touch is an easy way to do it.

It was only when I was well into my Trilogy that the term 'euhemerist' came into my ken. While I am not the first author to go in search of the real people behind the story (Mary Renault comes immediately to mind), there are pure delights in approaching legends this way. Not only do you get to explore foreign realms, you'll likely find all sorts of overlooked bits and pieces that are applicable to today's world. For instance, no one had explored Gwen's reaction to being raped and/or rendered sterile when I began work on my books, though both aspects are part of the Arthurian canon. And certainly both are situations that modern women can relate to.

So if you've a desire to launch into the retelling of some antique tale, by all means have a go at it. Who knows, you may find it as much of a life-changer as I did, and with luck you'll leave the modern reader with a smile of appreciation too.