A reckless affair and a travesty of justice

I am so sorry that my visits here continue to be hit or miss. Between trying to coddle a troublesome back and keeping the Deadline Dragon at bay and now laying siege to Kerak Castle, my nerves are vibrating like a drawn bowstring these days. I will do my best to assure you from time to time that I am still amongst the living and have not joined the Witness Protection Plan. Here is an old post from 2012 that I hope none of you remember since I hate to have to foist reruns upon you. 😊
What do a 12th century Marcher lord and a 16th century queen have in common? They were both undone by their lack of caution. William de Braose, the grandson of one of King John’s most notorious victims—his grandmother and uncle were starved to death at Windsor Castle—was hanged on this date in 1230 by the great Welsh prince, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, after being found in compromising circumstances with Llywelyn’s wife, Joanna, in his own bedchamber. What could have been more reckless than that?
Recklessness also helped to doom that Tudor queen, for Anne Boleyn ought to have known the sort of man she’d married; had she continued to cater to his monstrous ego and bloated pride, perhaps he might not have turned on her with such terrifying suddenness, giving her time to produce the male heir that would have been her salvation. But she was too proud, too quick-tempered, and she paid a high price for that. This is a sad day for anyone who cares about justice, for on May 2, 1536, Anne was arrested at Greenwich Palace, thus setting in motion the events leading to her execution on Tower Green. I always thought one of the bravest men in the world was the Lord Mayor of London, who’d dared to say after her trial that he was convinced of her innocence. Imagine the courage that took when he’d just seen the lengths to which Henry would go to rid himself of an unwanted wife. One of the many reasons why I love the two brilliant novels about Anne’s daughter—Susan Kay’s legacy and Margaret George’s Elizabeth I—is the way both authors showed how traumatized Elizabeth was by her mother’s beheading.
Moving on, an indisputable genius died on this date in 1519, Leonardo da Vinci.
Lastly, we often talk about history trumping fiction, and nowhere is that more obvious than in Joanna’s mad affair with Will de Braose. What writer would have dared to send a woman into the bed of the man whose grandmother had been starved to death by her own father? I could not possibly make something like that up!